Elizabeth Edwards was on The Today Show this morning promoting her new book Resilience. She spoke candidly about preparing for the end of her life from cancer, about the tragic loss of her son, Wade, at the age of 16 in a car accident, and about her reasons for staying with her husband, former Presidential Candidate John Edwards, despite the fact that he cheated on her and ultimately admitted it to the media. Elizabeth came across as determined to keep her marriage and family together no matter what, and you can tell she chooses what to believe when it comes to her husband’s infidelity. She called his affair, which resulted in a child, “one mistake,” and said that he’s otherwise a wonderful husband.

When asked if her book was about revenge or an attempt to rake her husband over the coals, Elizabeth said that she had planned it well before she learned about the affair. As for whether Edwards illegally funneled campaign money to Rielle, who Elizabeth asked not to be referred to by name, she said that it’s not possible because campaign finances are public record. She also claims to have stood by her husband during the campaign because she believed at that point that the affair was just a one night fling. Doesn’t that mean that John made more than one mistake? You would think that lying to her about the affair would count as another separate mistake or at least a compounded one. Add a baby to the mix and that’s three strikes:

“This sounds odd, but except for this very big thing that he had done that was bad, I thought I was married — I believe [I am] now — to a magnificent man, someone who truly cared about other people,” the wife of former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Monday in New York. It was her first live television interview since the publication of her book, “Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities”

Edwards has had her share of adversities. She is living with stage 4 breast cancer that has metastasized to her bones and other organs. And she had to deal with the revelation last year that the one-night stand her husband confessed to her was actually an extended affair with a younger woman that may have resulted in his fathering an illegitimate daughter.

Love despite all
During an hour-long prerecorded interview with Oprah Winfrey last week, Edwards had appeared to vacillate when answering a question about whether she still loves her husband. She told Lauer that her answer was misinterpreted in media reports.

She talked about how, when she knew she had incurable cancer and was lying in bed with her sparse hair going in every direction, her husband looked at her as if she was the prettiest girl in the world. “I see in the way that he looks at me and cares for me that this relationship is the essential relationship of his life as it is for my life,” Edwards told Lauer.

“He’s been a marvelous father,” she said, adding that John Edwards is genuinely dedicated to battling poverty around the world and helping others. “He made this one mistake, so do I throw out all the good stuff and say, ‘That doesn’t matter, only this matters?’ ” she asked.

So, in answer to Lauer’s question of whether she loves her husband, Edwards replied: “I do love him. I wouldn’t be making all this effort and undergoing all this scrutiny if I didn’t love him. I need him and I really believe he needs me.”

In the wake of the highly publicized affair with freelance videographer Rielle Hunter that was originally exposed by the National Enquirer, John Edwards is under investigation for possible felonies connected to payments made to Hunter through his campaign committee. But Elizabeth Edwards said she is confident her husband broke no laws.

“Not possible” that husband funneled money to Hunter
“The way campaign funds are distributed are all a matter of record,” she said. “It’s just not possible” that her husband is guilty of criminal behavior with the funds, she added.

Airing dirty laundry?
Edwards has been harshly criticized by columnists Maureen Dowd of The New York Times and Sally Quinn of The Washington Post for airing her family’s laundry in public. Dowd accused Edwards of “flogging” her husband in public. Quinn excoriated her for letting Edwards run in the Democratic presidential primaries last year while knowing that he had had an affair.

Edwards told Lauer that at the time, she thought that her husband had been guilty of a one-night indiscretion, as he originally had assured her. Had she known that it was much more than that, she said, “I probably would have been more adamant about his not running than I was.”

In her book, Edwards says she hopes that her children will tell their own children that she “stood in the storm.”

Edwards also denied accusations that she wrote the book to gain revenge against Hunter. During the TODAY interview as well as other interviews Edwards has given about the book, Hunter’s name was never mentioned on the air.

“That was never my purpose,” she said.

[From MSNBC]

This lady is dying and I don’t blame her for trying to do what she can to keep her family together and leave a legacy for her children. You can tell that she pins the whole thing on the mistress, though, and doesn’t think her husband is capable of the level of deception required to carry out an affair for months, father a child, and arrange a home, money and decoy boyfriend for the other woman. Yes he might have stood by Elizabeth when she was sick, but was John sneaking out from his wife’s bedside to meet Rielle in hotels? He told her it was just one night and then was caught out in a huge elaborate lie, just like he lied to the media when he claimed Rielle’s baby wasn’t his. Elizabeth kind of faltered when asked what she would do when the DNA test was ordered, and you can tell she hadn’t really considered the possibility or was trying not to think about it. We’ll soon be hearing that the baby is indeed John’s, but given the way Elizabeth is acting it probably won’t cause her much additional pain. She refuses to believe that her husband is at all culpable for the affair and sees it as a blemish on his record rather than the major betrayal that it was.

As most people probably remember, when the story broke about John Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter, the news was broken by The National Enquirer. The Enquirer has stayed on every detail of this story, and in turn, has broken several more John Edwards-related news. The Enquirer broke the story that Edwards was being investigated for fraud and misuse of campaign finances, all related to the affair.

Now the Enquirer is claiming that Rielle Hunter is really pissed about the way Elizabeth Edwards has come after her. Elizabeth is out promoting her new book, Resilience, and Elizabeth has been bashing Rielle as “pathetic”. The worst of it (for Rielle) was most likely Elizabeth and John’s appearance on Oprah, where they seemed to be presenting an image of familial dysfunction yet familial loyalty. Elizabeth told Oprah (regarding the affair): “There is no excuse for women to do this… Women need to have respect for other women.”

So Rielle is pissed. And she’s fighting back – the Enquirer claims that Rielle is threatening to come clean about her baby’s paternity. Rielle will demand that John Edwards take a DNA test to confirm that he is the father of her 14-month-old daughter Frances. The Enquirer has long claimed the baby Frances is John’s, but John and Elizabeth have stopped short of confirming it. When Oprah asked Elizabeth, Elizabeth said “I’ve seen a picture of the baby… I have no idea. It doesn’t look like my children, but I don’t have any idea.”

John Edwards’ furious mistress is demanding he submit to a DNA test, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively!

Rielle Hunter – the longtime secret lover of the disgraced 2-time presidential candidate – wants definitive proof that Edwards is the father of her 14-month-old love child Frances and is working with a lawyer to take legal action, say sources.

The blonde divorcee – who gave birth in February 2008 – was slammed in the explosive new book Resilience written by the ex-senator’s cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth.

The ENQUIRER was the first to expose the extramarital affair in 2007, and Rielle’s sudden move to determine paternity is a clear signal that she is no longer willing to protect the philandering politician, who still has not admitted that he’s the father of her baby. Edwards recently confirmed he’s also the subject of a federal probe into possible campaign funds misuse in paying off hush money to Hunter.

“Rielle – probably naively – now realizes she had held onto a false promise that if she continued to take part in the cover-up John had engineered, they’d be together in the future,” a close source told The ENQUIRER.

“She was willing to protect John for the sake of the child. She agreed to allow a crony of his to claim he was the baby’s father, and she even kept the name of the father blank on the birth certificate.

“But now she can see there’s never going to be a future with John – and she feels he’s lied about his promise to keep Elizabeth from trashing her in the book,” the insider divulged.

“Rielle is so infuriated by his and Elizabeth’s actions that she’s throwing her loyalty to him out of the window!”

The source added: “Rielle wants the paternity of her daughter Frances finally established. It could ruin John for good because even after admitting the affair, he vehemently denied being the father!”

[From The National Enquirer]

I’ve always believed the father of the baby was, in fact, John Edwards. Much as he and Elizabeth want to deny it and bash Rielle Hunter, they can’t ignore the questions surrounding this baby’s paternity. However, I don’t think John made promises to Rielle about how they would be together, or anything about their future together. I believe that when Rielle became pregnant and decided to keep the baby, John and his closest circle of friends orchestrated a half-assed financial and paternity cover-up, which included pairing Rielle off with one of John’s friends. What Rielle was most likely promised was money, not love or affection. Perhaps Rielle thinks that if the Edwards family is going to continue to come after her, she’s going to need a bigger slice of the pie.

The first part of Elizabeth Edwards’ book tour is a stop on Oprah’s couch to talk about how John lied about all of the cheating, and how Rielle Hunter (“the other woman”) is “pathetic”. Actually, all of that is from Elizabeth’s book, Resilience. When Oprah sat down with Elizabeth in the Edwards’ North Carolina home, Elizabeth refused to use Rielle’s name, only calling her “this person”.

Oprah actually had the cojones to ask Elizabeth about the rumor that John Edwards is the father of Rielle’s child, and Elizabeth actually answers! Elizabeth replied, “That’s what I understand. I’ve seen a picture of the baby. I have no idea. It doesn’t look like my children, but I don’t have any idea.” Whoa… that’s intense. Did it occur to Elizabeth to actually ask John? Or maybe she did, and he lied, or Elizabeth doesn’t know if he’s lying? Or Rielle is lying? Did it occur to anyone to get a damn blood test?

In a revealing new interview with Oprah Winfrey, Elizabeth Edwards says it’s “complicated” when asked about the state of her marriage to former presidential candidate John Edwards, who famously had an affair with videographer Rielle Hunter.

Is it a day by day thing, Winfrey asks her on Thursday’s show.

“Neither one of us is out the door,” replies Elizabeth, who is battling terminal breast cancer. “So I guess it’s day by day, but maybe it’s month by month.”

Elizabeth — who spoke to Winfrey from her family’s 28,000-square-foot home in Chapel Hill, NC — says they’re “still living together.” But when asked if she still loves her husband, she replies, “You know, that’s a complicated question.”

Looking back on their marriage, Elizabeth tells Winfrey she asked John for one gift before her wedding 31 years ago.

“I wanted him to be faithful to me,” she says. “It was enormously important to me.”‘

But, days after declaring his run for president in 2006, John confessed to his wife that he had had an affair. (The National Enquirer broke the story a year later.)

“What John said is that this woman spotted him in the hotel in which he was staying. He was meeting someone in the restaurant bar area, and she verified with someone who he worked with that it was John,” Elizabeth tells Winfrey.

“John went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and when he walked back to the hotel, she was standing in front of the hotel. She said to him, ‘You are so hot.’”

After the Enquirer broke the story, it also reported that John was the father of Hunter’s daughter (which he denied).

Asked about the speculation, Elizabeth says, “That’s what I understand. I’ve seen a picture of the baby. I have no idea. It doesn’t look like my children, but I don’t have any idea.”

Elizabeth — whose memoir Resilience is to be published May 12 — opens up more about Hunter in the June issue of O.

Choosing not to address Hunter by name, she says, “This person is very different from me, and really very different from him. We’re basically old-fashioned people. So, this was a pretty big leap for him. Maybe it’s being so different is what was attractive.”

Asked about her own mortality, Elizabeth says it’s not “frightening,” but she prays for an “ever-after.”

“I would be leaving part of my family, but I can do [that] and join another party and wait for that day when we’re all together again,” she says. “In some ways, it’s something you yearn for.”

[From US Weekly]

“This person is very different from me, and really very different from him. We’re basically old-fashioned people. So, this was a pretty big leap for him. Maybe it’s being so different is what was attractive.” Funny how that goes – Elizabeth is basically saying John wanted a little “strange” – well, he got it. And now Elizabeth is out there, speaking with more honesty than any cheated-on wife in recent memory.

Everything involving the John Edwards affair made me sick – the affair itself, the lies, the hypocrisy, the financial shenanigans, the way the media covered the story, and the lack of moral accountability. It was all just… gross. We had some idea that Elizabeth Edwards would write about what happened, and now she has. The New York Daily News got their hands on an advance copy of Elizabeth’s new book, Resilience.

In the book, Elizabeth writes that when she learned of the affair, she threw up. Yep, I nearly did too. She also writes that John told her of the affair in 2006, shortly after they had decided he would run again in the 2008 race. As it turns out, John even lied about the extent of the affair when he first told Elizabeth. Gross.

Elizabeth obviously felt betrayed, but she stuck with him. What really bothers me about that is not so much that both of them lied about this fake “happy family” they had, or that Elizabeth didn’t leave him, but that John Edwards basically made his dying wife part of the reason to vote for him. It’s as if he was saying to the world, “You should vote for me because I will be with Elizabeth to her last dying day, and no one else.” When he was already fooling around. Just… gross.

Campaign cad John Edwards cheating ways made his wife, Elizabeth, sick to her stomach – literally.

After the former presidential hopeful confessed his betrayal, Elizabeth Edwards writes in her new book, “I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up.”

Elizabeth, 59, who is terminally ill with cancer, speaks in far more detail than before about her husband’s infidelity in her new memoir, “Resilience,” due to be published May 12 by Broadway Books. A copy was obtained by the Daily News.

Despite feeling deeply deceived, Elizabeth Edwards nonetheless publicly stood by her husband’s side, lending his candidacy the aura of a warm, loving family life.

But she had actually wanted him to quit the race to protect the family. Edwards admitted the hanky-panky to her days after declaring his candidacy in 2006 – almost a year before the National Enquirer reported it.

She was afraid of the destructive questions Edwards’ affair with videographer Rielle Hunter would raise.

Later events proved her right. “He should not have run,” she says.

Edwards did not publicly admit the affair until last August – seven months after he quit the race, and the National Enquirer had reported he was the father of Hunter’s infant daughter.

Edwards denied paternity, and his wife’s book doesn’t address that issue.

But it does highlight Elizabeth Edwards’ anger and sorrow at being duped by a man whose four children she’d borne and whose political ambitions she’d passionately supported for so many years.

Hunter initially seduced Edwards using a worn come-on line, Elizabeth writes: “You are so hot,” Hunter told him outside a swank New York hotel. The campaign ultimately paid Hunter $114,000 to produce a batch of short films on his candidacy.

She lashes out at Hunter, now 45, whose name she never actually uses in the book, as a parasitic groupie who invaded the Edwardses’ life.

Her own life may be tragic, she concludes, but Hunter’s is “pathetic.”

Even when Edwards confessed to his wife, he lied, claiming he had slipped up just once, Elizabeth writes. His original version of the story “left most of the truth out,” she writes.

While Elizabeth still hasn’t fully come to terms with her man’s roaming, the memoir is laced with a powerful dose of forgiveness.

“I lie in bed, circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions, and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It matters,” she writes.

From New York Daily News

I totally understand her anger at Rielle Hunter, but if Rielle is “pathetic”, so is John. Not only did he cheat, he lied and used Elizabeth’s illness in a really craven, sociopathic way, all to get some votes. I can understand why Elizabeth is staying with John in theory – she doesn’t have many years left, and she wants to spend this time with her husband and children. But at some point, I just feel like she needs to acknowledge that her husband was more culpable in the affair than the bimbo who got pregnant.

John and Elizabeth Edwards are shown at Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Gala on 5/8/07. Images thanks to PR Photos.com.

The situation for disgraced former presidential candidate John Edwards is really starting to get sticky. We told you how Edwards privately admitted to his wife that he is indeed the father of mistress Rielle Hunter’s 1-year-old daughter, Frances. Now, Elizabeth Edwards, who is dying from terminal breast cancer, will be making an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. It’s not clear what Mrs. Edwards will be talking about, but Rielle Hunter is prepared to respond to any potential remarks by making an appearance of he own in an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters.

John Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter is “ready for her close-up” with her first national TV interview since the cheating scandal wrecked his career, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

In a startling change of heart, Rielle Hunter has decided to face the cameras and has narrowed her choice of interviewer to either “ABC News” correspondents Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters, say sources.

“Rielle had previously assured John she wasn’t going to spill the beans,” said a close source. “But she’s changed her tune after thinking Elizabeth Edwards might disparage her in the upcoming interview she’s already taped with Oprah Winfrey.

“The interview will be broadcast in mid-May to coincide with the publication of Elizabeth’s new book in which she’s likely to address the affair.”

As a result, a behind-the-scenes war of words is breaking out between Rielle and Elizabeth.

“Rielle’s decided she’s not going to sit back while Edwards’ wife gives her side of the story,” said the close source. “As much as John hates it, he’s defenseless to stop either woman from saying what she wants. It’s now erupted into a war between his wife and his former mistress over who will have the last word in what could be dueling TV interviews.”

Rielle intensified talks with the ABC superstars in early April in preparation for going in front of the cameras.

“No deal is done, but Rielle seems to favor Barbara Walters over Diane because Barbara admitted recently she engaged in a long-ago affair,” said the close source. “This makes Rielle believe Barbara will show her more compassion than Diane would.”

Following a series of world exclusive Enquirer exposes, the former presidential candidate finally admitted to the affair last summer – after our reporters caught the ex-senator visiting Rielle and her baby in a Beverly Hills hotel.

Both Edwards and Rielle have publicly maintained that Edwards is not the father.

Rielle claimed that the father is Andrew Young, a married Edwards crony. But we’ve reported that Rielle has privately told close friends that she never had a sexual relationship with Young – and has confided that Edwards is really the baby’s father.

Will Rielle spill her guts on national TV?

[From The National Enquirer print version, April 27, 2009]

Between his wife doing Oprah and his mistress doing ABC news, John Edwards’ head must be about to explode. And I say, serves him right! This jerk thought he could get away with cheating on his terminally ill wife AND fathering a child with that mistress. He admitted in that interview last year that not only did he cheat, but he is a narcissist. Damn right. I don’t really have any interest in hearing what this Rielle person has to say. She’s just as bad as he is. It’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting herself into with Edwards. The person I’d love to hear from is Elizabeth – although it seems like she has chosen to stand by her man- even though he’s a total scum bag.

Elizabeth Edwards shared some of her feelings with the Detroit Free Press about the affair her husband, John Edwards, finally admitted to six weeks ago.  With a clearly strong and dedicated devotion to family, Elizabeth opens up about the difficulties of dealing with infidelity and the hope she has for life beyond breast cancer.

Nearly six weeks after news broke of her husband John’s extramarital affair, Elizabeth Edwards opened up about her “ongoing process of finding your feet again.”

“There’s a lot of adjustment to make,” Edwards told the Detroit Free Press in her first interview since her husband, 55, a former presidential candidate, admitted in a TV interview that he had been unfaithful. “Trust … [is] probably the most difficult hurdle.”

Edwards, 59, says that as she continues to undergo treatment for her stage 4 breast cancer, she remains optimistic because “With the research, it looks like there may be a new drug for me down the line. My job is to stay alive until they find a cure. I don’t think there’s any way to live with this diagnosis than to have that kind of optimism.”

[People]

After months of steadfastly campaigning by her husbands side while dealing with the treatment and effects of stage 4 breast cancer, Elizabeth was faced with the public disgrace of her husband’s infidelity and rumors of his fathering a child with the woman he cheated with.  Through all of that, she manages to remain gracious, even refusing to “feed the monster” when asked if she’s forgiven her husband. 

“I don’t want to feed the monster, if you don’t mind.” She added that if she had her leg amputated, as opposed to her husband having an affair, people would not ask: “Are you over that leg thing yet?”

She added, “People had this idea that we represented, as a couple, some sort of perfection … There is no perfection out there.”

[People]

Elizabeth’s main focus is on her children and her advocacy work. Through everything her husband John has put her through, she hopes her children will continue to see their father as “an adovcate for poverty, not this current picture of him, to be the one they carry with him.  I need to create the picture of him that I want them to have.”  That’s admirable of her, for her children’s sake, but so unfair for her at any stage of life, but especially in the one she’s in.  I hope for the sake of John Edward’s soul he thanks not only God but his amazing wife for being her, every single day that he has.

In the meantime, Elizabeth Edwards stays strong and hopeful, and continues to advocate for women’s issues and health care reform.  She testified before Congress on health care reform Thursday and a Detroit visit is scheduled for October 15, during Breast Cancer Awareness month, to speak on coping with the “ongoing process of finding your feet again” after adversity.

Elizabeth Edwards knows adversity, and not surprisingly, she seems to know how to find her feet again, too.

John and Elizabeth Edwards are shown at Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Gala on 5/8/07. Credit: Janet Mayer / PR Photos