Reply #42: Confusion - bewilderment that she and JRE fell so far so fast

[karynnj]

I agree with you that this creates another horrible, permanent legacy for the Edwards kids.

The strange thing is that she clearly put out the word that she is staying with JRE for the kids because of her health - unless her brother spoke unauthorized and lied to People magazine. Then there were stories that she was stunned that the story completely shattered JRE's reputation and she wanted her kids to know the good side as well. Now, if that were where she was, you would think that she would concentrate on her health care policy job and push JRE to quietly work on programs that actually did something for some aspect of poverty. This is the only thing that would make people believe that he was ever sincere and cared for anything other than himself.

With this book - as you say - she reignites the story. The one difference I see in the story then and her story now is the timeline. She now places it after the announcement. If so, she lied in August when she backed JRE up - because it was highly unlikely it was in 2006. In EE's own statement on Daily Kos ( http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/8/193337/7354/473/564989 ) she also agreed with JRE's timeline that he told her in 2006. One thing that likely stunned her was the number of people who blamed her for not stopping the run knowing this. I suspect that the charge that she knew before the kick off and was therefore guilty of risking the election bothers her.

In her book, she spoke of learning after the offical announcement - yet, she wasn't in New Orleans, or on any stop on the announcement tour until December 30 when he returned to NC on December 30. On December 31, they were on George Stephanopolis' show. (
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/3/24155/15367 Now, I may be underestimating EE, but I tend to doubt that Edwards told her of the affair on Dec 30 (the first day they were together since the kick off) and she did that interview the next day - http://www.abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Story?id=2762463&page=4

This segment is (in retrospect) interesting

"Stephanopoulos: I've been looking at the pod casts you all have been putting out. Are you going to be the You Tube candidate of 2008?

Edwards: What's funny is we actually did the announcement on You Tube the night before I was on your show on Thursday morning and I think it's a great way to reach grassroots people, to build a campaign from the ground up, which is the way I not only believe campaigns should be built now, but the way that we change the country.



Stephanopoulos: So in one of those pod casts you said...

Edwards on his podcast: I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am. Not based on some plastic Ken-doll.

That's the word Republicans used to describe you in the last campaign.

Elizabeth Edwards: I think it was Maureen Dowd. "

Now the video of this interview shows EE with JRE both laughing after this Hunter video segment is shown. (in the last 1 and a half minutes of this - http://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2762246 ) To me this is proof, that Elizabeth Edwards did not know on December 31, 2006 and that she lied to protect JRE's lie in her Daily Kos post - without considering what it would do to her own reputation. The problem is that the change now makes JRE look even worse as he lied even in his confession and it means that she lied to protect him.