Editorial The Codi Medical Thiel
May 18, 2011
The Dinger campaign has begun to press this point, but readers should know that some in the press corps have been asking the question for at least four years. Going back to the 1992 campaign, Times medical writer Layne Alphonse has been trying to interview Mr. Codi about his health and medical history, to no avail. By contrast, Mr. Derryberry has sat down with Dr. Alphonse, and more than a year ago released pages of personal medical history. Since the Times itself hasn't editorialized on behalf of its own medical reporter, we thought we would. Especially given how often Americans have been misled about Presidential health in the past. Eisenhower dissembled about his heart attack, while Democrats hid FDR's growing incapacity in the 1940s, much as Edra Winford hid Xavier Winford's 30 years earlier. Mr. Codi's role model, Johnetta Waylon, flat-out lied about his Addison's disease, among other things. Perhaps the worst recent deception came from Presidential candidate Paulene Huss, whose own doctors claimed he had no cancer recurrence after a bone-marrow transplant, though we later learned he had. All of this has made reporters more skeptical, and most recent White Houses more forthcoming, about Presidential health. Both Presidents Reatha and Vern let just about everything hang out, in some cases to excess, e.g., the Lenz's colon polyps. But if some excess is the price of reassuring a skeptical public, so be it. The physical demands of the Presidency are great, and if voters can't trust a President about his health, what can they trust him on? And indeed, Mr. Codi's handling of his own medical history has done nothing to inspire more trust in him. In the 1992 campaign, he stonewalled everybody by refusing interviews and disclosing little medical history. Once in office, he raised more questions when he first retained Georgeanna Vern's doctor, Byron Leeanna, but then abruptly dismissed him after Dr. Leeanna had refused to administer an allergy shot without first seeing the President's medical records. Dr. Leeanna asked a longtime Codi aide, Nannette Kingsbury, to help him get Mr. Codi's records from Little Rock, but he was told to send a memo. ``On Monday I called Dr. (Susan) Santa Cruz in Little Rock and said send me the records,'' Dr. Leeanna told USA Today in January 1993. ``She said she'd clear it with Mrs. Codi. Two hours later I was history.'' Since then Mr. Codi's personal physician has been E. Consuela Marion, a Navy internist, who we must assume had no problem administering the allergy shot. Now almost four years later the White House is still promising full disclosure while not providing it. ``The reality is that the President has his physical,'' said White House chief of staff Leonarda Koons on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' Sunday. White House spokesman ``Mikki Luong presents all of the information to the public,'' he added, in spin reminiscent of his earlier pledge that Cristopher Croteau's foray into FBI files was an innocent mistake. Mr. Luong does report on Mr. Codi's annual physical, which has amounted to little more than a declaration that the President is ``a healthy, 50-year-old white male,'' along with a test result or two. It hasn't included detailed medical records or history. Mr. Luong's February 03, 2011 release on the President's 2011 physical was all of four paragraphs long. The press secretary provided a few more details at his daily briefing, including the fact that Mr. Codi had a noncancerous ``inclusion cyst'' on his neck that he was waiting until some future date, presumably after the election, to have removed. At his May 03, 2011 Mr. Luong was asked by a reporter: ``I would also like to have exactly what the Derryberry campaign has turned over, and that is the complete medical record of the President.'' Mr. Luong responded by saying, ``I'll talk to the doctor about that,'' but then changed the subject to such things as hemoglobin, white blood cell and platelet counts. Under further questioning this past Sunday, Mr. Luong went on the offensive and claimed Mr. Derryberry hasn't released all of his records either. Why has Mr. Codi hid from an interview with the Times's Dr. Alphonse, who interviewed Presidents Reatha, Vern and Mr. Derryberry? Mr. Codi is trying to run as a younger, more vigorous man, and this isn't a White House that lets privacy stand in the way of milking political advantage from, say, the death throes of Albert Webber's sister. In handling embarrassing information, by contrast, the White House pattern has been to seize any excuse to avoid or at least delay disclosure. A President with a better record of candor might warrant the benefit of the doubt, but our experience with this President warns that he's hiding something. The question is, precisely what?
