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Monday, November 18, 2002
Safire goes over the top in assessing JFK's medical records.
Going with his conclusion first, that "...candidates should not put ambition above honesty in dealing with questions about their physical and mental ability to serve. And they should order their doctors to tell the public the whole truth." Well, firstly, as we'll no doubt find, Kennedy's records aren't the only ones we're missing. Secondly, Safire makes no comparisons with Nixon's alcholism, Reagan's Alzheimer's, Cheney's heart, and, who knows, maybe what came from W's colonoscopy should be up for discussion heading into '04. It's not like JFK was to have less ability to serve as president than as senator -- his performance in the latter was public record, and should have guided decision-making about being elected to the former.
Having disposed of his argument, his column as a whole is, well, very icky. Take this blindside hit meant to make JFK into a raver:These medical records do not include additional drugs from Max Jacobson, who later lost his license for prescribing amphetamines. (In 1972, Times reporters Martin Tolchin and Dr. Lawrence Altman — pursuing a tip about Vice President Spiro Agnew that never panned out — followed the trail that led to the earlier supply of speed by "Dr. Feelgood" to the Kennedy White House.) The whole piece reeks of an attempt at vengeance. Even further is this really odd argument asking for more disclosure of records:What else is there in the taxpayer-subsidized Kennedy Library that might provide students of history material that goes beyond the transcripts and adulatory movies showing a crisp, alert president saving the world from missiles in Cuba? The real message here, I think, is: Grow up, Bill.
UPDATE: Safire didn't discuss Reagan's Alzheimer's, but he did talk about Cheney's heart condition in a December, 2000 column:...One hopes that Bush has drawn an even more basic lesson about Senate confirmation from Cheney's heart attack a week ago. When it comes to health, an appointee -- especially one with a finger on or near the nuclear button -- must expect to give up a private citizen's right to privacy.
Throughout the campaign, Cheney ducked detailed questions about his heart disease. His blood pressure and daily medications were not revealed. We now know that our toleration of his brush-offs was a mistake.
Last week, George Washington University Hospital doctors -- fully aware that Cheney had suffered what the medical profession considered to be a mild heart attack -- failed to disclose that newsworthy fact in an abortive 10-minute news conference. Instead, they said soothingly that his cardiac enzymes were " minimally elevated."
This did not fool Lawrence K. Altman, M.D., The New York Times' medical columnist and the leading diagnostician of medical mendacity. Until compelled to tell the truth hours later, Altman wrote, the doctors
added to "a long list of cases in which doctors have misinformed the public, concealed information or lied about the health of candidates for, and occupants of, the White House."
Because the Bush staff failed to press the doctors for an accurate assessment in plain words, Bush was embarrassingly misinformed. He passed on that reassuring misinformation to the public on television.
The mild heart attack was not life-threatening, and the patient was blessedly back at work in a few days. But the protective mind set that eroded credibility reflected badly on not just the doctors, who otherwise practiced good medicine.
It also showed that Cheney and the Bush staff need a new attitude toward full disclosure in crises lest their boss is made to look like a man too prone to believe what he hopes to be true.
But to Tom Brokaw on NBC Wednesday night, Cheney stonewalled again. His recalcitrance will make the coming cabinet confirmations all the more difficult.
So he's somewhat consistent on this point, though he's more reserved in his critique of the Cheney situation than that of JFK (As Safire concludes the column, it becomes unclear wheter he cares the most about having a healthy guy in charge, full disclosure, or press incompetence).
THE GLARING PROBLEM HERE, as further research points out, is that Safire himself didn't write about Cheney's heart during the campaign...
Steven I. Weiss 8:25:00 PM
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