Today is the first day in a week and a half that I’ve felt almost like a human being. I usually get a very bad cold about once every two years, but that’s about it. This one was a bad one, and had me pretty miserable for most of the last twelve days. Of course well-meaning people have been all over me to go to a doctor, get antibiotics (for a viral cold??), get antivirals, maybe it’s asthma, maybe it’s the flu, whatever.

I know it’s not the flu because I haven’t had fever since the first day. I do know one thing: “flu-like symptoms” don’t put you in the hospital unless you’re pretty damned sick, and if you’re that damned sick, you’re not out the next day “feeling great”.

But then, I’m not Rudy Giuliani:

A day after “flu-like symptoms” led him to turn his airplane in mid-air and seek medical attention, Rudolph W. Giuliani smiled and said he felt “great” as he walked out of a hospital here Thursday afternoon. But his campaign provided few details of what had caused the problem that led him to spend more than 14 hours in the hospital.

Mr. Giuliani was admitted to Barnes-Jewish Hospital here on Wednesday night after he fell ill on a campaign swing through Missouri. His aides said that he had felt increasingly ill as the day went on, and that after his plane left for New York he experienced such a severe headache and flu-like symptoms that the plane returned to Missouri.

After spending the night in the hospital, and being given a series of tests, Mr. Giuliani walked out shortly before 3 p.m. “I’m feeling fine, thanks to the hospital,” Mr. Giuliani, clad in a dark suit and a blue necktie but no overcoat, told reporters.

Just what had ailed Mr. Giuliani was unclear. His communications director, Katie Levinson, said he had been given “a clean bill of health” before he left the hospital. “Doctors performed a series of precautionary tests and the results of all the tests were normal,” Ms. Levinson said in a statement.

The campaign declined to elaborate on what his symptoms were or to specify which tests were performed. Hospital officials said the campaign had asked them not to provide any information about Mr. Giuliani’s health and to refer questions to the campaign.

Jake Tapper similarly wonders about how one can be so sick as to be hospitalized one day and just fine the next:

What was wrong? What tests did he get? What was causing such severe pains? Giuliani gave no details.

His campaign will not release any concrete medical information to the press — raising questions about the former New York mayor’s health and the transparency of his campaign.

Giuliani was experiencing headache pain so severe Wednesday night he had his charter plane turn around and go back to St. Louis and was rushed to the emergency room.

His campaign shared no concrete medical information about which tests the mayor undertook and what the exact results were, also refraining from allowing the media to see his medical records or speak to his doctors.

A senior Giuliani campaign official told ABC News, “He’s fine. He campaigns very vigorously. He did 77 events in 53 cities this month. He just got sick.”

The former mayor was all smiles for the cameras as he left Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis Thursday afternoon after spending the night and the better part of a day in a Missouri hospital.

“I feel great. Take care. Merry Christmas, I’m feeling fine, thanks to the hospital. They did a great job,” Giuliani said, refusing to answer any reporters’ questions as he left the hospital.

Now this bug that I’ve been battling had as part of its early stages a constant band of headache around the back of my head, which at its peak had me awakening in the middle of the night with pounding head pain. But I wasn’t hospitalized.

I know that Saint Rudy of 9/11 believes that everything about him is his own personal business — his marital and extramarital affairs, his client list, his business dealings, and now his health. But if he wants to be president, he’d better get used to the fact that the health of the guy who may have to make split-second decisions for the entire country IS the people’s business, not just his own. And if he can’t deal with that, then let him withdraw from the race and go back to private life where no one will care about his health.

(cross-posted at Brilliant at Breakfast)

Election 2008 | 8 Comments »

Tristero over at Digby’s place has done a great job on this story, which until now has been (predictably) ignored by the mainstream media. But now, with Mike Huckabee surging in Iowa, the MSM has for some reason decided that the story is important. Brian Ross at ABC picks it up, and will have the story on Good Morning America this morning (video when I find it). CBS News picked it up yesterday.

My theory is that because Huckabee is a theocrat rather than a corporatist, the companies that own the media want to stop him, but it doesn’t matter. The Dumond story is so ugly, and so emblematic of the kind of Clinton Derangement Syndrome that infects the entire Republican Party, that whatever the motivation, I’m glad it’s getting out.

In 1988, the campaign of George H.W. Bush ran this ad against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. The ad worked, and Dukakis’ reputation as “soft on crime” never recovered.

But with Huckabee, you have a convicted rapist not just released for weekend furloughs, but outright released, and for only one reason: because wingnuts insisted that because the woman Dumond raped initially was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton’s, that by definition that meant Dumond was railroaded, and therefore should be released. The Arkansas parole board, after being pressured by Huckabee, released Dumond was released, who went on to rape and murder at least one, and possibly two more women.

If there had been exculpatory evidence, Huckabee’s decision might have been understandable. But the fact is that Dumond was released from prison for only one reason — because the woman he raped had the misfortune to be distantly related to the man Republicans hate most in the entire universe — more than Fidel Castro, more than they did Saddam Hussein, more than they hate Osama bin Laden, more than they hate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And therefore that meant anyone who raped her was by definition innocent.

What does THAT say about Republicans’ ability to reason?

It should be well-known by now that I have no great love for the Clintons. But the level of insanity that has arisen around them goes beyond political differences and enters the realm of the pathological. And clemency for Wayne Dumond is what happens when Republicans let their fear and loathing get in the way of rationality.

Wayne Dumond should be hung, bodily, around Huckabee’s neck for the remainder of this campaign. Huckabee may counter with the notion that mercy is a Christian trait. But when mercy only extends to rapists, but when victims who are related to Bill Clinton can go fuck themselves, THAT lack of judgment is a disqualification for the presidency.

Mike Huckabee | 2 Comments »