Skip to main content

The media gives Donald a clean bill of health

By



When the going gets weird, the weird get weirder.  It really is a shame the good doctor isn't around to cover this campaign.  Hunter Thompson would have had a field day with this election cycle.  I don't even think he could have imagined Trump going on Dr. Oz to discuss a one-page summary of his physical examination.  It was such a momentous occasion that CNN and Fox were compelled to provide breaking news reports of the Trump campaign delivering this highly classified paper to the Oz studios, as apparently Trump was of two minds on whether to divulge this personal information or not.

Perhaps the only person more shameless than Trump is Dr. Oz, who has made a fortune off hypochondriacs and obese persons who will take advice from virtually any charlatan.  I can well imagine John Oliver's response to this utterly shameless act of self-promotion, as he is no friend of either Trump or Oz.  Of course, Donald presented himself as the very picture of good health and Dr. Oz seemed to agree, complimenting Trump on his transparency.

All this comes on the heels of the latest speculation surrounding Hillary's mysterious illness.  The Vegas betting line seems to be going with Parkinson's, but Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis have been tossed out too.  The doctor who revealed the high rate of CTE in the NFL thinks she has been poisoned, fitting with the rampant speculation that the Kremlin is undermining the general election.

The great health issue, which emerged full blown this month, was rarely discussed during the primaries.  Unlike all the other scandals and mysteries surrounding Hillary, this one seems to be sticking, largely because her fall at the 911 memorial service in New York took everyone by surprise.  It doesn't matter that her physician was quick to tell the media that Hillary is suffering from pneumonia, that is far too pedestrian an illness for her to have.

Some of you might recall that Thompson liked to speculate on the health of presidential candidates, suggesting that Edmund Muskie might be be pumping himself with ibogaine, a hallucinogenic drug, in an effort to explain why the Democratic candidate looked "tired and confused."  Of course, the good doctor meant this in humor, but the news pundits today are seriously speculating as to what ails Hillary.

As for Donald, he seems to get a free pass despite the fact that he moves around like a "vicious 240-pound water rat," barely able to fit between the column and rail on his tour of the Flint Michigan water treatment plant.  Yet, tells Dr. Oz he only needs to lose 15 pounds.  Looks more like 50, Donald!

There are any number of reasons why he could have such orange skin, like cartotenoderma, which if left untreated could lead to diabetes and liver disease, but nary a word from Dr. Oz.  More likely he is spending too much time on a tanning bed, which would explain his raccoon eyes.  This increases the likelihood of melanoma.  Or, he could just be an over-sized Oompa-Loompa, but who am I to say?  I'm not a doctor.

I'm now expecting him to go on Lou Dobbs Tonight to present a one-page summary of his tax returns for Old Lou to scrutinize before a Fox audience.  No one knows better how to play the press than Donald, who had them fall hook, line and sinker for the release of his medical records.  We have definitely reached rock bottom!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
230 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more

The Searchers

By
You are invited to join us in a discussion of  The Searchers , a new book on John Ford's boldest Western, which cast John Wayne against type as the vengeful Ethan Edwards who spends eight years tracking down a notorious Comanche warrior, who had killed his cousins and abducted a 9 year old girl.  The film has had its fair share of detractors as well as fans over the years, but is consistently ranked in most critics'  Top Ten Greatest Films . Glenn Frankel examines the origins of the story as well as the film itself, breaking his book down into four parts.  The first two parts deal with Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah, perhaps the most famous of the 19th century abduction stories.  The short third part focuses on the author of the novel, Alan Le May, and how he came to write The Searchers. The final part is about Pappy and the Duke and the making of the film. Frankel noted that Le May researched 60+ abduction stories, fusing them together into a nar...
123 comments
Read more