lundi 24 décembre 2007

Sorry, Rudy, but when you're running for president, your health is important

Mayor 9/11 continues to display flashes of the arrogance that made people in New York glad to see him go:

Asked if he would disclose all his health records after Christmas, Mr. Giuliani said, “He’s going to put out everything that’s appropriate to show that I’m in good health.”

Speaking to reporters after holding a town-hall-style meeting here, Mr. Giuliani said that he had had a bad headache, and that he did not know why his campaign told reporters that he had “flulike symptoms.”

“You’re going to have to ask them,” he said, when asked about their statement. “I’m telling you what actually happened. I had a very, very bad headache. It got worse on the plane. I then got checked out. Went through a lot of tests. All the tests came back 100 percent normal. That’s the bottom line.”


And what about things that may be problematic, Rudy? He's not going to disclose those?

The fact of the matter is that a president's health IS an issue, and if a presidential candidate has cancer, he's going to be subject to more scrutiny. It
s true that the public didn't know about FDR's cancer or JFK's Addison's Disease, but a secretive White House that puts out a story about a president with a history of drinking problems choking on a pretzel and passing out is not a standard that should be acceptable, particularly with Giuliani demonstrating clearly that he shares George W. Bush's notion that nothing a president does is the public's business.

When women are released from the hospital within hours of giving birth or having mastectomy surgery, a headache that requires a jet to turn around and land and an overnight hospital stay isn't something for which you just take an Aleve and carry on. If this was simply setting up a health-related excuse for Giuliani to drop out after a poor showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, then he's wasted a lot of medical practitioners' time and presumably his insurance policy's money. If he does have a health problem, he owes it to the American people to have his doctor tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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