Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Elizabeth Edwards Tore Off Shirt, Collapsed Over Affair

John Edwards Trial: Testimony Reveals Elizabeth Edwards' Dramatic Confrontation With Husband Over Affair

05/2/12

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A former adviser to John Edwards recounted Wednesday how the former presidential candidate's now-deceased wife indignantly confronted her husband, baring her chest in front of staff members the day after a tabloid reported that he was cheating on her.

During a session at Edwards' corruption trial that saw his 30-year-old daughter flee the courtroom in tears, Christina Reynolds described how a very upset Elizabeth Edwards stormed away from her husband in October 2007, then collapsed in a ball on the pavement outside a private airplane hangar. Reynolds and another woman guided the anguished wife into a nearby ladies room to compose herself, but she soon returned to the private hangar to again confront her husband.

In front of several staff members, the woman who had endured grueling treatments for breast cancer took off her shirt and bra, exposing her chest.

"'You don't see me anymore,'" Reynolds quoted Elizabeth Edwards as screaming. "He didn't have much of a reaction."

As staffers scrambled to cover up Edwards' wife and huddle her into a car, Reynolds heard the Democratic candidate use a cell phone to call his wife's doctor to ask for help.

Edwards then boarded a waiting jet and took off for his scheduled appearance in South Carolina, Reynolds said.

She testified that Elizabeth Edwards had known about her husband's affair with Rielle Hunter before The National Enquirer made it public. Hers was the most stirring testimony of the day at Edwards' trial on corruption charges, as prosecutors worked to build a timeline of the affair and efforts to cover it up.

Shortly before Reynolds began her account of what happened that day at the Raleigh airport, Edwards turned to his daughter Cate, a lawyer who has been seated in the front row for much of her father's trial.

"I don't know what's coming," Edwards was heard saying. "Do you want to leave?"

She responded to him in a whisper, grabbed her purse and walked out, wiping away tears. Edwards was heard saying, "Cate, Cate" as she left. She returned to court about a half hour later, after a brief recess.

Shortly before her testimony about the airport argument, Reynolds recounted that Elizabeth Edwards asked her over to the couple's gated estate near Chapel Hill in the summer of 2007 to tell her that her husband had confessed to an affair the prior year.

"I was very surprised by what she told me and I didn't want it to ever become public so the kids wouldn't have to know about it," the former aide said.

Reynolds, now 37, had worked on John Edwards' successful U.S. senate campaign in 1998 and had quickly bonded with his wife. Both women grew up in military families and had moved around a lot as children. Reynolds worked as the research director and a senior communications adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign and recently joined the board of the educational foundation named for Elizabeth Edwards, who died in December of 2010.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six counts related to campaign-finance violations. He faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if convicted on all counts.

At issue are payments from wealthy donors used to help keep his pregnant mistress out of public view. Edwards' attorneys have said he didn't know about the money.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 314July 6, 2018 10:10 AM

He really made her last years,hell,didn't he?

by Anonymousreply 1May 3, 2012 4:43 AM

Yes, he,did,R, 1.

by Anonymousreply 2May 3, 2012 4:48 AM

Plenty of married women endure infidelity and divorce.

Eliz Edwards is not unique in having a husband cheat. And John Edwards didn't even want to leave Eliz. He was willing to continue living with Eliz and continue the marriage, ending the affair.

Many women endure the cheating and having their husband outright leave. The husband no longer wants to be in the marriage and departs from the home.

by Anonymousreply 3May 3, 2012 4:50 AM

#4!!!

by Anonymousreply 4May 3, 2012 4:52 AM

R3 = Rielle Hunter

by Anonymousreply 5May 3, 2012 4:54 AM

It is all so Miranda Richardson in "Damage"

by Anonymousreply 6May 3, 2012 4:57 AM

A cute former assistant to John Edwards, named Josh Brumberger, also testified today.

by Anonymousreply 7May 3, 2012 5:01 AM

Easily the stupidest logic I've ever read, R3.

Have you ever actually been in a serious relationship? Who the fuck cares if other people do it? If the person you've spent your life with cheated on you, it doesn't matter if "John Smith in Tacoma" cheated on his wife, too.

Lots of people also die, but I'm guessing if someone you love died, it wouldn't affect me in the same way as if someone I loved died.

by Anonymousreply 8May 3, 2012 5:05 AM

She presented her tits!!!!

by Anonymousreply 9May 3, 2012 5:11 AM

R8, R3 here - yes, I wrote my post at R3 from direct experience.

I suffered as Eliz Edwards did, but my husband completely left.

Eliz is not unique in experiencing this. Millions, if not billions, of us have experienced it.

And John Edwards even stuck around, continuing to live with Eliz and nursed her thru her illness.

by Anonymousreply 10May 3, 2012 5:11 AM

Brumberger's testimony about how awful Hunter was with video (as the campaign's videographer) was pretty funny.

[quote]Edwards also ordered Brumberger to make sure the PAC paid for Hunter's health insurance, unheard-of for a consultant not on the full-time staff. Concerns were also raised among senior staff that Hunter didn't appear to know much about shooting video. Tapes filmed by Hunter played for the jury showed shaky camera work where those speaking were sometimes not in focus or not in the frame at all. "It was shoddy and unprofessional," Brumberger said.

Oh yeah, and he makes Edwards sound like the sleaze of the decade.

Cate Edwards reportedly ran out of the courtroom crying after not knowing what was about to rain down upon her. I feel so sorry for her. She's a Harvard Law grad and a newlywed suspending her life to deal/support her father and eventually abdicate all her dreams and goals to take care of two pre-teens. This is a tragedy. I just hope she knows when to say enough is enough.

Soon after, the wealthy heiress made the first in a series of substantial donations to Edwards' political committees and his anti-poverty foundation that would eventually total more than $6 million.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 11May 3, 2012 5:13 AM

Gee sh seems so stable I wonder why he cheated

by Anonymousreply 12May 3, 2012 5:18 AM

R10, but having it happening to others doesn't make the pain easier. Each experience is unique. Don't forget they also lost a child together. They've gone through things together that are personal to them, so to be betrayed by that person is devastating.

by Anonymousreply 13May 3, 2012 5:19 AM

Sorry, my copy and paste didn't quite work out at R11.

by Anonymousreply 14May 3, 2012 5:20 AM

Photo of Josh Brumberger:

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 15May 3, 2012 5:20 AM

R11, you're being overly dramatic about Kate Edwards.

If John Edwards is acquitted, as he very much should be, since these charges have never been brought against any other politician, John will continue to raise the two younger children.

The money used for Rielle consisted of personal gifts - the money was not donated to the campaign - so the charges are bogus.

And John Edwards' corrupt aide, Andrew Young, kept a over a million dollars of the donated gifts to build his (Andrew Young's house) excessively appointed dream house.

by Anonymousreply 16May 3, 2012 5:22 AM

r3/r8......are you a woman?

by Anonymousreply 17May 3, 2012 5:22 AM

R10, yes many people get cheated on, but what Elizabeth Edwards went through was much worse than the average affair.

She was DYING OF CANCER. Were you dying of cancer when your husband cheated?

And did it play out on National television in front of the whole country?

by Anonymousreply 18May 3, 2012 5:23 AM

Elizabeth Edwards was not dying at the time of the affair.

Her cancer was in remission.

by Anonymousreply 19May 3, 2012 5:27 AM

There are fraus on this thread!!!!!!!!

by Anonymousreply 20May 3, 2012 5:27 AM

R19, someone (maybe you?) posted that on another Edwards thread recently.

As was pointed out by other posters, you DON'T KNOW THAT.

You were not there nor are you an expert on her medical condition at the time.

by Anonymousreply 21May 3, 2012 5:32 AM

Brumberger did not like what he found.

“Specifically, there was a lot of sex, drugs and rock and roll and a lot of astrology,” he said.

“I’m pretty certain I told Mr. Edwards that Ms. Hunter looked a little nutty. I believe he agreed.”

by Anonymousreply 22May 3, 2012 5:35 AM

R21, it has been quite easy to follow all the details pertaining to Elizabeth Edwards (and John Edwards), as the saga unfolded and afterwards.

Just because you do not read newspapers and articles, it doesn't mean all of us remain in the dark as you do.

by Anonymousreply 23May 3, 2012 5:41 AM

You're an idiot, R23. And wrong. And patronizing.

Her cancer was not in remission, nor does it make a difference whether or not it was. She ended up dying of cancer.

by Anonymousreply 24May 3, 2012 5:44 AM

Why are you on a gay website frau at r23 etc?

by Anonymousreply 25May 3, 2012 5:46 AM

Women should never marry men who are prettier than they are. It never ends well.

by Anonymousreply 26May 3, 2012 5:47 AM

"Concerns were also raised among senior staff that Hunter didn't appear to know much about shooting video. Tapes filmed by Hunter played for the jury showed shaky camera work where those speaking were sometimes not in focus or not in the frame at all. "It was shoddy and unprofessional," Brumberger said."

She learned by watching this show I was producing.

by Anonymousreply 27May 3, 2012 5:50 AM

Liz was pretty when hey married:

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 28May 3, 2012 5:50 AM

And when I looked for their wedding pic, I came across their daughter's wedding pic (sans the groom).

Will this style ever go the fuck away? And what is it with big girls thinking they can pull it off? Their arms inevitably look like two pork roasts.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 29May 3, 2012 5:54 AM

How did the daughter get so heavy?

by Anonymousreply 30May 3, 2012 5:59 AM

" Elizabeth Edwards Tore Off Shirt, Collapsed Over Affair"

Mary!

by Anonymousreply 31May 3, 2012 6:02 AM

r19 is clearly a sociopath,or Rielle Hunter herself,or worse still,both!

by Anonymousreply 32May 3, 2012 6:02 AM

R19? The woman's dead. She was clearly NEVER OK.

by Anonymousreply 33May 3, 2012 6:07 AM

Cate had to take care of both parents when her brother died. They were both bedridden/housebound. I'd imagine the weight is from stress.

by Anonymousreply 34May 3, 2012 6:10 AM

She exposed her breasts to staff members? Rather dramatic, isn't it? Even as a result of finding out that yo're husband is cheating, this is a bit extreme. It seems to me that it would embarrass Elizabeth more than John.

by Anonymousreply 35May 3, 2012 6:19 AM

That is some nose on Cate's husband.

He has a late 18th/early 19th Century American painting face.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 36May 3, 2012 6:19 AM

R34, Wade Edwards (Kate's brother) died in 1996!!

Cate was thin for a long time. You probably do not remember her being very slim and lovely standing on the stage when John Edwards accepted the vice-presidential nomination. It was said she looked like Jackie Kennedy - with a retro sheath dress, slim, with a somewhat Jackie inspired hair-do.

by Anonymousreply 37May 3, 2012 6:21 AM

I was about to write a similar post, R37.

I recall her on stage when JE got the VP nom. She was a beautiful, thin girl.

by Anonymousreply 38May 3, 2012 6:22 AM

R35, actually, if you read some of the comments at The Huffington Post, most of the women there are sympathetic and completely relate to what she did. They say her actions were a raw, honest and emotional reaction in which she demonstrated to John what she was going through and what it had done to her body and how he had betrayed her.

It's the kind of scene you could picture an actress winning an Oscar, for. Very powerful.

by Anonymousreply 39May 3, 2012 6:24 AM

Yes, Cate Edwards was beautiful and slim for a long time.

She gave up being a lawyer a year or so ago (soon after graduationg from law school) saying she wanted to devote her time to running and continuing her mother's foundation.

by Anonymousreply 40May 3, 2012 6:27 AM

hump

by Anonymousreply 41May 3, 2012 6:28 AM

Some women mistakenly come to think that their husband is 'family' and that they are owed their husband's love because he is 'family'.

But in reality, a husband is not 'family'. He is only with the woman as long as he wants to be. He is not family and can leave the woman at any time.

by Anonymousreply 42May 3, 2012 6:31 AM

graduating from law school

by Anonymousreply 43May 3, 2012 6:31 AM

Shock and temporary insanity upon hearing of the betrayal led to boob exposure.

by Anonymousreply 44May 3, 2012 6:31 AM

[quote]It's the kind of scene you could picture an actress winning an Oscar, for. Very powerful.

R39. I agree with your statement that exposing your breasts is an Oscar-winning move. However, it hardly seems like something anyone would do in real life. I still say it's a rather dramatic--or should I say, melodramatic--move.

by Anonymousreply 45May 3, 2012 6:32 AM

[quote]It's the kind of scene you could picture an actress winning an Oscar, for. Very powerful.

Aaron Sorkin is writing it as we type!! Viola will play my maid!!!

by Anonymousreply 46May 3, 2012 6:42 AM

r42=bitter frau

by Anonymousreply 47May 3, 2012 6:43 AM

How was this soap opera testimony relevant to what ever Edwards is being charged with?

by Anonymousreply 48May 3, 2012 6:45 AM

R46. You one funny bitch! Sitting here laughing my ass off reading your post.

by Anonymousreply 49May 3, 2012 6:49 AM

The fact that Edwards is being tried is so damn strange. What the hell has happened to this country??? I don't condone the way he treated his wife. He sounds like a dog. But I am not so stupid that I can't separate this affair crap from the serious and bogus charges he's facing.

The problem is, a lot of people on that jury are going to convict him because he's a good-looking Democrat who fucked around on his cancer-stricken wife. That man is going to prison for nothing. For NOTHING.

Americans should be truly scared if Edwards is convicted. It can happen to anyone.

by Anonymousreply 50May 3, 2012 7:41 AM

Is this a "Show Trial"?

Sorry, but as a non-American, this is the first time I've read about this and it really strikes me as something out of stalinist Russia.

by Anonymousreply 51May 3, 2012 8:24 AM

R42,43,etc Just because you were okay with your husband cheating on you and leaving doesn't mean every other woman should be okay with it. I say this as a woman - please take your frau 1950s housewife crap elsewhere.

by Anonymousreply 52May 3, 2012 8:25 AM

[quote]What the hell has happened to this country???

I agree. He's completely reprehensible but in the general scheme of things, it's a non-issue.

How about bringing to justice a few people that should have been convicted for war crimes?

by Anonymousreply 53May 3, 2012 8:27 AM

Cummon people. You can't give people millions of dollars in what is supposed to be campaign funds to cover up your mistress/baby. If you give away more than eleven grand to anyone for any reason the IRS needs to know about it.

This is financial malfeasance regardless of the drama.

by Anonymousreply 54May 3, 2012 8:32 AM

[quote]. If you give away more than eleven grand to anyone for any reason the IRS needs to know about it.

$13,000 nowadays!

by Anonymousreply 55May 3, 2012 9:19 AM

[quote]indignantly confronted her husband, baring her chest in front of staff members the day after a tabloid reported that he was cheating on her.

*eyeroll* " I'm not getting what a I want so I'll tantrum right here in front of everyone."

I could never stand that shrew. She was always so stepford wife.

Also, if true, the daughters dramatic exit from the court room means she has inherited mommy's melt down personality.

by Anonymousreply 56May 3, 2012 9:55 AM

You reply56 are one creepy human being. I'll assume you made peace with the fact you are going to die alone.

by Anonymousreply 57May 3, 2012 10:10 AM

Honey @ R52, YOU are the frau. Thinking a woman owns a man, body and soul, just because he made some antiquated vow 20 years ago. People change, they fall out of love. It isn't a crime. It just is. Happens every day.

You can't get mad at someone for not wanting you, for losing "that loving feeling." A person can not will themselves to have feelings for a person they are no longer attracted to. A mature, rational woman knows this and, though hurt, will move on with her own life and find happiness with someone else who DOES want her. She doesn't go all around the country making an embarrassing public spectacle of herself, weeping and wailing and yanking off her shirt. Liz was ridiculous and pathetic with her never ending melodramatic temper tantrums.

by Anonymousreply 58May 3, 2012 10:17 AM

Gee -- I don't think you guys condoned this kind of behavior when Newt Gingrich was doing it.

Just sayin'...

by Anonymousreply 59May 3, 2012 10:47 AM

Not a frau here but come on. She lost her shit because it wasn't just the sloppy infidelity, it was the dying of cancer. Remission my ass, she was dying and she knew it, and he had abandoned her. And the pain and stress of what John did probably worsened what was left of Elizabeth's immune system.

by Anonymousreply 60May 3, 2012 11:00 AM

This isn't about an affair. It's about allegedly giving campaign funds to his mistress.

He also put this country at great risk by running for President knowing full well that this scandal could implode at any moment. What if the public groundswell had happened for him and not Obama? What if he had managed to win the election with all of this being kept under wraps? It would have been Clinton times ten, and we'd have been tied up with impeachment bullshit again while the country went further into the shitter.

The guy is a selfish sleazebag. And he's no better than Gingrich.

by Anonymousreply 61May 3, 2012 11:00 AM

Lots of fra on the loose here.

That said, I've detested the piece of human feces Edwards for a long time. Hope he's found guilty and if not, I hope it breaks him. Then he'll actually have a reason to go on and on about being "a po' ol southUn boy from noth care'lina.."

Fuckin diuche.

by Anonymousreply 62May 3, 2012 11:13 AM

R57 please take your tantrums elsewhere. You're despicable and your husband is cheating on your harridan ass as we speak.

by Anonymousreply 63May 3, 2012 11:24 AM

The poster who said this reminded him of a show trial is right. Edwards is a disgusting man, but he isn't guilty of what he's been charged with. He's been charged with misusing campaign funds. Period. Why he misused them is not relevant. All the rest is just spectacle.

The sham trial allows testimony from his former aide who was granted immunity, after stealing more than $1.2 Million to build his own house.Then his wife performs on the witness stand, "breaking down in tears"? Please.

If I'm not mistaken, Elizabeth Edwards was showing her scars, not her boobs. They were gone. Yes, it was definitely an over the top moment, but in my opinion, it seems she was filled with uncontrollable rage, because the tabloids ran the story.

Also, since she did it in front of all their staffers, she was in a sense confirming the tabloid version for those who might not have known the details or who might have disbelieved the tabloids.

This was an affair she was aware of for almost a year. So her anger was about the exposure. She felt she'd sacrificed too much to have their lives and his candidacy reduced to a tabloid headline.

I hope his daughter Cate reconsiders her decision to devote her life to her mother's foundation. She needs a clean break from all this sordid stuff.

Maybe after law school she felt she couldn't establish herself in a career because of the notariety of her parents. But she's married, so it's time she moved away from Edwards and his messes.

by Anonymousreply 64May 3, 2012 11:45 AM

Say goodbye to these!

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 65May 3, 2012 12:40 PM

If the donors gave money towards the campaign and he funneled that money inappropriately (whether to buy a yacht, a Bentley or a girl,) than he is guilty and should be charged. Contributions are supposed to be tax except and not using it for campaign expenses is fraud - clear and simple. Our prisons are filled with white collar criminals who have done less and it all boils down to obtaining money illegally. However, it would seem that all of this could have been found out simply - did the donors make a check out to the campaign and then file it in their own records as a tax-deductible contribution. If so, then Edwards is a typical narcissistic idiot who thinks nothing will ever happen to him and should have settled and not gone to trial. If there are no records, then there is no case. I don't know enough about the background of this scandal to know whether or not records were presented other than the testimony of the aide, who was clearly guilty as well. However, the aide could not have taken that money without others in the campaign knowing about it.

Once thing is clear - I will never give money to another campaign. These people live a life when they are running for office that is corrupt in and of itself.

by Anonymousreply 66May 3, 2012 12:42 PM

[quote]It's the kind of scene you could picture an actress winning an Oscar, for. Very powerful.

As R6 pointed out early in this thread, Richardson in Damage had a similar scene. Though it didn't win her an Oscar, just a nomination (I think).

by Anonymousreply 67May 3, 2012 12:45 PM

I don't comprehend what Elizabeth's shirt ripping drama has to do with with John's guilt or innocence.

by Anonymousreply 68May 3, 2012 12:52 PM

This faded, vile, repulsive pretty boy with $500 hairdos and fake teeth should be brought up on manslaughter charges. The stress put on his wife accelerated her condition and helped to kill her.

Who cares about what he did with the frigging money, he should be on trial for what he did to his wife.

A sick sick sick man who deserves his disgrace.

by Anonymousreply 69May 3, 2012 12:55 PM

I'm still team John Edwards. Elizabeth allowed herself to become a mess. She knew that she had to make certain sacrifices to keep a hung, hot piece like John Edwards. Do you think Hillary Clinton would have ripped open her blouse on the tarmac? Do you think Jackie Kennedy would have made such an unpleasant scene? Hillary and Jackie, now those are real women, who get it.

by Anonymousreply 70May 3, 2012 1:05 PM

R66, from your reply, it sounds as though you are saying that contributions to political campaigns are tax-exempt. That's not true, is it - or is that what you're saying??

by Anonymousreply 71May 3, 2012 1:09 PM

"ELIZ" Edwards was a nasty drama queen. Not to say her husband didn't fuck her over emotionally, but she was no saint, no angel and she knew well how fucking crooked and dishonents her husband was.

by Anonymousreply 72May 3, 2012 1:12 PM

Yes, [R29] I agree- the strappless wedding gown look needs to go away. kate Middleton is a genius for bring sleeved wedding gowns into style....

by Anonymousreply 73May 3, 2012 1:19 PM

The problem with asserting Edwards misused campaign funds is that they weren't campaign funds and both donors knew the money wasn't for the campaign.

And the money was carefully kept out of campaign accounts.

There is plenty of sleaze and perhaps some minor problems with the way things were handled, but this is clearly a witch hunt/show trial, and we have seen many, many politicians and other public figures get away with far worse behavior.

Dick Cheney's war crimes and pay offs from Halliburton among them, perhaps?

And btw, I don't understand why R3 thinks it would be so much better to have the cheating husband stick around.

I don't blame Elizabeth for her dramatic behavior, but she might have done better to have filed for divorce taken every penny she was legally entitled to.

If she wanted to hurt and humiliate him the way he had hurt and humiliated her, it would have been far more effective for her to have blown up his campaign in his face and walked away with a hundred million or so.

At least then she could have left enough money to her children that Cate wouldn't feel obligated to stand by her slime-ball father's side while this is playing out in public.

Because that's the only reason she is going to court at all, imo. If she wasn't concerned with her inheritance, why would she stick up for the asshole who treated her mother so poorly?

by Anonymousreply 74May 3, 2012 1:19 PM

I've never been in a serious relationship, but I can certainly understand how she must have felt emotionally abandoned and betrayed by him during an extraordinarily difficult time in her life. She had every right to be devastated, even if she expressed it in a rather dramatic manner.

by Anonymousreply 75May 3, 2012 1:24 PM

I'm pretty sure R70 is taking the piss. I surely hope so.

by Anonymousreply 76May 3, 2012 1:33 PM

I can understand Elizabeth's anger, outrage, etc. But tearing off her clothes in public, in an airplane hanger in front of the campaign staff and the airport personnel was excessive.

Especially give the fact that first, she knew about the affair for almost a year, and second, she knew about the tabloid coverage well before she got to the airplane hangar.

IMO, she was performing. As a seasoned political wife and a public figure in her own right, Elizabeth Edwards had been thru a lot of moments where she had to hold it together. I believe she was truly upset, but I also believe she channeled her anger into an scene. She became completely irrational.

If I had been in a similar position, I would have left the airport and gone home, called a really good lawyer, and had the locks changed.

If Elizabeth acted like this in a public setting, I can't even imagine the hellish, hysterical behavior those poor kids experienced at home with them. That is definitely a form of emotional abuse for the kids.

I think John Edwards is a monster. But as R74 appropriately pointed out,the funds were kept away from the campaign accounts, the two donors knew this was not for his campaign.

It's interesting, one writer, I think in the HuffPo, characterized Andrew Young as more like an angry, disaffected lover, than a disgruntled Campaign aide. Young obviously broke the law by taking money meant for one purpose and using it for another. Did he declare to the IRS?How could this happen in federal court? It is federal court?

by Anonymousreply 77May 3, 2012 1:40 PM

As far as I am concerned, anyone who is seriously sick can have as many meltdowns as they want to have.

You queens are shitting your pants because some old lady pays with a check. Now THAT'S melodramatic.

by Anonymousreply 78May 3, 2012 1:41 PM

"I'm still team John Edwards. Elizabeth allowed herself to become a mess. She knew that she had to make certain sacrifices to keep a hung, hot piece like John Edwards."

If you're "still team John Edwards" then you must a retard of epic proportions. The guy is slime personified. And he was never nearly as "hot" as some people have made him out to be. He always had an incredibly smarmy look to him, always grinning with those big teeth, always looking so full of himself. As for his being "hung"...well, how the hell would you know THAT? Unless the sex tape becomes public nobody can really comment on the size of his dick.

by Anonymousreply 79May 3, 2012 1:44 PM

LOL. Love you, R78.

by Anonymousreply 80May 3, 2012 1:46 PM

John Edwards will always be the villain here, but that Elizabeth does come off as seriously damaged. Anyone who met her through her husband's campaigns only has awful things to say about what a rude, domineering bitch she was. Sad all around. I'd never speak to my father again if he pulled this shit, but then again, my father is poor.

by Anonymousreply 81May 3, 2012 1:46 PM

"Elizabeth Edwards was not dying at the time of the affair.

Her cancer was in remission."

Oh, so her cancer was in REMISSION. Well, that certainly makes it ok then. NOT!

Her cancer may have been in remission, but it was terminal and Edwards knew that. He is lower than dirt, a douchebag par excellence.

by Anonymousreply 82May 3, 2012 1:48 PM

This shirt ripping booby extravaganza happened once the fuckery went public yes? She already knew, if I am understanding the sequence of events correctly, it was only when the Enquirer put it out there that the shit hit the fan. I've noticed with a lot of suburbanite middle class through well-to-do women that it's the public embarrassment that seems to really send them over the edge. Often they seem able to deal with the affair itself so long as it is kept secret and private. I find it interesting and telling that women make these kinds of 'deals' with men. I have no knowledge with regard to whether this is the case with Edwards debacle but it certainly appears to be another of those instances where the public humiliation of being exposed as less than utopian was more egregious to the relationship than the actual extra-relational shenanigans that started it all.

by Anonymousreply 83May 3, 2012 1:49 PM

Maybe she was on some powerful cancer drugs that were fucking with her brain. She sounds batshit.

by Anonymousreply 84May 3, 2012 1:49 PM

"She doesn't go all around the country making an embarrassing public spectacle of herself, weeping and wailing and yanking off her shirt. Liz was ridiculous and pathetic with her never ending melodramatic temper tantrums."

She DIDN'T "go all around the country making an embarrassing public spectacle of herself, weeping and wailing and yanking off her shirt", you stupid cunt. It was an isolated incident. And if she occasionally lost it, well, see how well YOU handle the sudden death of a beloved child, terminal breast cancer and a sleazy husband who knocks up his equally sleazy mistress.

You don't sound like a "rational, mature female." You sound like a dumb cunt. Or a gay man pretending to be a "rational, mature female" but sounding like a dumb cunt.

by Anonymousreply 85May 3, 2012 1:56 PM

Him making a douche-bag does not preclude the possibility that she was unpleasant. It slays me that people must persist in painting one party as completely good while the other is necessary totally evil. Can we quit with the fairy-tales yet? How can we not have yet learned that life and people are much more complex, multi-dimensional and interesting than that?

by Anonymousreply 86May 3, 2012 1:58 PM

I am shocked she would bare her chest in front of other people, that is crazy. Even if you are really upset you would still be in the right mind to know you don't show your tits to the staff. Sounds like Liz was a drama queen.

by Anonymousreply 87May 3, 2012 1:59 PM

The size of Edwards cock has been discussed at great length on this board and others. He's good looking and hung and rich. A triple threat.

by Anonymousreply 88May 3, 2012 1:59 PM

It should mentioned that during this Elizabeth went on all the cable news shows saying her husband would be better dealing with women's issues than Hillary.

by Anonymousreply 89May 3, 2012 2:02 PM

I hope Edwards goes to prison, is scalped of his lovely locks, and fucked up the ass with a meat cleaver.

PS I am not some frau.

by Anonymousreply 90May 3, 2012 2:04 PM

Amen R86. None of us can really know what their relationship was. After reading Elizabeth's book about her early life and her difficulty coping with the death of her son, I wondered how the marriage could still be working. It's a very complicated, sad story all the way around. They both seem to have great gifts and great flaws.

by Anonymousreply 91May 3, 2012 2:17 PM

Maybe I'm missing something here. Why are people saying Elizabeth Edwards exposed her breasts? She wasnt the kind of person who could do that.

by Anonymousreply 92May 3, 2012 2:18 PM

It's pathetic that all this tabloid show is part of a trail that merely needs to know the source of the money and if it was or wasn't added to a campaign fund. That's the ONLY thing that should count.

This is nothing more than a Rethuglican soap opera. The only thing it needs now is for Newt Gingrich to sit in the visitors' gallery to applaud the testimony of the prosecution witnesses. Newt is no longer a slut like John Edwards because he's now a Catholic, happily married to the Catholic Callista.

by Anonymousreply 93May 3, 2012 2:23 PM

I remember finding it strange that Elizabeth wrote a book and went on a book tour during the middle of the scandal. When asked about Rielle, she basically claimed the woman and child didn't exist in her life and that she wouldn't allow the woman to mess up her life in anyway. I think the issue was that Elizabeth felt betrayed by John not just because he had cheated but also because they had built a life, family, fortune together and now they were on the verge of becoming President and first Lady. Elizabeth saw her entire life shattered. She didn't want to give up the chance to be first lady, nor did she want to give up the family life for her children. Hell, she also didn't want to believe she was dying either. She wanted him to stop the affair and come home at night to their kids and continue what they had started in the political world.

Honestly, I don't blame her. Her entire world and ambition was centered around him. Giving up him meant giving up all her dreams for herself and her children. She was willing to forgive him for the cheating if it meant she wouldn't have to give up her life as she knew it. But when it all became public, she could not longer do that and she lost it and went nuts.

It is sad. There are many claims that she was a bitch and difficult to be around. I can see how a hot, young woman who appears easy and without baggage could be appealing, but Edwards should have done things more discreet. He could have kept his family intact and satisfied his desires privately.

Yet, I also suspect that Rielle wasn't happy being in the background. She saw $$$ and opportunity and pounced on it, thus got pregnant. She, too, had ambition but John Edwards didn't realize it till it was too late.

Are they still together?

by Anonymousreply 94May 3, 2012 2:29 PM

He is a major jerk, idiot, arrogant- etc. He stepped out on his wife. On the other hand, according to those close their campaign- ANYONE would have stepped out on a wife like that. She was not well liked to put it mildly. His most important transgression in my book was covering up- having Young claim the child was his, and Hunter live with the Young family, and traveling in private planes etc using political contributions. THAT is the real mess.

The Edwards sad unravling marriage- his narcisism and her haridianism are a story as common as dirt. But the cover up and the degree to which Edwards went to do so, implicating a loyal aid and family in the whole mess is astounding.

When I found out my boyfriend had cheated on me, had an affair, when I was 22, I did not pull my pants down in front of our friends screaming at him about what he did not want or notice anymore. Elizabeth Edwards sounds like a very sad woman, not just the metastatic breast cancer. Can you imagine Hillary doing anything like that? Jacqueline Onassis? Nope.

Very messy and sad story. Oh how public relations can cover up truth.

by Anonymousreply 95May 3, 2012 2:35 PM

I can't wait for the poster upthread who thinks marriages should last as long as the relationship is good, to get old. And "old" I mean over 60.

It is rare that both partners in a marriage will look gorgeous and sexy at that age. Maybe plastic surgery will help, but it still won't bring back the youthful freshness that most 30 year old's have effortlessly.

If that poster is female and married or is dating a successful man who is also in his 60's, he will be around youthful women all day who look up to him. Consequently, he knows a younger woman with a lot of vitality will have more stamina in the bedroom and knows he can attract her because of his money. He then cheats because he can and figures his marriage isn't working anymore. Adios, old wife.

What if one of them becomes disabled and the healthy partner has to take care of his less fortunate spouse? How can the relationship be good and fulfilling especially to the healthy partner. Time to leave, would be the answer, eh?

Married people become a family and are "committed" to each other in sickness and in health. No relationship is good ALL of the time. Good luck down the road in your self-centered little world.

by Anonymousreply 96May 3, 2012 2:36 PM

Gay man here and I was an early Edwards supporter.

I totally agree with him being tried. I am sorry, this sort of behavior in politics -- using campaign donations for private use, regardless of party, sucks.

The more I hear of how he used his staff and ruined their lives to cover his actions, make me feel he deserves to be on trial.

Hearing what he did to his wife, makes me sense he has no soul and probably is a psychopath.

How sad he's fooled that once thin daughter.

by Anonymousreply 97May 3, 2012 2:36 PM

[quote] Plenty of married women endure infidelity and divorce.

Not while they are dying of cancer. The husband usually waits until his wife is dead before knocking up other women.

He knew his wife was terminal. He could have waited.

by Anonymousreply 98May 3, 2012 2:36 PM

Poor Elizabeth went nuts after her son died -- the kid's memory was the reason she prodded her husband into a political career, the reason for the fertility treatments that allowed two more children to be born, and the reason she got cancer (from the constant hormone shots.)

The death of a child often drives one spouse nuts and couples apart, emotionally if not formally. I don't condone John Edwards' cheating, but if you read Elizabeth's first book about the death of her son and how she carried on about it (again, no one blames her, but her reaction was extreme) it is no surprise JE chose the blandishments of Reielle over the high pressure/constant grieving that his marriage to Elizabeth became.

by Anonymousreply 99May 3, 2012 2:39 PM

"I've noticed with a lot of suburbanite middle class through well-to-do women that it's the public embarrassment that seems to really send them over the edge."

Most people, including self-regarding gay and straight men, do not respond well to public humiliation. Ms Edwards' reaction was extreme and shocking, but in fairness her mental state was probably pretty shaky by that point.

This whole story is sadly tawdry. I am not having the best day today, but thank God I am not John Edwards.

by Anonymousreply 100May 3, 2012 2:42 PM

I was going to post that,r39. Susan Sarandon get get another Oscar easily for that scene-a dying woman exposing her cancer ravaged breast to her staff after learning of her politician husband's affair...

by Anonymousreply 101May 3, 2012 2:43 PM

[quote]She DIDN'T "go all around the country making an embarrassing public spectacle of herself

Uh, hysterical frau @ R85, yes, Liz absolutely DID go around the country on the "woah is me tour." She appeared on endless talk shows and gave interviews to every frau magazine about "how he done me wrong" years after the news cycle for her soap opera story became stale as week old bread. She was a bitter, self important bore who couldn't let it go.

by Anonymousreply 102May 3, 2012 2:44 PM

Only because of her money R10. She was the rich one.

by Anonymousreply 103May 3, 2012 2:45 PM

Edwards was so stupid to get involved with Rielle Hunter, she has always wanted the spotlight. He would have been better off picking a woman less aggressive and obviously using birth control.

by Anonymousreply 104May 3, 2012 2:48 PM

Josh Brumberger, gay? Did he also have a crush on Edwards?

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 105May 3, 2012 2:53 PM

[quote]Honestly, I don't blame her. Her entire world and ambition was centered around him. Giving up him meant giving up all her dreams for herself and her children.

Who are these fraus invading DL? Are you kidding, Cinderella? These are childish, fairy tale ambitions. Why would any woman in 2012 still think prince charming is going to come along and hand them a life of "happily every after."

by Anonymousreply 106May 3, 2012 2:55 PM

[quote]Gee -- I don't think you guys condoned this kind of behavior when Newt Gingrich was doing it.

"Gee--" No one gave a shit about that fat pig's personal life until he opened his mouth about "family values." It's been over 20 fucking years and you've been told countless times why Newt is ridiculed for what he did to his wives, so are you unaware of Newt's political history or are you just an ignorant douchebag by choice?

[quote]Just sayin'...

Something stupid.

by Anonymousreply 107May 3, 2012 2:56 PM

So what's the solution, R96? Chain people together with leg irons who can't stand each other? Why would you eve WANT someone who doesn't want you? Move on.

by Anonymousreply 108May 3, 2012 2:57 PM

She should have gone all Victoria Grayson on his as$. All steely stares.

by Anonymousreply 109May 3, 2012 3:04 PM

Does anyone know how to have a difference of opinion anymore without continually calling other posters "fraus"? This place has gone to shit.

by Anonymousreply 110May 3, 2012 3:09 PM

You can't make someone love and care about you. Melodramatic displays only make people resent and pity you even more.

by Anonymousreply 111May 3, 2012 3:16 PM

Mommyfication of culture writ large. Men are ALWAYS wrong, mommyfraus are always right.

When Liz died you would have thought Mother Fucking Theresa had passed from the OTT news coverage.

This is old news. Didn't The New Yorker cover La Meltdown de Tarmac years ago, complete with (hillarious) illustrations? By their account she was a turbo cunt. Of course by the time Frau News Inc was finished she was Saint Elizabeth.

by Anonymousreply 112May 3, 2012 3:22 PM

Nobody has said she was a Saint. However, it is ridiculous to argue that she shouldn't have felt betrayed and upset or that he had every right to do what he did because he no longer was attracted to her.

If he was unhappy, he should have left the marriage before he ran for office. He was careless, reckless and mishandled nearly everything about this affair.

by Anonymousreply 113May 3, 2012 3:31 PM

John Edwards is a cipher. If you "supported" John Edwards during his presidential campaign chances are you were actually supporting ideas and answers that came from Elizabeth. One striking example is that when John Edwards was asked what his favorite movie was he answered, "Dr. Strangelove". It's a great answer, but it turns out he'd never even seen the movie. Elizabeth told him to answer that way. A lot of straight men, not just politicians, owe their careers to their wives-- even now.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 114May 3, 2012 3:37 PM

Everything he did was wrong in regard to his wife and mistress but NONE of that should matter in this specific trial.

The ONLY thing that should matter are the reasons the checks were written and if they were or were not considered to be a campaign contribution.

by Anonymousreply 115May 3, 2012 3:40 PM

Unfortunately the marriage seemed based on the usual grotesque superficialities. Money, looks, status, privilege and plans. Real talk. It was a sado-masochistic duel not fueled by mutual affection but instead powered by the addiction to status, money and their co-joined pursuit of political power and prestige. Feh. The guy RADIATED douchebag energy, even from the wedding photos. He's craven, seedy, vain, and looks disturbingly like Burt Ward, Robin, from the old Batman tv series. Although the wife was clearly frau'ing around (yes, it is now a verb) on the afternoon fraumedia, punishing him, I think he did drive her to her grave. Just stop dickin' around, Robin! His poor daughter. I'd probably cut Dad down to a single hot toddy over Christmas, and ignore his calls the rest of the year. If anything, Americans should learn from this trial that most politicians (male and female) are predatory narcissists. Watch where you sling that pussy, rich girls...

by Anonymousreply 116May 3, 2012 3:46 PM

She kind of reminds me of socialite Betty Broderick, that woman who killed her ex-husband, a prominent attorney, and his new wife. She was scorned because she stood by him during the lean years, had four children with him and then he dumped her for a younger, hotter woman. She couldn't handle the fact that she lost her lifestyle as "Mrs. Broderick" and went insane.

The movie was pretty good starring Meredith Baxter.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 117May 3, 2012 3:47 PM

Except Rielle was not hot at all R117.

by Anonymousreply 118May 3, 2012 3:50 PM

The checks from Bunny Mellon were not made out to the campaign. They were given to a decorator friend who then wrote checks to Andrew Young's wife in her maiden name.

Edwards said he covered up the affair to prevent Elizabeth from finding out about it. However, if it can be shown that Elizabeth already knew at the time Mellon sent the money, then it is reasonable to assume he was trying to hide the affair from the voters.

If his intention was to mislead the voters, then the money regardless of how he got it was being used for campaign purposes and is therefore a campaign contribution.

At least that is the prosecutions contention.

by Anonymousreply 119May 3, 2012 3:51 PM

1) Don't his lawyers know what a relevance objection is? There's nothing in that airport story remotely relevant to the charges pending, including his character. That shit was all about Elizabeth.

2) this is not a criminal issue--at best, it's a tax problem. I can't believe the judge didn't throw this out. Bunny Mellon, by all accounts, gave him the money to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do with it.

3). Rielle Hunter is a fucking dog. She must have the tightest vadge in America, because she's neither bright nor attractive.

This is like Al Capone being convicted for tax evasion, except even Capone was guilty of that. Edwards is going to be convicted for being a horrible person rather than a criminal.

by Anonymousreply 120May 3, 2012 3:52 PM

She was hot to him, r118. "New" plus "different" equals "hot" to many men. That's all it takes.

by Anonymousreply 121May 3, 2012 3:54 PM

[quote]She must have the tightest vadge in America

Not after 'Big' John was done with it.

by Anonymousreply 122May 3, 2012 3:57 PM

I agree with those who think the trial should center around the misuse of campaign funds. I also think that Edwards is somewhat culpable for the assistant misusing funds. He was the "CEO" of his campaign. The assistant should not have been let off so easily and should have fried as well.

That said, the focus of the board is on Elizabeth's actions. I am not a Frau. I just want to get that out there because I can sympathize with her actions. She was more than a politicians wife. She drank the Kool Aid and really believed that he could change the world and that she would be by his side as a partner -- both as a wife and activist. Her professional and personal mirror shattered with the revelation of his affair.

On the personal side. She gave up a lot for him. The younger kids were born when she was a much older woman. This kind of pregnancy requires a lot of medical assistance -- so much so that it takes a toll on ones body.

To her it probably wasn't just an affair. To her it was probably viewed as rejection and most likely played into the insecurities of having breasts removed and the feelings of inadequacy and ugliness that for many women come with this surgery.

Imagine standing-by someone and actually being a major force behind his ambitions and having him cheat with a someone who can destroy your dream as well. Oh, and her case, the person he has cheated with is younger and doesn't bear the scars of breast cancer.

by Anonymousreply 123May 3, 2012 4:15 PM

[quote]"Plenty of married women endure infidelity and divorce." ---Not while they are dying of cancer. The husband usually waits until his wife is dead before knocking up other women. He knew his wife was terminal. He could have waited.

False, R98. Many men cheat when their wive's are seriously ill. It's actually quite common. Even if they love their wives, many cheat just to get a respite from all the sickness, upheaval, anxiety and depression at home.

by Anonymousreply 124May 3, 2012 4:46 PM

Whatever the reasons the forensic analysis of the unraveling of their marriage, and the psychological trauma they both experienced and then visited upon one another, that was between John & Elizabeth. What I do not understand at this particular moment is those of you who are castigating him for the way he used/treated his staff. At the level of a national presidential campaign you don't hire amateurs. These people were professionals who had to know at some point that Edwards had no chance of winning and that his conduct would destroy anything resembling a shot at the White House. So they allowed themselves to be "used." They rationalize and justify their behavior now, even the fact that Young stole $1.2 million! They ran all over the country, they intrigued, plotted schemed and blackmailed Edwards about a sex tape. They get no free pass from me. I am not that stupid as to feel like Edwards was the lone bad guy here and everyone else was a victim.

Many married men cheat and father out of wedlock children. Their wives often get very angry, and scream, and yell, and go nuts on them. This is not new.

Bit with this soap opera, the drama was played out on a national stage with all the minor players grabbing for a piece of the spotlight. These campaign aides were despicable people, IMO.

If I was a suspicious or cynical person, I'd bet they were eyeing the $$$ they could make from tell alls, once it was over.

Some of you need to open your eyes. It was Andrew Young who "found" the sex tape and exploited it's existence. Edwards is slime it is true, but he's not the first terrible huband to wrong a sick wife.

What makes this situation unique to me, is the feeding frenzy that starts with the campaign aides. The kind of people who would participate, then slime him for "making " them participate.

Every single one of them had the option of quitting. Only one did to my knowledge. Elizabeth Edwards wasn't the only betrayed lover, nor was she the angriest or most vengeful.

by Anonymousreply 125May 3, 2012 4:54 PM

"Woah is me," r 102??? Oh, dear. And watch your apostrophes, see your r124. "Wives" is plural not possessive.

by Anonymousreply 126May 3, 2012 5:14 PM

The aides were certainly despicable and had none of them agreed to go along with the cheating, lying, cover-ups, it wouldn't have happened. There is no debate that he had help in all of what he did. But ultimately, he gave the orders and he should take responsibility for all of the finances.

I would also point out that it appears that the aides were young and probably not nearly as experienced as they should have been for someone running for President. People who surround themselves in the workplace with a lot of young, inexperienced staff often are ridiculously controlling and many times hiding something. Edwards didn't want anyone smarter or more savvy than himself around, which should have been a red flag that he would not have made a good Chief Executive.

by Anonymousreply 127May 3, 2012 5:21 PM

R106 Where do you live? Because where I live (in suburban, soccer-mom, mortgage poor hell)people are raising their girls to think EXACTLY THAT. It is not a personal failing - it's a socialization process. We need to stop raising our girls to think that their futures and their dreams and aspirations must be lived through men. Women are entitled to have their own fucking aspirations that have sweet FA to do with dudes. That was what I meant when I noted the middle-upper class phenomenon I noted above and pondered as interesting. As someone later said on this thread - it appears that Elizabeth lived her dreams through John - I find that a very astute observation. And I further think we socialize men to carry the burden of those dreams - there own and their female partners - and many men, including evidently John Edwards - are just not up for that. If you want women to be different, then we need to start raising them different.

by Anonymousreply 128May 3, 2012 5:26 PM

Oh dear, Mary R126. Unless you want me to rap you on the knuckles with my ruler, next time kindly capitalize the "r" when referring to another post, and please refrain from starting sentences with "and."

by Anonymousreply 129May 3, 2012 5:30 PM

Young sounds like a scumbag, too

by Anonymousreply 130May 3, 2012 5:35 PM

r115 -- With due respect to your comment --it's basically true what you stated --but really, the ONLY thing that matters is that a scumbag like Edwards actually CHOSE to run for President in the first place and, certainly, that he actually thought he COULD GET BY WITH IT all during the period before the scandal 'broke'. That's the saddest aspect of the whole thing. That anyone -- Dem or Repub-- who know they are weak, flawed, have skeletons in the closet-- would actually run for President! Yet those types do it all the time.

by Anonymousreply 131May 3, 2012 5:41 PM

Edwards is being prosecuted because he is a high-profile Democrat, end of story.

by Anonymousreply 132May 3, 2012 5:44 PM

No, he's being prosecuted for misuse of campaign funds.

The fact that he pissed off a lot of his NC constituents (by frequently failing to show up to work for a position he was elected to) hasn't helped him.

by Anonymousreply 133May 3, 2012 5:50 PM

You have to be a megalomaniac or a narcissist to want to run for president, R131. And John Edwards is both in spades.

by Anonymousreply 134May 3, 2012 5:51 PM

And this is why I'm gay.

by Anonymousreply 135May 3, 2012 5:54 PM

R68, so true - Elizabeth's shirt removing incident has absolutely nothing to do with the campaign money charges against John Edwards.

It definitely appears that the proscecution is deliberately trying to sway the jury against John Edwards by bringing in emotionally charged material that is unrelated.

And those in this thread who say you hope John is found guilty of these bogus charges which have been brought against no other politician, you are very pathetic in your misguided hatred.

The money consisted of gifts from Fred Baron and Bunny Melon who gave the money as gifts, not as campaign contributions to the campaign.

by Anonymousreply 136May 3, 2012 6:06 PM

R117, Betty Broderick is a perfect example of a misguided woman who thinks her husband and the world owes her a psychological and financial position in life for her whole life and that the position can never be taken away from her - she feels it is her due.

by Anonymousreply 137May 3, 2012 6:08 PM

Let'sbe honest and I'm saying this as a straight woman, EE committed that great crime in our society of letting herself go. I'm not talking about because of the cancer. I read a magazine article about the Edwards in 1999, and it was all, look at how down to earth his wife is. Which really means, you expected something different didn't you, an Anne Romney or Jackie O type. Not that it would have kept him from cheating but it seems to be the underlying implication always with her. Everyone implying, what did she expect?

by Anonymousreply 138May 3, 2012 6:11 PM

Bunny Mellon - who contributed most of this money to John Edwards - had some kind of an odd attraction to him. She has said publicly that her donations were personal and not for his campaign. She's a very old lady but incredibly wealthy. But frankly I believe she found him hot.

She was also a very good friend of Jackie Kennedy. It was to her esate that Jackie spents months at a time, for years, after JFK's death. The estate in Middleburg is so large that Jackie could ride her horses as much as she wanted - in privacy.

by Anonymousreply 139May 3, 2012 6:14 PM

R133 The money in question was not in anyway a campaign contribution.

by Anonymousreply 140May 3, 2012 6:15 PM

I believe the shirt removal was some kind of an emotional exposure regarding her double mascectomy.

by Anonymousreply 141May 3, 2012 6:16 PM

Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers by Elizabeth Edwards (Broadway Books, 340 pages, $24.95)

YOU REMEMBER ELIZABETH EDWARDS. She ran for Second Lady in 2004 and may run for First Lady in 2008 if her husband, former Sen. John Edwards, is nominated by the Democrats. Whether or not he becomes president is purely academic because Elizabeth has what it takes to become America's First Lady on her own. She doesn't need the White House; her memoir of bereavement and invalidism pulsates with so much lugubrious hysteria that she's a shoo-in to become the Great White Oprah.

She had the best possible training for political wifehood. She was a Navy brat, accustomed to moving here and there and everywhere, meeting loads of people, and then moving again and meeting loads more. Her girlhood was dominated by the dreaded "Fitness Report," which all officers get when they come up for promotion. The conduct of a man's family could make or break him. "Everything we did was watched and recorded," she writes; "nobody talked about it, but everyone knew it. We all had as our first allegiance the professional reputations of our fathers." A wife who drank, or a pregnant daughter "meant a ruined career, a shortened tour of duty, a life spoiled by an indiscretion."

She met John Edwards while they were both law students at the University of North Carolina and married him in 1977 when she was 28 and he was 24. Settling down in Raleigh, they had two children, Wade born in 1980 and Cate in 1982. In 1996, while en route to meet up with his parents at their beach house, Wade was killed in a weather-related auto accident and Elizabeth fell apart.

Her morbid excesses began with the sign she posted on the door of her son's room ordering the cleaning woman not to vacuum or change the sheets: "I wanted the room to smell like Wade as long as it would." The wake had hardly begun before her brother came with a video camera and interviewed the assembled neighbors and classmates about the dead boy. For months afterwards, TV and music were banned from the Edwards home as they gathered with friends each evening in the dark, quiet family room to talk about Wade.

It sounds as if all of Raleigh was involved in the grieving process, including perfect strangers that Elizabeth drafted into service: "If, in a restaurant, I felt Wade about to overtake me, I would go to the restroom and take out his picture. If someone, anyone, was there, I showed them the picture and told them about my boy." Sometimes she drew a whole crowd of sympathizers. One day at the supermarket she happened to see a display of Wade's favorite soft drink and fell into what sounds like a fit: "...he came crashing in on me, and I was literally thrown to the floor. I sat sprawled in the soda aisle at the grocery store and cried uncontrollably... flattened by Cherry Coke."

She even roped in the gravediggers, giving the cemetery grounds staff presents on Wade's birthday. She visited his grave every day and read the Bible aloud "to the place on the ground." She also read him the letters that his friends had written about him, and when his SAT scores arrived posthumously she read him those, too. She enjoyed tending his grave because it reminded her of cleaning up his room, but it wasn't enough, so she started tending other graves of children who had died years and decades earlier, talking to them all the while, because they had no mothers to clean for them. One day she washed some dead child's muddy cross.

by Anonymousreply 142May 3, 2012 6:18 PM

Isn't all this affair stuff beign revisited because the defense wants to show the money was to hide the affair from his wife, not the voters?

That would make it something else than a violation of campaign fund laws. So it's John Edwards' lawyers bringing it up.

by Anonymousreply 143May 3, 2012 6:19 PM

She went what can only be called berserk the day Wade's grave was violated. The site contained a huge metal angel, and someone had tried unsuccessfully to drag it away. She began screaming and called the police, demanding that they come out and dust the angel for fingerprints. As she waited, it began to rain, so she fetched umbrellas and old quilts from her trunk to cover the angel to preserve the prints. When the police got there, they told her that prints could not be lifted from the statue's surface. She was inconsolable: "He was in my every thought, in my empty arms, in my weary, beaten heart."

He was also in her computer. The only modern touch in this neo-Victorian threnody is the enormous correspondence she conducted with other bereaved parents at various grief.com sites. She is the consummate online junkie who Googles every subject that pops into her head, so this may be where she read up on how to get pregnant at the age of 48.

Mirabile dictu, it worked. She had not only one baby, but two, becoming the Fertility Queen of the 2004 election, the 55-year-old mother of six-year-old Emma Claire and four-year-old Jack. How did she do it?Do not look for the answer in this book. Considering how garrulous she is on the subject of bereavement, I expected an Ovariad on the subject of fertility treatments, but all she says is: "Tests, appointments, procedures, failures. It was not until the week of Wade's eighteenth birthday [January 1998] that the shots and medications and good fortune were translated into a pregnancy."

Then she makes a mistake no lawyer should make, the bane of the witness under cross-examination: qui s'excuse s'accuse. She turns defensive and starts to overexplain: "I speak less of this not because it was unimportant," she avers, but for the sake of those women still undergoing fertility treatments, "women who had tried and failed to get pregnant, or women who had gotten pregnant but were unable to carry the pregnancy to term.... False hope is a bitter poison... I could not encourage it."

She must have Googled her husband's Wikipedia entry that claims she used surrogate mothers for both births. I disregarded this in view of Wikipedia's way with errors, but the Slate article by Suz Redfearn claiming that she used donor eggs is carefully researched and well-reasoned. One thing is certain: the questions are not going to stop. If the Democrats hope to lure voters away from the Religious Right they will insist on knowing if Edwards has any leftover embryonic stem cells in his closet.

Presuming they conceived in the good old-fashioned way, another question arises: How did they manage with their daughter sleeping in their bedroom? When her brother was killed, 14-year-old Cate lapsed into a frightening regressive state and refused to be alone in her room. The author is vague on dates, but she says that Cate slept with them for two years -- the same time span of the two conceptions. Even more intriguing is how John, who was representing the bereaved parents whose daughter was swallowed by a swimming pool drain, managed to get into begetting mode while caught up in the family man's garden of voluptuous delights: coaching soccer, playing Santa Claus, running charities, volunteering at Cate's school, and performing community service. Mentor me, baby. Gimme some P...T...A!

INASMUCH AS ANY PART OF THIS BOOK could be called a fun read, it's the section on Campaign 2004. Elizabeth the outgoing Navy brat was in her element, but continental Teresa Heinz Kerry most definitely was not. It's obvious that the two women couldn't stand each other, and small wonder: they were Mata Hari and Mary Poppins; Garbo and Charo. They also have very different views of children, being Martinet and Permissive; Elizabeth's tortuous assurance that she didn't mind it a bit when Teresa yanked little Jack's thumb out of his mouth is one of the most determinedly agreeable passages ever penned.

by Anonymousreply 144May 3, 2012 6:19 PM

Two weeks before the end of the campaign, she found a lump in her breast that turned out to be malignant. Whether it was caused by the massive doses of female hormones she took is not known, and she wouldn't admit it if it were, but some of her passing comments betray a desperate need to convince herself that there is no connection between her fertility treatments and her cancer. What she hates about wearing a lymph-node drain: "the children had to keep more distance than they were used to." Why she created a special outfit for her radiation treatments so she doesn't need to don a lab gown: "the changing time might eat into my get-back-to-the-children time." Her law career: "My main job for years to come will be -- until I am nearly too old for it -- raising children."

She also gives herself away by denying in advance what she doesn't want people to think, thereby planting the forbidden idea in their heads, as when she brings up Pat Conroy's novel, The Great Santini. They're not all like that, she insists. Her father was "as far from Bull Meecham as any military man can be. Oh, sometimes he would wake us up with a bugle -- because he thought it was funny. Sometimes he would 'inspect' our rooms -- but I never remember anything awful happening."

FITNESS REPORT: This book is a maudlin, lachrymose orgy of sentiment by an author who makes Niobe look like Betty Hutton. Recommendation: Bust her father to cabin boy.

by Anonymousreply 145May 3, 2012 6:19 PM

[quote]Elizabeth's shirt removing incident has absolutely nothing to do with the campaign money charges against John Edwards.

It goes to answering what did she know and when did she know it. That is a central question in determining why Edwards tried to hide the affair.

He says he was hiding the affair from Elizabeth. But if she already knew, then he must must have been hiding it for another reason.

by Anonymousreply 146May 3, 2012 6:21 PM

Why was she wearing a bra if she had no breasts?

by Anonymousreply 147May 3, 2012 6:22 PM

"Nobody has said she was a Saint."

Hahaha, oh my sides. You must have been living under a rock when the story first broke of the affair and when she died. She was treated as a living saint in the media.

by Anonymousreply 148May 3, 2012 6:27 PM

LOL!

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 149May 3, 2012 6:40 PM

Interesting trashing of her book. When she wrote and promoted that book, despite all that had happened to her, that was the point at which I thought she was nuts. And of course I had no interest in reading it. Seemed to me she was shining a light on just what she should be putting behind herself. But that seemed to be her problem.

From the beginning, when he was VP candidate, I always felt something was off about her. Her doudiness had an edge of craziness to it- madness- no need to look that bad, hair stringy and tangled, no makeup, overweight. Just did not make sense. Even Hillary, who clearly does not care about her appearance- makes an effort- I love her, but her taste is awful.

I did not know of her troubles after her son's death- I wondered why she did not go back to work in fact- or most important seek therapy.

Anyway, no one here knows how difficult their marriage was. Clearly it was troubled- would have to be. And John is a very good looking guy, successful etc. and he jumped the shark as well in another direction- his wife implodes as he explodes.

It's just a big sad mess. And yeah, if Bunny Mellon's money were personal gifts- well that is not campaign money. If they establish that-then this case is toast. Lord knows the Reagans got millions in "personal gifts" from their hyper wealthy CA friends (Annebergs et al.)

by Anonymousreply 150May 3, 2012 6:43 PM

Is Edwards still with that snatch Rielle "Alison Poole" Hunter? She is a disgusting excuse for a human being. They belong together.

by Anonymousreply 151May 3, 2012 6:53 PM

For God's sake, you think Mellon and the other person that shoveled over tons of money didn't know it must have been for solving something personal! I bet they knew about the affair. They knew they couldn't legally give that much as a campaign contribution so what did they think the money was for. They knew the Edwards and that they were not poor people so wouldn't they want to know why they wanted the money for any personal reasons. Too easy to say they were idiots enamored with "handsome" Johnny. They are scurrilous people willing to participate in duping the public and should also be punished in some way.

by Anonymousreply 152May 3, 2012 7:07 PM

No one's reputation is going to survive this debacle.

by Anonymousreply 153May 3, 2012 7:09 PM

There are times I really regret supporting gay men and this is one of them.

You don't know what it is like to have your whole world turned upside down by an affair and you certainly don't know the pain and utter devastation of losing a child. Until you do know you should shut the fuck up. Few of you do know what goes on in a real family with two adults and children and the faith, hope, and love people put into it. Only to be kicked in the teeth not only when you are sick and dying but after all you've been through together. Someone upthread commented about Elizabeth "carrying on" after the loss of her son. I've never said this before but I think now is the perfect opportunity. I hope you die in a grease fire!

You people get worse every year with the way you talk about women. It's US that support you, you dumb motherfuckers. You are your own worst enemies. I love snark. I live my life by snark, but it's been beyond that here for a long time. Fuck you!

by Anonymousreply 154May 3, 2012 7:32 PM

R152, Fred Baron, the wealthy donor who gave the money, died several years ago from cancer.

Bunny Melon, who also gave the money, is 101 years old and very frail.

I can see you know the details of the case.

by Anonymousreply 155May 3, 2012 7:50 PM

Calm down R154. Elizabeth Edwards was a multiple millionaire when she lost her child. I am 58 years old and know several couples who have lost children. Often it breaks up the marriage, but in no case do I know of anyone going off the rail quite like Elizabeth did. She is also a smart woman and she knew the risks of taking high dose hormones. This family had a tragedy that turned into a fiasco-a family with many blessings.

You should also know that many gay men have endured far more hardship than this family (I lost half of all my friends, some very dear friends within a 5 year period), and also ended a relationship. Ever wonder how that might feel? It was surreal. I am sure others have had their problems too.

Calm down. Fact is, the Edwards, including Elizabeth, were and are hot messes. We are lucky they did not make it to the White House.

by Anonymousreply 156May 3, 2012 7:58 PM

Thank you honey @R42 ! Tell it like it is !

by Anonymousreply 157May 3, 2012 8:03 PM

"I can see how a hot, young woman who appears easy and without baggage could be appealing"

Rielle is not hot. She is ugly.

by Anonymousreply 158May 3, 2012 8:10 PM

"in no case do I know of anyone going off the rail quite like Elizabeth did"

Probably because none of the women you know had a husband who was running for President and whose personal life was exposed to the entire world.

by Anonymousreply 159May 3, 2012 8:15 PM

r3 is a complete idiot who ignores THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS of Edwards' affair:

ELIZABETH'S ILLNESS and THE BABY.

by Anonymousreply 160May 3, 2012 8:22 PM

R139, John Edwards probably reminded Bunny Mellon of JFK, who afterall is the man John Edwards thought he was too.

by Anonymousreply 161May 3, 2012 8:22 PM

Rielle is not ugly at all.

She is very slim and attractive, and the baby (now age 4 years) is gorgeous.

by Anonymousreply 162May 3, 2012 8:23 PM

r20, that's "Frauen" to you.

r3/r10, he "nursed her"??! Oh, right---when JRE wasn't skulking off at 2:00 a.m. to a hotel to see Rielle and Quinn.

HE LITERALLY SICKENED Elizabeth by reneging on his promise that, before Elizabeth died, he would end the affair.

Instead, EE had to endure the humiliation of the National Enquirer's story about THE BABY.

Now TELL US HOW YOUE SITUATION BECAME NATIONAL NEWS, R3.

by Anonymousreply 163May 3, 2012 8:27 PM

Rielle is the epitome of equine-faced.

by Anonymousreply 164May 3, 2012 8:28 PM

"Josh Brumberger, gay?"

No, apparently not. I posted a photo of him earlier on this thread because I think he is kind of cute and one of the only decent people in this story. He tried to tell Edwards to stop the affair before it got out of hand, but Edwards refused to listen and he quit.

I think he is now married and expecting a child. I believe he now works for the Democratic Party in New York.

by Anonymousreply 165May 3, 2012 8:28 PM

R160, you also need to add that Edwards was running for PRESIDENT and that this whole scandal was exposed in front of the whole world.

R3 doesn't seem to realize that the average member of the public who is cheated on doesn't have the affair become public knowledge and discussed all over the news.

by Anonymousreply 166May 3, 2012 8:30 PM

R158, she was blonde and thin and slutty. That passes for hot with men of Edwards' ilk.

by Anonymousreply 167May 3, 2012 8:30 PM

r42, you are eiter insane or not of this culture. "Family" includes spouses.

BTW: A woman can leave a man, too, just so ya know.

by Anonymousreply 168May 3, 2012 8:32 PM

r58, you DO know that JRE did not attempt to leave EE? That he was NOT honest and above-board about his having "lost that loving feling"? That, in point of fact, he was a liar and an adulterer who not only denied his baby's paternity but had his friend claim it, thereby making the other wife into a public fool?

You have a serious problem recognizing that the facts of this situation do not parallel those of your life.

by Anonymousreply 169May 3, 2012 8:37 PM

Hillary and Jackie weren't dying, r70.

Some women just have higher levels of tolerance for personal humiiation.

by Anonymousreply 170May 3, 2012 8:39 PM

This thread should be retitled,"The He-Man Woman Hater's Club"

by Anonymousreply 171May 3, 2012 8:57 PM

R161, John Edwards patterned himself more after Robert F. Kennedy than after JFK.

John Edwards took on poverty as a main issue, as did Robert F. Kennedy. And John Edwards did a visit of poverty stricken people and areas in Appalachia as Robert F. Kennedy did.

But people have said that Bunny Melon saw John Edwards in the JFK tradition and sense of hope.

by Anonymousreply 172May 3, 2012 9:28 PM

R163, believe and interpret as you want, but John Edwards was by Elizabeth's side the whole time in her last months.

And John wanted to continue to live with Elizabeth during her last year or two, but Elizabeth wanted him out of the house toward the end.

by Anonymousreply 173May 3, 2012 9:31 PM

R168, the point is that although a husband is part of the family, he is not a blood relative like other relatives and children are, and the husband can reject the wife and leave at any time and at whim.

So in reality this makes husbands a tenuous and often unreliable part of the family.

50 percent of all marriages end in divorce.

by Anonymousreply 174May 3, 2012 9:34 PM

R74 You do realize that children can also divorce their parents right?

Spouses are family even though they are not related by blood just like adopted children become family.

by Anonymousreply 175May 3, 2012 9:46 PM

R172, the problem now is that people don't know whether Edwards genuinely cared about poverty or whether he was just doing it for political gain.

That's the problem he has now caused.

by Anonymousreply 176May 3, 2012 9:47 PM

What I don't understand is the ease at which all these people decided to have Eddie run for President. If they were all comfortable this mess would be protected from exposure then just think what other messes out there exist with no exposure, yet.

by Anonymousreply 177May 3, 2012 9:49 PM

R175, you miss the point.

R175, some women make the mistake of thinking their husband will always love them, no matter what.

And that the husband's love is a life-long given that is assured and owed to the wife.

In reality, there is no assurance the husband will continue to love the wife and the husband's love is certainly not owed to the woman in the mind of many men.

by Anonymousreply 178May 3, 2012 9:51 PM

R177, the campaign was in full gear way before the affair occurred.

The affair occurred in the middle of the campaign.

The long four years between the 2004 campaign of the John Kerry/John Edwards ticket and the 2008 campaign took a toll on John Edwards in terms of very tedious waiting and filling the long four years.

I believe the affair in late 2006 and early 2007 took place partially because of the intense tedium of waiting on the part of John Edwards for the 2008 campaign to get in full swing.

I think John Edwards was very bored waiting for the full campaign to begin and fell prey to Rielle during this lull.

by Anonymousreply 179May 3, 2012 10:00 PM

But the affair continued during 2008, R179. And eventually resulted in the birth of a child.

People like Josh Brumberger begged John Edwards to stop before it got out of hand and told him that Rielle was unstable. He refused to listen.

by Anonymousreply 180May 3, 2012 10:07 PM

The mundane problems of multi-millionaires hold little interest for me.

by Anonymousreply 181May 3, 2012 10:12 PM

Very self destructive behavior on John's part.

by Anonymousreply 182May 3, 2012 10:19 PM

Here is a timeline of the affair.

We don't know that the affair continued in 2008 - the baby was born in February 2008.

John visited the baby at the Beverly Hilton in July 2008 - one can understand John wanting to see and be with the baby a bit.

I doubt the actual affair continued in 2008 as it was too risky at that point.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 183May 3, 2012 10:19 PM

Boy, this Rielle character must cast quite a spell to turn John Edwards into a lovelorn swain -- and a father too.

by Anonymousreply 184May 3, 2012 10:25 PM

Again, it comes down to the fact that Edwards ran for President with all of this going on and with the full knowledge and awareness that this could implode had his campaign ran all the way to the White House.

Coming on the heels of the worst President this country has ever been dealt with, Edwards could have truly put not only the country, but the democratic party in serious jeopardy. I'm trying to think how someone who would truly care for the citizens of this country could rationalize making the decision he did, but I can think of a damn reason other than pure selfishness.

Those of you blaming Elizabeth or shedding tears for John are looking to give the man respect that he clearly never gave any of you. But by all means continue to feel sorry for the guy.

by Anonymousreply 185May 3, 2012 10:45 PM

R178 Marriage is supposed to last until death claims one of them, marriage vows state that clearly and also in sickness and in health, the love is expected and owed regardless of gender, if people fall out of love then they should be honest with their spouse and get a divorce, lots of people get married for the wrong reasons and expect the honeymoon phase to last forever. Honestly I think some people have no idea what love and commitment mean.

by Anonymousreply 186May 3, 2012 10:49 PM

Correct, R185.

Presidential Adviser David Gergen has said that John Edwards put the chances of the entire Democratic Party at risk in 2008.

by Anonymousreply 187May 3, 2012 10:49 PM

[quote]Those of you blaming Elizabeth or shedding tears for John

I'm saying the John was too cooperative with Elizabeth (sympathetic to her overwhelming grief) when he should have been more sensitive to her long term mental health and insisted they get counseling instead of giving in to her mad desires that soon overwhelmed and alienated him.

She went nuts, he proved weak, and now there's a mess.

by Anonymousreply 188May 3, 2012 10:51 PM

What does it say about Edwards' judge of character that he didn't listen to aides like Josh Brumberger who warned him how unstable and crazy Rielle was?

by Anonymousreply 189May 3, 2012 10:56 PM

I think John Edwards would have ended having anything to do with Rielle if she had not gotten pregnant.

The fact that she got pregnant forced Rielle to continue to be an obstacle and forced her presence upon John.

by Anonymousreply 190May 3, 2012 11:20 PM

R186, the marriage vows may say that love for a life-time is owed to the spouse, but the 50 percent of all marriages ending in divorce statistic belies this notion and shows it is meaningless in over half of all marriages.

by Anonymousreply 191May 3, 2012 11:23 PM

Why was he not using birth control?

by Anonymousreply 192May 3, 2012 11:23 PM

Maybe Rielle told John that she was taking the birth control pill or using birth control patches or birth control injection shots.

by Anonymousreply 193May 3, 2012 11:27 PM

R193, it's always foolish for a man to believe that. He should have been using condoms.

by Anonymousreply 194May 3, 2012 11:32 PM

R191 Si then what's your point here? Statistics have nothing to do with the meaning of marriage vows, people get married for love, sometimes it doesn't last. I already stated that before but it still doesn't change the fact that spouses owe one another love and respect, every single person deserves nothing less from their husband, wife or partner, if you cannot comprehend this then I feel sorry for you.

by Anonymousreply 195May 3, 2012 11:36 PM

Is he still friendly with Rielle?

by Anonymousreply 196May 3, 2012 11:47 PM

Let's not forget the sex tape in all of this.

Whose idea was that and why did Edwards participate in something so foolish?

It's bad enough to have an affair when you are running for President and get your mistress getting pregnant. But making a SEX TAPE?

by Anonymousreply 197May 3, 2012 11:51 PM

I bet it was Rielle's idea.

by Anonymousreply 198May 3, 2012 11:57 PM

R195, go away. You are stretching your point to absurdity.

There are all kinds of situations where love becomes dead and continuation of the marriage becomes impossible -

incompatibility

emotional abuse

physical abuse

personality disorders and mental problems

personality problems making living with the person extremely difficult

the list could go on.

Yes, you are presently an ideal. We'll concede to your ideal to shut you up.

by Anonymousreply 199May 4, 2012 12:02 AM

R199, I think what R195 is getting at is that while many marriages do not work out, that is no reason to so viciously betray someone you made a commitment to.

And in this case, it wasn't a 'normal' affair. It was an affair conducted while the wife was dying of cancer, in which a child was born to the mistress, and was conducted in the middle of a Presidential election and resulted in a huge scandal which the whole world found out about.

by Anonymousreply 200May 4, 2012 12:06 AM

presenting, not presently

by Anonymousreply 201May 4, 2012 12:07 AM

[quote]Marriage is supposed to last until death claims one of them, marriage vows state that clearly and also in sickness and in health, the love is expected and owed regardless of gender,

It's all b.s. from the Bible. Marriage should simply be a partnership contract between two people with NO involvement from religion - its the job of the state and takes place at the courthouse. When they want to end the marriage, they go to the courthouse for the divorce. Churches should be removed from the marrige business.

by Anonymousreply 202May 4, 2012 12:10 AM

When anyone wants out of a marriage, it is a betrayal.

Everyone who is divorced lived thru a betrayal.

I just don't buy that the betrayal in the Edwards' marriage is all that different, R200, even though you describe it in the most maudlin, over-reaching, absurdist, overly dramatic, exaggerated way.

by Anonymousreply 203May 4, 2012 12:11 AM

R199 My point point was not absurd but factual, you are the one blathering on here about how spouses; women in particular are not owed love by their spouses, now that is absurd.

I will once again state this since you have reading comprehension problems: If you fall out of love with your spouse get a divorce, don't lie to them and string them along. And yes spouses are owed love and respect.

by Anonymousreply 204May 4, 2012 12:13 AM

R202 Who cares where it originated what matters is that it's a lifelong commitment between two people who love each other, gay straight whatever, if you commit to another it should be during good and bad times.

by Anonymousreply 205May 4, 2012 12:15 AM

r174, your definition of "family" is bizarre. END OF STORY.

"In reality, there is no assurance the husband will continue to love the wife and the husband's love is certainly not owed to the woman in the mind of many men."

Seriously, r178, what is your native culture? Are you at all aware that wives can stop loving husbands? That wives have been known to leave husbands? That men physically sire children as opposed to parthenogenesis? That the love of a woman for a man has no guarantees?

Because if you think differently, you don't know women.

by Anonymousreply 206May 4, 2012 12:16 AM

R203, I don't care what you 'buy'. What I described was not my opinion, but a series of facts :

1. Elizabeth was dying of cancer

2. John fathered a child with his mistress

3. John was running for President of the United States

4. The scandal became public knowledge to the entire world

5. John even made a sex tape with Rielle

If you want to pretend that those FACTS are common in every case of adultery, that is your delusion to enjoy.

by Anonymousreply 207May 4, 2012 12:18 AM

R202, who said anything about religion, the Bible or the Church?

What most people, straight or gay, are saying is that you're not supposed to betray the person you are in a relationship with.

That's all.

by Anonymousreply 208May 4, 2012 12:19 AM

r202, you are beyond the topic's scope, and therefore irrelevant.

by Anonymousreply 209May 4, 2012 12:19 AM

Birth control pills, shots, patches, whatever, aren't 100% effective. Men should always take responsibility for themselves and wear condoms.

r199, who's "We"? Please learn to speak for yourself. Not everyone agrees with the point you are trying to make.

by Anonymousreply 210May 4, 2012 12:22 AM

R207, the point is that the end result is the same no matter what the offending circumstances are -

the end result is the fracture of the marriage occurs.

And the fracture of the marriage often leading to divorce is the important part.

by Anonymousreply 211May 4, 2012 12:23 AM

[quote]it's a lifelong commitment between two people

ONLY because the Bible-thumpers make that claim with their revisions. Yet there are Bible stories about great men with many wives.

Why is it that the church used to permit same-sex marriage?

Why is it that the church used to bless a trial marriage for a year and a day?

Why is it that the church used to allow clergy to marry?

by Anonymousreply 212May 4, 2012 12:26 AM

R212 those are valid questions to ask, but they are outside the scope of this thread.

by Anonymousreply 213May 4, 2012 12:33 AM

The affair was probably as simple as EE was fat and yappy and Rielle was skinny and would do anal and had a bald pussy with no gunt overhang.

by Anonymousreply 214May 4, 2012 12:42 AM

agreed, r214, but I think oral was probably the clincher.

by Anonymousreply 215May 4, 2012 12:49 AM

Was her name "MARY Elizabeth Edwards"?

by Anonymousreply 216May 4, 2012 1:03 AM

Rielle claimed that they never used birth control. That she didn't think she could get pregnant.

by Anonymousreply 217May 4, 2012 1:51 AM

How could 2 middle-aged adults think that, R217?

It's one thing for a couple of teenagers to be that stupid, but I don't understand it here.

by Anonymousreply 218May 4, 2012 1:55 AM

She thought she was too old to get pregnant....

by Anonymousreply 219May 4, 2012 1:59 AM

Josh Brumberger was right about Rielle, R219. She IS crazy.

by Anonymousreply 220May 4, 2012 2:02 AM

I agree, but that is what she claimed. Personally, I think she told him she was sterile and then purposefully trapped him. She was a 43 year old woman with no money and no man. There was no way in hell she was going to walk away from Edwards without a payday. Also, from the moment they began their affair, she was given $5000 into an account for expenses. This was before she was pregnant. She was being taken care of and shown a life that she could never have dreamed of before she met Edwards.

by Anonymousreply 221May 4, 2012 2:03 AM

Rielle was 42 or 43, but she and John, of course, should have used birth control.

I honestly think John had not cheated before Rielle and that he was not sophisticated about thinking about birth control methods. (childish, I know)

Or maybe he sub-consciously (or consciously) and psychologically wanted another child, so he wasn't careful about birth control because he wouldn't mind if another child was produced.

Francis Quinn, age 4, has the most beautiful blue eyes inherited from John Edwardes.

by Anonymousreply 222May 4, 2012 2:04 AM

And Rielle had had plural abortions in her wild NYC days, according to Jay McInerney's novel.

by Anonymousreply 223May 4, 2012 2:04 AM

I never heard about $5000 being put into an account for her before she was pregnant. Where did you hear this?

Perhaps th $5000 was partial payment for being the Edwards campaign videographer.

by Anonymousreply 224May 4, 2012 2:08 AM

R224, I think it was during Josh Brumberger's testimony that he talked about how early on in Rielle's role as videographer, and long before the pregnancy, she was being given medical insurance coverage, the right to travel on the candidate's plane, her own spending account etc.

Brumberger found it odd that a basic level employee was being given so many benefits and privileges that the average Edwards employee didn't receive.

by Anonymousreply 225May 4, 2012 2:18 AM

Rielle stated this herself in the GQ article that she gave. That was her first public interview. She also contradicted herself and said that "Johnny" never asked her to have an abortion, yet she said later that he wasn't too happy about her being pregnant and asked her if there was anything he could say to change her mind about having the child.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 226May 4, 2012 2:19 AM

I know a couple whose young teenage son was killed in a traffic accident. It drove her deeper into religion & drove him into atheism. But aside from creating that difference between them, the tragedy became a bond that brought them closer than ever (& they'd been together since junior high). They trust each other so deeply now, I think that discovery of adultery would seem even more of a betrayal than it is for most couples.

Elizabeth Edwards may have felt that way -- not only "how could he do this to me after we've gone through cancer together?", which is bad enough -- but also "how could he do this to me after we've gone through our son's death together?". A person doesn't have to be nuts to react like that (though it does sound as if her son's death may have driven her 'round the bend & she never fully recovered from it).

by Anonymousreply 227May 4, 2012 3:33 AM

frau running amock in this thread!! r3 and many others

by Anonymousreply 228May 4, 2012 5:36 AM

Elizabeth Edwards may have been unbalanced by the loss of her son, the terminal cancer and her husband's cheating, but John Edwards is clinically insane.

You do not fuck the wacko videographer and get her pregnant while you are running for president/vice president if the United States. Not after Clinton. The republicans have moles in democratic campaigns. It's a long GOP tradition at least since Nixon (Lucianne Goldberg anyone?) If you thinkthis affair wouldn't have been exactly what the GOP is looking for and exactly what would torpedo a presidential campaign, then you're crazy. And it wouldn't matter if Edwards was running for president or for veep. If Obama had picked Edwards as his VP, John McCain would be president today (and Sarah Palin would be VP).

If Edwards' affair had been exposed during the presidential campaign it would have been twice as toxic because his wife was dying of cancer and because he'd made a sex tape.

The man is a psychopath to think he could have this kind of affair in the midst of a presidential campaign and while his wife was very publicly battling cancer. Pure psycho to think it was ok and to think he wouldn't be caught.

by Anonymousreply 229May 4, 2012 6:16 AM

Whores shouldn't get married.

by Anonymousreply 230May 4, 2012 6:34 AM

What a drama mama. Does she really expect a man as handsome as Edwards to stick around with someone who is less than a woman?

If I got my front teeth knocked out, do you think my man would make out with me? No way. It'd be gross.

by Anonymousreply 231May 4, 2012 7:19 AM

Read r229, you complete a--hole at r231.

by Anonymousreply 232May 4, 2012 1:06 PM

R229 is exactly right. I feel for his daughter having to endure yet another humiliation at the hands of her father. Rielle Hunter looks like a fucking ferret. What is her government name again?

by Anonymousreply 233May 4, 2012 1:17 PM

whoa - I did not know that Elizabeth Edwards was that upset and intense about the death of her son, Wade. What an awful thing to endure - this is a full scale tragedy- and then the determination to get pregnant in later life ? a presidential run seems like something this family did not need (even w/o the affair)...

by Anonymousreply 234May 4, 2012 1:35 PM

The Edwards' political ambitions engulfed everything else in their lives; nothing else mattered. As long as they pursued their common goal, Eliz. was willing to overlook John's "failings". His betrayal(affair) not only reflected on their marriage, and all that it meant to Elizabeth, it threatened to jeopardize the successful accomplishment of that goal.

by Anonymousreply 235May 4, 2012 2:09 PM

I guess Edwards is turned on my crazy women. Both seem quite unstable, and Rielle just about as nuts as they come. And she is not attractive.

This was not his first time getting sex outside of marriage. Edwards has been named in a prostitution ring in NYC. Small article in the Time the other day- not getting much notice.

by Anonymousreply 236May 4, 2012 2:12 PM

Many, many women mistakenly believe that they can't easily get pregnant after age 40 or so. Because they turn out to be wrong doesn't mean that they were attempting to "purposefully trap" someone.

by Anonymousreply 237May 4, 2012 2:26 PM

This is heading to Lifetime Movie territory. Let the casting begin! Elizabeth is such a juicy role. Off the top of my head, Stockard Channing?

by Anonymousreply 238May 4, 2012 2:51 PM

Julianne Moore--seriously--would be perfect.

by Anonymousreply 239May 4, 2012 3:03 PM

Stockard is too old. This has Kathleen Turner written all over it (she's have to lose a little weight). Tom Cruise would be perfect for Edwards- plastic, grinning, clueless naturally- but too young, hmmmm.

by Anonymousreply 240May 4, 2012 3:07 PM

"Without My Breasts: The Elizabeth Edwards Story" A Lifetime Original Movie for Women and Gay Men

by Anonymousreply 241May 4, 2012 3:20 PM

Let's get it started, R241!

by Anonymousreply 242May 4, 2012 3:29 PM

[quote]Many, many women mistakenly believe that they can't easily get pregnant after age 40 or so.

I seriously doubt that's true. Many if not most 40-year-old women have not begun menopause, and there's absolutely no reason to believe age alone prevents conception. There are too many women that age who have had babies for that belief to be prevalent.

I could see women believing they can't get pregnant after they've begun menopause, but a simple google search or a visit to their gynecologist would resolve that issue.

by Anonymousreply 243May 4, 2012 3:39 PM

[quote]"Without My Breasts: The Elizabeth Edwards Story" A Lifetime Original Movie for Women and Gay Men

Starring Caroline Rhea as Elizabeth Edwards, Punxatawny Phil as Rielle Hunter...I'm stuck on John Edwards.

by Anonymousreply 244May 4, 2012 4:04 PM

How about Jerry O'Connell for John Edwards?

by Anonymousreply 245May 4, 2012 4:06 PM

Kathleen Turner as Elizabeth Edwards? She is too much of a tough broad w/the deep, deep voice, to play Elizabeth. Stockard Channing would be perfect. Rielle could be played by Blythe Danner....

by Anonymousreply 246May 4, 2012 4:10 PM

Are Hunter and Edwards still together? Answer me bitches!

by Anonymousreply 247May 4, 2012 4:18 PM

I wonder if he ever thought about having Rielle killed. I'm not kidding.

by Anonymousreply 248May 4, 2012 4:23 PM

[quote] there's absolutely no reason to believe age alone prevents conception.

No

No reason at all

Except for medical research.

"Every woman s fertility declines with age. Getting older means it will take longer to conceive and you may need help from a fertility doctor (Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility Specialist). A woman s fertility begins to decline gradually beginning in her late 20 s and continues this decline until age 34. At age 35 fertility begins to drop more rapidly. As a general rule, women have their best chance of getting pregnant before age 35. Once a woman is in her late 30 s, conception becomes more difficult and 50% of women in this age group will seek fertility treatment. By age 40 the ability to get pregnant drops further still. After 40 years of age, fertility is severely compromised. By age 42, only about 2% of women have children. "

But why pay attention to accepted fertility research when anyone on Datalounge can tell you whatever they believe to be the truth?

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 249May 4, 2012 4:29 PM

That hangar scene is your Emmy reel right there.

by Anonymousreply 250May 4, 2012 4:34 PM

[quote] Many if not most 40-year-old women have not begun menopause,

Most 40 year old women are perimenopausal. But you don't know what perimenopause is, do you?

by Anonymousreply 251May 4, 2012 4:34 PM

R248, I have to believe he thought about it. A LOT.

by Anonymousreply 252May 4, 2012 4:42 PM

Blythe Danner? She's 70 y/o. No way.

Charlie is spot on with the recommendation of Tom Cruise for John Edwards. That fake smile of his is PERFECT.

Okay let's see, for EE I would say Kristie Alley. For Rielle, I'll go with kooky Meg Ryan.

by Anonymousreply 253May 4, 2012 5:41 PM

How about chipmunk faced Melissa Gilbert for EE? She can fling her shit bra at Johnny on the tarmac.

by Anonymousreply 254May 4, 2012 5:44 PM

bump to stop the paranoia

by Anonymousreply 255May 5, 2012 1:28 PM

Lord knows at least it was there

But this thread's still here

by Anonymousreply 256May 5, 2012 8:56 PM

bump to baffle the posters on the " Why in the world was the very interesting thread on Elizabeth Edwards DELETED?" thread

by Anonymousreply 257May 6, 2012 12:17 PM

another baffle bump

by Anonymousreply 258May 6, 2012 8:12 PM

ghost thread bump

by Anonymousreply 259May 8, 2012 2:39 AM

phantom bump

by Anonymousreply 260May 9, 2012 3:17 AM

spooky bump

by Anonymousreply 261May 10, 2012 3:09 AM

Late bump

by Anonymousreply 262May 11, 2012 3:52 AM

morning bump

by Anonymousreply 263May 11, 2012 11:42 AM

saturday bump

by Anonymousreply 264May 12, 2012 11:59 AM

sunday breast bump

by Anonymousreply 265May 13, 2012 1:05 PM

bumpitty titty bump

by Anonymousreply 266May 14, 2012 2:43 AM

spectral bump

by Anonymousreply 267May 16, 2012 1:14 AM

hump bump

by Anonymousreply 268May 17, 2012 2:29 AM

weekend bump

by Anonymousreply 269May 19, 2012 11:57 AM

reminder bump

by Anonymousreply 270May 27, 2012 2:57 PM

memorial day bump

by Anonymousreply 271May 28, 2012 12:49 PM

never say die bump

by Anonymousreply 272May 30, 2012 2:37 AM

late May bump

by Anonymousreply 273May 31, 2012 11:22 AM

junebug bump

by Anonymousreply 274June 2, 2012 6:42 PM

sunday bump

by Anonymousreply 275June 4, 2012 3:08 AM

weekend bump

by Anonymousreply 276June 9, 2012 1:17 PM

mid june bump

by Anonymousreply 277June 16, 2012 2:46 PM

July bump

by Anonymousreply 278July 1, 2012 2:52 PM

independence bump

by Anonymousreply 279July 4, 2012 1:17 PM

sunday bump

by Anonymousreply 280July 29, 2012 12:47 PM

august bump

by Anonymousreply 281August 5, 2012 2:42 PM

labor day bump

by Anonymousreply 282September 1, 2012 1:30 PM

autumnal bump

by Anonymousreply 283September 30, 2012 5:23 PM

Post election bump

by Anonymousreply 284November 10, 2012 1:26 PM

one who knows bump

by Anonymousreply 285November 11, 2012 11:30 AM

Turkey lurkey weekend bump

by Anonymousreply 286November 25, 2012 6:24 PM

2013 bump

by Anonymousreply 287January 1, 2013 2:09 PM

spring bump

by Anonymousreply 288April 13, 2013 7:22 PM

mid august bump

by Anonymousreply 289August 17, 2013 12:58 PM

Dylan bump

by Anonymousreply 290February 8, 2014 11:15 AM

late june bump

by Anonymousreply 291June 27, 2014 10:46 AM

mint julep bump

by Anonymousreply 292June 29, 2014 8:11 PM

fertility bump

by Anonymousreply 293June 30, 2014 1:04 PM

joan rivers bump

by Anonymousreply 294September 9, 2014 10:43 AM

fall season bump

by Anonymousreply 295September 17, 2014 6:23 PM

bumpbumpbump

by Anonymousreply 296September 26, 2014 2:50 AM

Texas sheet cake bump

by Anonymousreply 297September 28, 2014 7:45 PM

fall foliage bump

by Anonymousreply 298October 5, 2014 12:27 PM

stephen collins bump

by Anonymousreply 299October 9, 2014 2:06 AM

fall foliage bump

by Anonymousreply 300October 11, 2014 8:15 PM

ebola bump

by Anonymousreply 301October 19, 2014 3:16 AM

All saints day bump

by Anonymousreply 302November 1, 2014 4:21 PM

snow bump

by Anonymousreply 303November 16, 2014 6:19 PM

black friday bump

by Anonymousreply 304November 29, 2014 3:00 AM

sony email leak bump

by Anonymousreply 305December 14, 2014 6:24 PM

winter solstice bump

by Anonymousreply 306December 22, 2014 2:59 AM

2015 bump

by Anonymousreply 307January 1, 2015 1:00 PM

french terror bump

by Anonymousreply 308January 10, 2015 1:50 PM

super bowl weekend bump

by Anonymousreply 309January 31, 2015 4:08 PM

DST bump

by Anonymousreply 310March 8, 2015 11:50 AM

Chest bearing bump!

by Anonymousreply 311June 13, 2017 5:18 PM

Heat wave bump

by Anonymousreply 312June 13, 2017 5:22 PM

Did anyone ever see the sex tape with John's big penis on display?

by Anonymousreply 313June 13, 2017 6:54 PM

dramatic much?

by Anonymousreply 314July 6, 2018 10:10 AM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!