Run, Elizabeth, run

Many presidents have lived with the ill health of loved ones. Can we stop asking John Edwards when he's dropping out of the presidential race?

March 27, 2007 What made the comeback so withering was that it was delivered in such a matter-of-fact tone.

During a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday night, Katie Couric kept hectoring John and Elizabeth Edwards about their stubbornness in the face of cancer. Again and again, without getting the response she wanted, Couric asked them why they hadn't yielded to the return of Elizabeth's illness and broadly hinted that they should have called off John's campaign for the presidency. Finally, almost in exasperation, Couric turned to Elizabeth and said bluntly, "Here you're staring at possible death..." Elizabeth interrupted Couric with this cut-to-the-chase response: "Aren't we all, though?"

Left unsaid was that Couric's husband had died from colon cancer in 1998 -- and the perky anchor kept appearing on the "Today" show till the last week of his life. Left unsaid was that legendary newsman Ed Bradley, who died of leukemia last year, was contributing to "60 Minutes" until the very end.

Embedded in Couric's smarmy comment was the implication that any public figure afflicted with an incurable disease has an obligation to climb on an ice floe and sail off to oblivion so that TV viewers in the prized 18-to-35-year-old demographic do not have to acknowledge their own mortality. Or that, at least, Elizabeth Edwards, whose breast cancer has recurred, owes it to the world to spend her remaining years offstage with their two small children, Emma Claire, 8, and 6-year-old Jack.

By Walter Shapiro