Elizabeth Edwards speaks, gently, on her cancer, husband's affair
Elizabeth Edwards says she is still confronting the reality of last month's public disclosure of her husband's affair with a campaign worker two years ago.
"It's not a process that you get through," Edwards says during a touching exclusive interview with Patricia Anstett of the Detroit Free Press.
"Certainly in the time frame we're talking about. It's an ongoing process of finding your feet again, retelling your story to yourself. You thought you were living in one novel, and it turns out you were living in another."
Edwards, who revealed during her husband's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last winter that her cancer had returned, confides that trust is "the most difficult hurdle" to overcome.
But the 59-year-old mother, faced with her ongoing cancer treatments and the medical reality that she may not be around, says she's tried to focus entirely on "the best thing for my children."
And in her mind that means to lie low and allow public interest in the scandal to subside.
"My concern at the present time," she added in her 45-minute telephone interview with Anstett, "is that these children can live with their father being an advocate for poverty, not for this current picture of him to be the one they carry with them, as young people and as adults."
The couple have three children -- Cate, 26, Emma Claire, 10, and Jack, 8. A fourth child, Wade, was killed in an auto accident at 16.
Edwards is resuming her breast cancer awareness advocacy next month with a speech in the Detroit area and will later testify before Congress. She acknowledges that, like many women, she postponed mammograms for eight years, despite a suspicious spot, citing her busy life as the excuse.
Asked if she had forgiven her husband for his affair with Rielle Hunter, Edwards replied, "I don't want to feed the monster, if you don't mind."
Anstett's story is here. Excerpts from the interview are here. And audio excerpts of the interview are here.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo: Edwards family
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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What a jerk he is! He does NOT deserve Elizabeth.
Posted by: Mary | September 22, 2008 at 06:32 PM
Elizabeth Edwards is to be commended for her strength in discussing her insurmountable trials. When will Sarah Palin speak up on her daughters unwed pregnancy?
Posted by: Wondering | September 22, 2008 at 06:52 PM
Please join me in a prayer that God brings healing
and peace to John and Elizabeth Edwards and their children.
Posted by: Cherubim | September 27, 2008 at 09:16 PM