Last year, this silly little gossip site was one of the few blather-outlets that stayed on top of the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter story during the three long weeks between the National Enquirer catching Edwards redhanded and his semi-quasi-anti-confession on Nightline. While every single “legitimate” news outlet either ignored the story or actively tried to suppress it, we were sorting through the lies and half-truths and mysteriously disappearing online information to figure out what was going on and why it was being covered up.

But the whole time we were trying to get to the bottom of it, there was one sad aspect of it that we skirted around: Elizabeth.

The woman is dying of cancer. On one hand, that’s one reason the story was and is such an outrage. John Edwards and the media were complicit in covering it up, using Elizabeth’s illness as cover. It really did fit the classic definition of chutzpah: The child who kills his own parents and then begs for the mercy of the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan. Or in this case, the presidential candidate who has an affair on the campaign trail and starts another family behind the back of his terminally ill wife, and then demands privacy because his wife is dying.

But on the other hand, it was difficult to judge Elizabeth too harshly when it became unclear whether she was telling the whole truth about what she knew and when she knew it. It’s not her fault that any of this happened, and you can’t fault her for being loyal to her unloyal husband even in the face of such an unbelievable nightmare.

All of which is a caveat to this item about Elizabeth’s new book. The New York Daily News reports:

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.

This corroborates John Edwards’ claim on Nightline that he’d told his family about it in 2006. There was some question about that, because of a photo of an Edwards campaign rally on Dec. 30, 2006 where Elizabeth and Rielle were just a few feet away from each other. At the time that photo was discovered, just a week after Edwards’ Nightline appearance, it seemed unlikely that Elizabeth could’ve possibly put up with Rielle’s presence in the campaign if she knew what was going on. How could she smile and wave and shake hands while she knew her husband’s mistress was attached to him at the hip?

But in hindsight… it’s plausible. Maybe Elizabeth thought she was doing what she needed to do to support her husband. Maybe she thought exposing his betrayal wasn’t worth ruining his chances for the presidency. She wanted him to quit, but he wouldn’t, so she stood by him. Now that she has committed to print the claim that she really did know about the affair when John says she knew about it, then apparently that’s the way it was.

And even if you still don’t buy it: Can you blame her for saying so?