John Dickerson's article is of a piece with those who question the Edwards' decision to move forward with the campaign, given Elizabeth Edwards' diagnosis. He is tone deaf to her articulation that diagnosis is not destiny, or death, and that retreating from public life would be a tacit admission that her life was indeed over in any meaningful sense. That cancer triggers an expectation in so many that those diagnosed retreat from public view says more about society's discomfort with this disease than the discomfort that many of us who live with it actually face. Like Elizabeth Edwards, after a diagnosis of cancer, I embraced life, and continue to ten years later. I can say that I have faced a number of things worse than ovarian cancer in my life, and my life hasn't been a pit of horrors to make that statement true.

I've got to agree with Beevik here. The press
has very much failed in it's duties, and this
article is a prime example.

Instead of looking at the issues, where the
candidates stand, and the actual background
of the candidates, the focus is on the horserace,
and how a candidate is packaged and marketed.

It would be like "Consumer Reports" deciding to
give up actually looking at the products themselves
and instead obsess over the TV commercials.

Mr. Dickerson wrote a whole article about a
short TV commercial, bemoaning it's lack of
explicit information. Well here's a bit of
useful information for Mr. Dickerson,
TV commercials (including political TV
commercials) are not designed to convey
useful information. Instead, they are
designed to bypass our rational minds and
go directly for the gut. How much useful
information is in a car commercial, or food
commercial? Zilch! It's all about how wonderful
you'll feel if you only buy xyz. TV commercials
cost millions because they work. Because bypassing
the rational mind, and going for the gut is
extremely effective.

Unfortunately, because these political TV commercials
are so incredibly effective, politicians, if they are
to have any hope of winning, are forced to spend
millions on them. And of course they are forced to
raise millions from special interests to pay for them.

Luckily, citizens can bypass these insidious commercials
by turning off the TV or Tivoing past them. And there
are plenty of sources of useful information on the web.

“only receive (at most) 30% of any given case settlement,” and that 30% for just one case is more than most people make in a lifetime. Far more than an enlisted man/woman who is putting his/her life on the line will make in an entire career. If you want to look up to someone look up to someone who does their job without trying to become ultra rich doing it.

"After reading 1984, John Edwards talking about two Americas just sounds so incredibly false. It's a gross oversimplification, the kind of thing I'd expect from Bush, or someone even more simple than Bush."

Two Americas quote- makes me think about Aristotles(?) comment about Athens developing into two seperate cities or societies in one, the properous and those who were not.

Seems to be a fairly accurate description about the trends in America since 1974. .

Actually, it was at my parents' suggestion that I take this unpaid internship. I was planning on trying to find a job directly out of college. For what it's worth.

And I'm not really at liberty to discuss my job opportunity because it's for the government. Don't assume that Spanish is the only skill I have. You automatically assumed that it wasn't in the government, too. Assumptions are worthless.

Also, I got a degree in Spanish because I love the language, the various cultures of Spanish-speaking countries, their literature, and because it's increasingly becoming an asset in today's world. I could very easily get a teaching job and pay my rent, but that's not what I'm interested in.

And aside from engineering and some other technical fields, hardly anyone's education prepares them to be immediately propelled into the real world. I have no illusions that I have the experience to work for a major corporation or something. But luckily certain governmental agencies will accept a Bachelor's degree in a pertinent field in lieu of work experience.

For the record, I'm not a guy.

>>Well here's a bit of
useful information for Mr. Dickerson,
TV commercials (including political TV
commercials) are not designed to convey
useful information. Instead, they are
designed to bypass our rational minds and
go directly for the gut.

This is the point of my piece. If this ad is aiming for the gut what's it aiming for?

John Dickerson needs to read Elizabeth Edwards' book, "Amazing Graces," for more information about the courage both of the Edwards have shown in the face of adversity and painful challenges. It seems to me that any presidential candidate who is advocating for an end to poverty is showing enormous strength and courage. The poor, for the most part, don't vote. How could John Edwards be called a hypocrite, be called someone who exploits his wife's illness or any of the other painful experiences he has had? I call a rich candidate who campaigns to end poverty and to provide universal health care a true hero. What do we call the other candidates, most of them rich too, who are not talking about ending poverty? DGS in Georgia

Elizabeth Edwards:

John Dickerson needs to read my husband's book, Four Trials. In it, he will read the stories of four families uprooted by tragedy or accident who leaned, in their worst moments, on John Edwards. He was but a young man when he represented a former salesman, E.G. Sawyer, who, because a doctor prescribed an excessive amount of a pharmaceutical, was confined to a sliver of life in squalor. Without John's strength, intelligence and voice, he would have died that same way. Dickerson would not have to have read Four Trials to know the story of Valerie, whom John represented after a pump connected to a kiddie pool drain with a faulty cover sucked most of her intestines from her little body. And there are hundreds of E.G.s and Valeries over a twenty year career, hundreds of stories too hard to hear and certainly too hard to tell. But John heard them, and told them, and lived beside these families until their lives were righted. He is doing a broader version of the same work today. His Road to One America tour was high-lighting what he has seen as he has worked on poverty issues: people in need: in need of housing and health care and jobs, surely, and in need of dignity and respect, and in need of a voice. He, again, is their voice. Yes, he has faced death and disease in our family, but the measure of his strength is the fights he has -- for his entire adult life -- voluntarily taken on, not just those that fate would not permit him to avoid.

Cross-posted at http://blog.johnedwards.com/

I have been waiting now for over 18 hours too see her reply. Why do you suppose that she has not favored you with a response?

Mr. Dickerson - What John Edwards is aiming for is a sense that he can empathize with those who are struggling in this economy. Of course, I wouldn't expect an heir of the bland, blond, ask-no-question-relevant-to-is­sues school of "reporting" to appreciate this. I understand that you believe that it is your job to focus on nonsense in order to detract attention from real issues. You are what Al Gore has warned us against.

This is not the first time that you have written something of questionable value:

"His answers to Franken's questions about the matter indicate that Dickerson is familiar with the February 7 Media Matters item, yet Dickerson did not deny the central point of the item -- that he and his colleagues knowingly participated in the publication of misleading articles that contained statements they knew to be false. Nor did Dickerson offer a single relevant explanation or justification for the knowing publication, without rebuttal, of McClellan's false statement."

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nlworlow stated that she is voting for Hillary because "She just seems more in tune with the middle class". From my point of view, it is exactly the "centrist", post-ideological, politics of personality of which her husband is a master that got the country into the economic mess it is in.

I see that nlworlow does not support herself. If that time comes when she does have to support herself, let's hope that the job for which she is qualified has not yet been touched by the massive movement of manufacturing overseas or by the outsourcing of millions of jobs that require education (especially true for those jobs in "engineering and some other technical fields").

>> I have been waiting now for over 18 hours too see her reply. Why do you suppose that she has not favored you with a response?

I'm not sure I expect one or that she has to give one. I saw the ad one way. She thinks I missed part of her husband's career. I don't disagree though I think the ad is vague and could have benefited from the specificity she offered here to back up it's final bold claim. There are other debates we could have that would get highly semantic about what a reasonable person could take away from that ad. It might be entertaining but presumably we've both got better things to do.

Her response and our promotion of it was, to me, one of the great things about Slate. I wrote, she disagreed and we put it out there for others to take a look at. In a perfect outcome those that support her husband and/or disagree with me would share her tone and the limits of accusation but that’s not something she has to address either.

old dem you say: Mr. Dickerson - What John Edwards is aiming for is a sense that he can empathize with those who are struggling in this economy.

I'm unclear where I suggested he couldn't.

im exasperated by this thread. the ads about her breast cancer, its about the death of their son. the edwards are exploiting it for political profit!!

but since when is exposing your personal history a bad thing (except when it involves alcoholism, duis and other criminal mischeif)?? if the next president is going to be sending american kids to war, i think it might be a good idea to have a president to know what its like to have lost a child. maybe it would cause him/her to think twice before launching a reckless invasion with no exit plan or strategy for building the nation beyond "well be greeted as liberators."

and i neglected to mention it earlier, but thanks Mrs. Edwards for caring enough to show up here.

That time will come in about 3 weeks. It's not an "if." And I would have to respectfully disagree about the economic mess this country is in. Clinton's been out of office for nearly 8 years now--the Republicans have done this all by themselves.

And it is extremely unlikely that my chosen field will be moved overseas. Thanks for the concern. (Haha.)

"Also, I got a degree in Spanish because I love the language, the various cultures of Spanish-speaking countries, their literature, and because it's increasingly becoming an asset in today's world. I could very easily get a teaching job and pay my rent, but that's not what I'm interested in."

what great literature? And as far as being an asset don't you think a native Spanish speakers (and there are millions in the US) would have an advantage over you? And someone really must someday explain the superiority of the Hispanic culture because I don't see it.

"The couple said they donated about 8.6 percent of their income to charity, more than $3.3 million over the 10 years."

And that would be impressive if it weren't for stuff like this:

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There no reason to believe that 3.3 million dollars weren't just funneled into Non-profits set up by Edwards himself, to dodge taxes and FEC regulations on campaign fundraising.

It comes back to the issue of sacrifice... is Edwards SACRIFICING for the poor, or helping the poor, at an obscene profit, as a way to get to White House?

I mean, really, who WOULDN'T help the poor if they could make 5 million a year and reduce their tax bill by doing it?