John Edwards backs out of U of I appearance
Former presidential hopeful John Edwards has canceled a speaking engagement scheduled for Oct. 14 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In recent days, Edwards has backed out of similar speaking engagements at colleges around the country. The appearances were scheduled before he admitted to an extramarital affair about a month ago.
The Illini Union Board, the student group who had planned to pay Edwards $65,000 to speak on campus, posted the following statement from Edwards on its Web site:
“I have decided to avoid any public engagements until after the election in November. Nothing is more important than electing Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I don’t want my appearance at these events to be a distraction from the important issues of the election, or from the important purpose of these meetings.”
The Illini Union Board said it had not yet distributed tickets for the event.
Edwards has canceled other planned appearances at Hofstra University in New York and Salem State College in Massachusetts.
Kavita Kumar covers higher education for the Post-Dispatch. 
Only in Illinois could a university that whines for money every year agree to pay a multi-millionaire, trial lawyer who has admitted cheating on his dying wife, $65,000. If he wants that kind of money from Illinois, he should do it the old-fashioned way and run for governor.
Mr. Edwards should have backed out of something else a while back!
Nice to see Edwards suffering some fallout from his actions. He spent his campaign lecturing Americans about how we weren’t doing enough for the underclass, while building the biggest home in North Carolina. In sum, he was a hypocrite even before this news. Now even the Left sees this guy for what he is, or at least they know he’s severely damaged goods.