Salon.com > Elizabeth Edwards

Awful election book to become awful election film

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:01:00 +0000

After living through the 2008 election, does anyone really need to see a movie about it? HBO apparently thinks so. The network made news yesterday -- masterfully -- by leaking the news that Julianne Moore has been cast as Sarah Palin in the upcoming made-for-television adaptation of "Game Change," the most annoying political book of the post-Bush age. (I am counting even Dick Morris' latest. It's that annoying.)

Everyone already knows everything about that election. It will be fun, I guess, to watch famous people pretend to be other famous people. For a while. But that particular pleasure usually wears off about three minutes into your average "SNL" political cold open. And we are all already intimately familiar with nearly everything our dramatis personae will do and say.

I, for one, would rather watch a film dramatizing the 1948 election. Or 1876! Almost any close election that happened prior to the age of 24-hour cable news and blogs would be infinitely more interesting to watch unfold on television than the one everyone in the nation just sat through.

Elizabeth Edwards leaves John out of will

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:12:00 +0000

The will Elizabeth Edwards signed days before her death last month makes no mention of her estranged husband and two-time presidential candidate John Edwards.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Thursday that Elizabeth Edwards left all her possessions to her three surviving children.

Her last will and testament names as the executor of her estate her eldest child, lawyer Cate Edwards.

Elizabeth Edwards died Dec. 7, six days after she signed the will filed in Orange County Superior Court in North Carolina.

The Edwardses separated early last year after 32 years of marriage. John Edwards admitted he fathered a child during an affair with a former campaign worker.

------

Information from: The News & Observer, http://www.newsobserver.com

Counter-protesters to make “human buffer” at Elizabeth Edwards’ funeral

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 00:11:00 +0000

Elizabeth Edwards, who died on Tuesday from cancer, will be laid to rest tomorrow afternoon, but it's not going be a totally peaceful affair.

The Westboro Baptist Church, known for their attendance at the funerals of dead soldiers, holding signs that read, "God Hates Fags," "God Hates Dead Soldiers," and "Thank God for Breast Cancer," plan to do the same outside of Edwards' funeral. Their gripe with Edwards? Her advocacy for gay rights and her propensity to "spew blasphemy." According to their website, she "split hell wide open on Dec. 7, 2010." The church also believes God smote Edwards by killing her 16-year-old son in a car accident and by giving her breast cancer. Yeah, these people exist.

Some concerned citizens/decent human beings aren't going to stand for this behavior, however. One Raleigh resident, Ben Requena, started a Facebook event asking people to gather outside the church where the service will be held to create a "human buffer," shielding the mourners from the WBC's hateful messages.

Elizabeth Edwards didn’t deserve it

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:46:00 +0000

She didn't deserve it. Any of it. But "deserve" is a concept humans invented to pretend life is fair, even when it isn't; even "fair" is one of our fairy tales.

Elizabeth Edwards, dead at 61, didn't deserve to bury her teenage son Wade, or to develop breast cancer after giving birth to two children at 48 and 50. She didn't deserve to have her husband flagrantly cheat on her, fathering a child (he denied for a time) with another woman, and she certainly didn't deserve to be transformed from the conscience of her family -- how many people back in the day thought the wrong Edwards was on the ballot? -- to being the harpy blamed for encouraging her husband's admittedly crazy decision to run for president even after she learned about his tacky, solipsistic affair (thanks, "Game Change!").

I admired Elizabeth Edwards enormously, even after I figured out she wasn't a saint. I watched her use her elbows to slam Hillary Clinton in a long interview with me back in July 2007 that made national news (especially after Matt Drudge distorted what she said with the irresistible headline: "Gender Bender: Wife Edwards Says Hillary 'Behaving Like a Man'").

Obama: Elizabeth Edwards a tenacious advocate

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:41:00 +0000

President Barack Obama says he and his wife Michelle were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Elizabeth Edwards.

Obama issued a statement Tuesday calling her a "tenacious advocate" for health care reform and fighting poverty. He said the entire country has benefited from the voice she gave to such causes.

Obama noted that he came to know and admire Elizabeth during the 2008 presidential campaign. Her estranged husband, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, was defeated by Obama in the Democratic nomination process.

The president said he had spoken to John Edwards and their daughter Cate in the afternoon.

Elizabeth Edwards remembered by hack who smeared her

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:10:00 +0000

Chris Matthews led off his show today with a largely respectful discussion of the life and work of Elizabeth Edwards. But his guest was odious hack Mark Halperin, who ruthlessly smeared Edwards in "Game Change," his inane account of the 2008 elections. Halperin didn't say anything terrible -- he didn't, in other words, repeat any of the nasty things he wrote about her when she was alive -- but his mere presence was an insult to her memory.

Elizabeth Edwards dies at 61

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 22:05:00 +0000

Elizabeth Edwards, who closely advised her husband in two bids for the presidency and advocated for health care even as her marriage publicly crumbled, died Tuesday after a six-year struggle with cancer. She was 61.

She died at her North Carolina home surrounded by her three children, siblings, friends and her estranged husband, John, the family said.

"Today we have lost the comfort of Elizabeth's presence but, she remains the heart of this family," the family said in a statement. "We love her and will never know anyone more inspiring or full of life. On behalf of Elizabeth we want to express our gratitude to the thousands of kindred spirits who moved and inspired her along the way. Your support and prayers touched our entire family."

She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, in the final days of her husband's vice presidential campaign. The Democratic John Kerry-John Edwards ticket lost to incumbent President George W. Bush.

John Edwards launched a second bid for the White House in 2007, and the Edwardses decided to continue even after doctors told Elizabeth that her cancer had spread. He lost the nomination to Barack Obama.

The couple separated in January after he admitted fathering a child with a campaign videographer.

Elizabeth Edwards: Don’t call it “losing” to cancer

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:45:00 +0000

Update: Elizabeth Edwards died Tuesday afternoon, after this story was posted.

Please don't call it a battle. And please don't say she's losing it. Elizabeth Edwards, 61-year-old author, attorney, estranged wife of John Edwards and one of the most formidably graceful public figures in American politics, is just saying goodbye.

On Monday, Edwards' family issued a statement that her doctors have determined that further treatment for her cancer would "be unproductive." A family friend told the Associated Press that Edwards is "gravely ill" and may only have "a couple of months left to live."

Edwards first went public with her breast cancer diagnosis after her husband's defeated bid for the vice presidency in 2004. After an initially successful course of chemo and treatment, she announced in 2007 that the cancer had returned -- and had spread to her lymph nodes and bones. Three years later, it's now reportedly metastisized to her liver. Without referring directly to her condition, she posted Monday on Facebook: