I feel fine

I'm ambivalent about the possible selection of Dr. Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General. He seems like a very bright, earnest fellow, but his, and CNN's cavalier treatment of Michael Moore following the release of "Sicko" was pretty tasteless.

Here's the video of the Moore/Gupta debate on Larry King:



Gupta came across, to me, as fanatically nit-picky, and his smug dismissal of Moore was obvious. Granted, Moore can be overbearing, but his points were never really in dispute, just parsed to death.

Gupta objected to Moore's using different sources for different statistics: he used a BBC report for the per capita medical expenditure in Cuba, and a US Government report for the same expense in the US. Ya think?

I doubt seriously that any US government bureau tracks medical spending in Cuba, based on our vast political relationship with Cuba, dominated by right-wing ex-pats in the Florida Cuban community. So why not go with the BBC, which actually pays attention to the rest of the world.

Others found fault with Gupta's treatment of Moore:

Another CNN correction followed on July 15 concerning the credentials of "Sicko" healthcare expert Paul Keckley. Gupta asserted that Keckley, whom he had quoted criticizing the national healthcare systems of France, Canada and Cuba during his fact check piece, was only affiliated with Vanderbilt University. It was his response to Moore's claim the Keckley was "a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor."

Gupta's fact check piece listed Keckley as a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert." Yet further checking revealed Keckley had, indeed, served on the faculty of Vanderbilt University. He is also the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

Moore must have been beaming as he read CNN's apology: "Moore is correct. Paul Keckley left Vanderbilt in late 2006."

I know Gupta is a Very Busy Person™, yet the one fuck-up correction he admitted to, he blamed on transcription. By someone else. That means, he didn't do research on Moore & Sicko, he decided to do a hit piece and had an intern do the actual reading:

In Gupta's original piece he refuted figures Moore presented regarding Cuba's per capita spending on healthcare. Gupta alleged that the $251 per person cost reported by Moore was untrue.

Yet on "Larry King Live" Gupta admitted the error was his, not Moore's. "Michael correctly said $251 in the movie."

Gupta also made a correction statement on July 11.

"To be clear, I got a number wrong in my original report, substituting the number 25, instead of 251."

I hope he doesn't do neuro-surgery that way. But don't take my word for it. Take Paul Krugman's word:

I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko. You don’t have to like Moore or his film; but Gupta specifically claimed that Moore “fudged his facts”, when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong.

What bothered me about the incident was that it was what Digby would call Village behavior: Moore is an outsider, he’s uncouth, so he gets smeared as unreliable even though he actually got it right. It’s sort of a minor-league version of the way people who pointed out in real time that Bush was misleading us into war are to this day considered less “serious” than people who waited until it was fashionable to reach that conclusion. And appointing Gupta now, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.

As usual, Paul points out the inconvenient truth. Thanks.

Doctor Robert, he's a man you must believe

Dr. Preston Burke isn't the only doc with an employment problem these days. Much has already been written about GWBush's seemingly tone-deaf nomination of Dr. James W. Holsinger, Jr., for Surgeon General. From Think Progress:

But as BarbinMD points out, Holsinger’s nomination to be “America’s doctor” is troubling. He has a long history of prejudice toward gays and lesbians. Some examples:

– Holsinger founded Hope Springs Community Church, which “ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian.” Holsinger said that he sees homosexuality as “an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

– In serving on the United Methodist Judicial Council — the “court” that resolves “disputes involving church doctrine and policies in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination” — Holsinger “opposed a decision to allow a practicing lesbian to be an associate pastor, and he supported a pastor who would not permit an openly gay man to join the church.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

And Steve Benen writing at Crooks and Liars has this:

Following up on an item from last week, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, has a record of activism that suggests a strong anti-gay bias. Opposition to his nomination has been growing, but it’s been unclear whether there was enough information available to sink his chances.

Maybe this will do the trick. Holsinger wrote a paper in 1991 arguing that, from a medical perspective, homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy, a position rejected by professionals as prioritizing political ideology over science.

Holsinger, 68, presented “The Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality” in January 1991 to a United Methodist Church’s committee to study homosexuality. (Read the .pdf paper here.) The church was then considering changing its view that homosexuality violates Christian teaching, though it ultimately did not do so. Relying on footnotes from mainstream medical publications, Holsinger argued that homosexuality isn’t natural or healthy.

“A confirmation fight is exactly what the administration does not need,” said David Gergen, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, who predicted the paper would cause a “minor storm” among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“You have to wonder given the quality of some of the nominations that have gone forward recently, whether the selection group in the White House has gone on vacation,” Gergen said. “There has been a growing criticism the administration favoring ideology over competence, and this nomination smacks of that.”

Sorry, David, you're wrong. Karl Rove thinks a confirmation fight is exactly what the Far-right wing of the Republican Party needs right now, and here's why:

The nomination, which requires the approval of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has raised questions in the Senate. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts who is chairman of the health committee, released a statement saying he was “disappointed” that the administration had chosen a doctor “whose record appears to guarantee a polarizing and divisive nomination process.” Senator Barack Obama, a committee member and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement that he had “serious reservations” about the nomination.

Get it yet? Maybe this membership list of the Committee will help:

Edward Kennedy (MA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Hillary Rodham Clinton(NY)
Barack Obama (IL)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Sherrod Brown (OH)

Now does it make sense? Rove would like nothing more than to stage an event where 3 of the Democratic candidates for President ask his nominee why he hates Teh Gay. He can spin that back to energize the religious Right, wary because of Romney's cult, Giuliani's divorces, and McCain's . . . well, lunacy.

This gives James Dobson more ammunition, heck, it gives Fred Phelps a wink and a nod. This is a master-stroke from a political Ninja who, while on his way out, still has the power to Screw Things Up™. Rove knows Holsinger is a fringe wacko, yet hopes to parlay opposition to him as support for forced abortions, needle exchanges, and Halloween Parades in the Castro in San Francisco.

It's up to the Committee to spin this right back into Rove's face, by discussing medical issues and not moral ones, to show Holsinger as truly outside the mainstream in America.

Good luck, kids.