The Edwards Announcement Politicized?

March 23, 2007 — -- I've often suspected that I don't really have the stomach for being a politician or even someone who could be a Washington insider or pundit who lives and breathes politics.

My reaction to this week's news conference by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, confirmed it.

Make no mistake about it: I wouldn't vote for John Edwards if I were forced to do so at gunpoint. Well, maybe I would if my life was threatened, but I'd at least try to get the vote canceled after I gained my freedom.

But watching Edwards and his wife face a throng of reporters and photographers and a nosy, inquiring nation and have to confirm any couple's worst nightmare that a recurrence of cancer had occurred just broke my heart.

I understand that he's a presidential candidate. I realize that this announcement is newsworthy. But I wonder how many of us are able to put ourselves in John or Elizabeth Edwards' shoes and even begin to feel what it must be like to be unable to deal with this enormous grief, anguish, fear and uncertainty in private?

I don't like his politics and certainly hope he doesn't win in 2008. But I couldn't help but have tremendous admiration for the sheer courage it must take to face a bunch of reporters with your cancer-stricken wife by your side and face this potentially horrible future in such a public way. And what bravery it took for Elizabeth Edwards, looking gaunt and obviously still feeling the pain of the biopsy, having to smile and talk optimistically about something that we all know will be at the very least an enormously challenging, painful road ahead.

And then, to suffer through the inevitable post-announcement analysis was practically more than anyone should have to bear. Again, I know that presidential politics is mighty important. But to any of us who have had loved ones fight a deadly disease, there really isn't anything else in the world as important as being with our wife or husband or mother or father or sister or brother or son or daughter as they fight for their lives.

Mike Gallagher is a national syndicated talk radio host and a contributing editor for Townhall.com. His Web site is http://www.mikeonline.com.