Virgie Bell's View: Liz

I stated yesterday that Ron Paul made the statement that we had been bombing Iraq for 10 years. He also stated that it was the reason we suffered the attack on 9/11. Rudy Giuliani immediately jumped in with the statement that it was the first time he had heard that one, and that he had heard many that were ridiculous. The audience gave a resounding applause with that statement. He won my vote with it. I know much has been said about his divorce and remarriage. I can't think of a more ridiculous statement. His wife was even then starring in a play called the Vagina Monologue, and as you may know, I long for a little dignity in our political leaders. She of course was not the political leader in the family; nevertheless, I feel that the title alone is degrading to all women.

I am having more of a problem all of the time with Elizabeth Edwards. The fight for cancer does not include making a public spectacle of oneself. She lacks dignity. I have had too many lost to this dreaded disease and it really hits a sore spot for me to even suspect that one would use it as an advantage to further a husband’s ambition to become president. I guess what really soured me on her was when she was asked if she would set in on cabinet meetings with her husband if he should become president and she hotly replied that NO, she would be busy in raising her adorable children. As I have mentioned, it was the little family united with the Kerry campaign that ever impressed me to start with.

When I found out that she had been informed that very day that she had breast cancer and was up on stage in order to stand by her husband in conceding defeat in the campaign I had a momentary feeling of dismay. I mean there were young children who could very well be without a mother in their very formative years. What was so important about losing an election that it could override a tragedy of that magnitude? Headlines were that Kerry and Edwards lost the election and Elizabeth Edwards was up on stage the same day she found out she had breast cancer. Look at Tony Snow, or others who fight this battle. Notice the gauntness in the face. The shirt around the neck too big. The choking up in speech. The humanness for God’s sake.

The Edwards’s carried their small children on a bus with them during the Kerry campaign. At least that was what the article in my Time Magazine claimed at the time. Now I am wondering about everything about this family. I read her account of losing her son in a car wreck, how she watched the cooking channel with the sound off because her grief was so terrible. That is the reason her and John decided to have the two young ones. I fell for all that hook, line, and sinker. But it all is getting to be a bit much to believe. She is becoming a woman too driven to emulate Wonder Woman. And what about him? What is his strength?

What it boils down to for me is this: this is a couple who embody the conspicuous consumption in capital letters. The home, 29,000 feet, the $400 haircuts. When all that news broke, she jumped in to say that she colored her own hair with a hair color from Target. There is just something so very phony about both of them. To be honest, I really am beginning to doubt a recurrence of cancer, now that the diagnosis keeps changing. I have had a bad feeling about this for a while. I know that running for president requires tough measures, but to become the self appointed speaker for those that face this disease, where does that come from? As she said in her speech at the gathering of the 100 Most Influential People in The World, “I accept this award only as a representative of all the men and women who are facing a diagnosis like mine and continue to fight.” Translation: I am courageous! SUPPORT THE TROOPS!