Palin's medical records?

What's Palin's delay? (Seriously?) (See topic post for more info on answers.)

  • Total voters
    6
  • Poll closed .
Tiassa

Tiassa

Let us not launch the boat ...
Valued Senior Member
The current Doonesbury Straw Poll result—is it closed? I can't vote in Safari, Firefox, or Camino—is an interesting one. Either people don't take it seriously, which is likely, or else Sarah Palin really is starting to freak people out.

The question:

During a recent NBC interview, Sarah Palin announced that she'll finally release her medical records. At least, we think she did. Her final word was: "Never been seriously ill or hurt. You will see that in the medical records if they're released." Apparently, the operative word is "if". Spokeswoman Maria Comella later told ABC News: "When medical information related to Governor Palin's health is ready to be released, we will make that information available."

So what's with the hold-up?

(Doonesbury.com)
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The vote options:

(A) Privacy. Republicans traditionally rank it as among their favorite Constitutional rights, at least they did before the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, and the million-man airport Watch List. Okay, let's call it modesty.

(B) Perversity. Since it's mainly the filtering media elite who are clamoring for it, she's decided to stonewall there. Refusing to put her own clean bill of health on display like the other candidates is what a maverick would do, so that's what she's doing.

(C) Necessity. I really, really wish I could think of something else, but since I can't, it's about Trig. Medical records would reveal routine details about her pregnancy, pre-natal care and childbirth. Unless... um... they don't exist.

(ibid)
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The general result, based on 2,761 votes:

(A) Privacy: 9%
(B) Perversity: 18%
(C) Necessity: 71%​

They must be rounding, because that only works out to 98%, but that's beside the point. The statistical breakdown of voting blocs is according to estimated clothing expenditures: <$1,000, $$1,000-5000, >$5000. Interestingly, although in a way not surprisingly, the percentage of respondents choosing answer (C) rises with the expenditure. This could simply be an effect of decreasing sample size (<$1,000 is overwhelmingly the largest, >$5,000 the smallest); it might be that the more affluent take the question slightly less seriously (although the difference is all of 2%); or it could mean ... um ... I guess that people really do believe Sarah Palin is hiding something.

Since the Straw Poll changes regularly, and I have yet to discover an archive of the questions and results, please refer to the following images if you really feel the need to verify the statement of the question or the results asserted here:

. . . . . . . . . .
Click images above: The question (left) and result (right).​

At any rate, I find the poll question amusing. So let's try it here.

• • •​

Update: The poll essentially requests two answers, one to the primary question, and one regarding how seriously one takes the issue. The "Other" option is available. Perspectives and opinions are encouraged regardless of how one votes.
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Notes:

Doonesbury Town Hall. http://www.doonesbury.com
 
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The rummers are:
A) Boob job!
B) Retard baby is actually one of her kid's babies.
C) Abortion records.

Listed in order of likeliness, All but "A" are pretty unlikely.
 
I'm guessing she's had plastic surgery of some kind. Even if it's something like Botox, she certainly can't campaign as a soccer mom with that as common knowledge.
 
JDawg said:
I'm guessing she's had plastic surgery of some kind. Even if it's something like Botox, she certainly can't campaign as a soccer mom with that as common knowledge.
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"Hockey mom", you mean. :rolleyes:@Palin

Why not?
Plenty of soccer mom's get plastic surgery and other "treatments".
Hell, it becoming fairly common-place.

I'm still not convinced Trig is hers, honestly.
 
Palin makes it important by waiting

I think the issue probably has something to do with a sense of necessity. But it's kind of hard to take the question seriously, especially given the rehash of her last known (suspected?) pregnancy. "Trig-gate", as such, was put to rest in a fairly definitive manner with the announcement of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, so I'm not entirely enthused to see it pop up again, even in this humorous context. It would have been enough to simply suggest that the records would show something embarrassing, like three separate cases of the clap, or two abortions, or something like that.

Either of the other answers, privacy and perversity sort of amount to the same thing in my book. Maybe if she was running for a local school board, privacy would be a fair argument, but she's a candidate for Vice-President of the United States. The general practice is to inform the public of the candidates' health, and John McCain's health record sideshow° has already proven controversial.

I don't expect there is anything disqualifying in Palin's records, unless that disqualification comes as a consequence of some sort of embarrassing hypocrisy—e.g., venereal disease, abortion, &c.—that Palin would utterly fumble as a political issue. Indeed, we could not rule out that she has "learned a lesson" about past conduct through such an episode, but so few people trust her that any such explanation would be widely perceived as necessarily insincere.

I think Governor Palin makes the issue more important than it needs to be by waiting.
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Notes:

° John McCain's health record sideshow — Frank Rich wrote in a New York Times op-ed earlier this month—

Back in May, you will recall, the McCain campaign allowed a select group of 20 reporters to spend a mere three hours examining (but not photocopying) 1,173 pages of the candidate’s health records on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Conspicuously uninvited was Lawrence Altman, a doctor who covers medicine for The New York Times. Altman instead canvassed melanoma experts to evaluate the sketchy data that did emerge. They found the information too “unclear” to determine McCain’s cancer prognosis.

There was, however, at least one doctor-journalist among those 20 reporters in May, the CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta. At the time, Gupta told Katie Couric on CBS that the medical records were “pretty comprehensive” and wrote on his CNN blog that he was “pretty convinced there was no ‘smoking gun’ about the senator’s health.” (Physical health, that is; Gupta wrote there was hardly any information on McCain’s mental health.)

That was then. Now McCain is looking increasingly shaky, whether he’s repeating his “Miss Congeniality” joke twice in the same debate or speaking from notecards even when reciting a line for (literally) the 17th time (“The fundamentals of our economy are strong”) or repeatedly confusing proper nouns that begin with S (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain). McCain’s “dismaying temperament,” as George Will labeled it, only thickens the concerns. His kamikaze mission into Washington during the bailout crisis seemed crazed. His seething, hostile debate countenance — a replay of Al Gore’s sarcastic sighing in 2000 — didn’t make the deferential Obama look weak (as many Democrats feared) but elevated him into looking like the sole presidential grown-up.

Though CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t run a political ad with doctors questioning McCain’s medical status, Gupta revisited the issue in an interview published last Tuesday by The Huffington Post. While maintaining a pretty upbeat take on the candidate’s health, the doctor-journalist told the reporter Sam Stein that he couldn’t vouch “by any means” for the completeness of the records the campaign showed him four months ago. “The pages weren’t numbered,” Gupta said, “so I had no way of knowing what was missing.” At least in Watergate we knew that the gap on Rose Mary Woods’s tape ran 18 and a half minutes.​

—and back in May, at the time of this limited release, Kate Phillips blogged for NYT's The Caucus,

Senator McCain’s campaign is making the documents available in a limited way (they cannot be copied or taken out of a room at a resort in Phoenix; and only certain media organizations — not The Times — were allowed in as pool reporters). And they can only be reviewed for a few hours today. The campaign does intend to make summaries of these records available on its Web site.

Elisabeth Bumiller and Dr. Larry Altman of The Times reported today on the tight controls imposed by the campaign on access to the records.

The campaign says it organized this format for review to prevent wide dissemination.​

Works Cited:

Rich, Frank. "Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain". New York Times. October 4, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/opinion/05rich.html

Phillips, Kate. "McCain's Health Records". The Caucus. May 23, 2008. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/mccains-health-records/
 
one_raven said:
"Hockey mom", you mean. :rolleyes:@Palin

Why not?
Plenty of soccer mom's get plastic surgery and other "treatments".
Hell, it becoming fairly common-place.

I'm still not convinced Trig is hers, honestly.
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It's not just the hockey mom thing, it's that she's portrayed herself as Jane Six Pack, the average woman. There are a lot of women who get "work done", but that isn't the person she's portrayed herself as.

I mean, shoot, plenty of people shop at Neimen Marcus, too. But that's not the person she wants to portray herself as.

I'm not entirely sure what would make anyone question if Trig is hers or not.
 
My sister is a middle class (not very high middle class) 45 year old mother of two who lives in Missouri.
She had a boob job a few years ago.
They saved up for it for a while.

She is not the exception.
 
one_raven said:
My sister is a middle class (not very high middle class) 45 year old mother of two who lives in Missouri.
She had a boob job a few years ago.
They saved up for it for a while.

She is not the exception.
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I'm not knocking people who get boob jobs, dude. I'm just saying that it doesn't necessarily jive with who she has portrayed herself as. And for all I know, it might have been a dozen different procedures.
 
Voted "C": Sarah Palin's 5th "pregnancy" has never seemed plausible to me, and I share the suspicion that she took over the parenting role for the sake of her teen daughter, and family reputation. It will be best for all concerned when this election is over, and we can leave this sordid business as it should be- none of ours.
 
hypewaders said:
Voted "C": Sarah Palin's 5th "pregnancy" has never seemed plausible to me, and I share the suspicion that she took over the parenting role for the sake of her teen daughter, and family reputation. It will be best for all concerned when this election is over, and we can leave this sordid business as it should be- none of ours.
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I agree Hype. It sounds like someone has something to hide.

http://ronk.newsvine.com/_news/2008...palin-medical-records-till-after-the-election

The only real reason to hide something like this until after the election is if there is something to hide...something that will hurt the election bid. Why then would it be ok to release them after the election but not before the election? All candidates know this is expected before the election and not after the election.
 
Tiassa, i have always ment to ask. Why the hell do the people of the US belive they have a RIGHT to a pollies medical records.

Seriously would YOU want your medical records out on public display? what if there are mental health issues in there from the past? No one here would EVER think to ask for kevin rudd or malcom turnbills medical records
 
Asguard said:
Tiassa, i have always ment to ask. Why the hell do the people of the US belive they have a RIGHT to a pollies medical records.

Seriously would YOU want your medical records out on public display? what if there are mental health issues in there from the past? No one here would EVER think to ask for kevin rudd or malcom turnbills medical records
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Asguard, when you are turning over the keys to a huge nuclear weapons stockpile and command of the worlds most powerful military, one would like to know you are not giving the keys to a paranoid schizophrenic. For lesser elected positions, this is not requested of candidates for public office. This is only requested for the president and vice president.

And this is not a requirement, but it is a tradition.
 
I personally find the whole debate about whether she is the true mother of her son to be as distasteful as her stance on, well, just about everything.

It is not something that should even enter into the equation. She is that child's mother. And frankly for people to be debating whether he popped out of her or her teenage daughter is a bit obscene in my opinion. It really is no one's business.

I dislike her views, her politics and her beliefs, but this kind of rhetoric is as stupid and vile as many on the right saying that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. And like the attacks on Obama, it reeks of desperation.
 
yet you elected bush?:p

ok that was just a cheep shot but it does beg the question are there no safe guards in the US system at all if this is a concern?

i mean the PM could theoretically invade anywhere off his own bat but if he did a) the defence force would fail to complie b) he wouldnt be the PM anymore because his party would sack him then and there c) the GG would overrule him using the unused powers of executive privlage and d) the deputy PM would instantly take over. Oh and e) he would be commited under the mental health act in which ever juristiction he happens to be in at the time.
 
First, I did not elect Bush...never voted for him or his father even once. There are safe guards, but the best safe guard is to avoid the situation not after you have one. In the case of Bush II he is an arrogant dumb spoiled brat not a paranoid schizophrenic playing leader of the world.
 
Asguard said:
yet you elected bush?:p

ok that was just a cheep shot but it does beg the question are there no safe guards in the US system at all if this is a concern?

i mean the PM could theoretically invade anywhere off his own bat but if he did a) the defence force would fail to complie b) he wouldnt be the PM anymore because his party would sack him then and there c) the GG would overrule him using the unused powers of executive privlage and d) the deputy PM would instantly take over. Oh and e) he would be commited under the mental health act in which ever juristiction he happens to be in at the time.
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Despite the belief here that the founding fathers could do no wrong (like ooh I don't know: hold slave, kill natives, treat women lowly,etc) the American democratic system is quite archaic.
 
joepistole said:
First, I did not elect Bush...never voted for him or his father even once. There are safe guards, but the best safe guard is to avoid the situation not after you have one. In the case of Bush II he is an arrogant dumb spoiled brat not a paranoid schizophrenic playing leader of the world.
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Have you looked into the mirror lately Joe?
 
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