J Walking

J Walking

“Real Family Values”

posted by J-Walking | 6:16pm Thursday March 22, 2007

From Andrew Sullivan:

What I saw in this press conference was the reality of family values – not the rhetoric, not the divisiveness, not the politics, just the reality of an actual family dealing with real issues. We all face such issues. Cancer survivors and their families know it all too well. So do those of us who live with HIV, diabetes, Parkinsons and many other diseases that patients can now live with, rather than die from. In this, John Edwards is doing a public service. He was admirably candid about his wife’s cancer being treatable, if not curable. That paradigm is increasingly common – and it’s affirming to see someone in public life live through it so positively, so admirably and so passionately. She shouldn’t give in to it. One key to surviving serious illness is to live positively and candidly while you treat it. With HIV, I learned to repeat to myself a triad that was essential to surviving any serious medical condition: Own it, face it, beat it. That’s what the Edwardses did today, and they will help a lot of people through their example.

The campaign should go on, as life goes on. The cancer should neither help nor hurt it. But I will say this: Elizabeth Edwards is a truly remarkable human being. And her marriage is an inspiration.



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Comments read comments(4)
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Tina

posted March 23, 2007 at 1:43 am


Reality is, the cancer is going to play in this. I saw on the news “Not curable”. That tells me she will die. How can he even THINK about anything else but his wife? I like him, voted for him and Kerry, and would vote for him this time… Except… How can he lead one of the most powerful countries in the world, a job that ages EVERY man who has ever held it, with his wife’s problems weighing on his mind? How can I trust a man who would put ANYthing ahead of his wife?



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Jon H

posted March 23, 2007 at 2:02 am


“That tells me she will die.” So will he. Life itself is not curable. “How can I trust a man who would put ANYthing ahead of his wife?” Don’t *all* presidents and candidates, though? (Not sure about Bush, he doesn’t seem to put anything ahead of his bedtime, let alone his wife.) At the very minimum, becoming President means making yourself a target, for physical and verbal attacks. And either way your spouse is at some degree of risk, whether she’s Jackie O. sitting in a hail of bullets, or Hillary Clinton becoming the target of all kinds of slander. And I don’t think anyone would call a Presidential campaign family-friendly.



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Tina

posted March 23, 2007 at 3:08 am


None of the others had terminal cancer.



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Donny

posted March 23, 2007 at 5:06 pm


Please use someone else for “family values” please. Andrew Sullivan represents anything but . . . I also have a treatable but incurable disease. I could go today or years and years from now. Let us both, David, contend for the faith delivered ONLY once to the Saints. Sullivan is not doing that.And let us not yoke ourselves to unblievers or false teachers. Whatever time is alotted to us for living, let us and it be for the Lord. Post something from James Dobson once and awhile would you?



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