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| Tom Toles |
The words-of-the-week for the first week of October read like an 11th grader's vocabulary test.
Obfuscation was the word of last weekend, and indeed this past week, when 45 was hospitalized at Walter Reed and a waterfall of contradictions came from hospital physicians, 45's official physician, and Mark Meadows, his Chief of Whitewash.
We in health care know the patient is gonna do what the patient is gonna do. Even – and sometimes especially – when the medical professionals recommendations are what's best. Recommendations are just that. And some patients with faulty judgment decide on a course that is not recommended.
And when you are a really stupid patient and the most powerful person on the planet, you get to do really, really stupid things. And when you are Commander in Chief and your physician is a member of the military, you get to tell him what to do and what to say. And you set a course that is detrimental not only to the patient, but to an entire nation's security.
While in the hospital and after, we got a few reports of his health and treatment. We learned that he was on oxygen some of the time and that he got a cocktail of pretty powerful medications including the steroid dexamethasone and the experimental Regeneron, which has been given to ten patients so far, outside of clinical trials. We didn't get any detail about the state of his lungs.
The doctors have said some things, while 45's Chief of Staff said something else. I betcha Mark Meadows got into deep doo-doo with his boss when he turned to press members after the physician spoke to them, asking to go off the record – while cameras were still rolling – and gave contradictory information.
Evasion. Although he shared some information about medications, 45's vital signs, and early use of oxygen, his physician, Lt Cdr Dr. Scott Conley, suddenly invoked HIPAA in his refusal to give further information. HIPAA protects a patient's privacy, and it's a good law. But under HIPAA guidelines, the patient can give permission to share information. It wasn't HIPAA that was disallowing the dissemination of the information; it was the patient. Period. We the American people need to know this information. Contact tracers need to know this information.
The patient refuses to disclose information which would give a better picture to his course of illness and would help contact tracing.
Intimidation. Not only has he refused to release details of his course of illness, he asked physicians and Walter Reed staff to sign nondisclosure agreements. It's his go-to tactic, but in this instance it is alarming. Paul Waldman, writing for the Washington Post, explains why.
All of this obfuscation, evasion, and intimidation cause us to have more questions than answers. The patient refuses to allow release of his chest imaging. He refuses to state when he last tested negative, and test results since he was released from the hospital. You have to ask yourself, "What is he hiding?" We are left to guess about the state of his health, and assume the worst: that he was infectious earlier than he admits and that he is sicker than he projects. The Washington Post implores: We need answers.
Authoritarian. After three days in the hospital, the patient discharged himself, hitched a ride back to the Whitewash House in his personal helicopter, strode triumphantly across the lawn, puffed his way up the staircase to the Truman Balcony, defiantly ripped off his facemark, and gasped his way through the rest of his informercial for president.
And those smartie-pants at The Lincoln Project answered with this. Brilliant.
Manic. The prescribed steroid treatment has been especially concerning. It's powerful stuff. This medication can have emotional and cognitive side-effects. It can make a person feel manic and invincible. Here is one person's experience being on this powerful drug.
Give some steroids to a madman and hand him a phone, and you get a tweetstorm like this (done while still hospitalized):
Even Don Jr. was so concerned about his tweeting that he reportedly wanted to stage an intervention. Think about that.
A few days later, 45 called in high and coughing to Sean Hannity's program and reported he was feeling great and ready to go hold rallies that night. He was hoarse, he was coughing, and he was a little unhinged. He refused to answer Hannity's question – posed three times – if he has tested negative since being hospitalized. Tidbits from the audio here.
He also was manic talking to Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo. The "interview" was, true to form, bizarre. And evasive. And concerning. Here are some of the most bizarre bits.
Take a brain that is already impaired by dementia, mental illness, or both, add a drug to jack it up, add a dash of fever and shortness of breath, and ask yourself: is this a person we want holding the codes to the nuclear button?
Incoherent. Through his press secretary, in his recorded videos, and during his unhinged FAUX interviews, he has said:
- that he wasn't very sick and just went to the hospital "out of an abundance of caution,"
- that American's shouldn't be afraid of the virus,
- that he was "very sick,"
- that it "would have gone away by itself,"
- that he beat COVID because he is "perfect physical specimen and extremely young,"
- that he "would have done it fine without drugs,"
- that it was "a blessing from god" that he got sick,
- that he's immune,
- that he's not contagious (6 days after his diagnosis, without a negative test),
- that he's been cured by the medications he was given: "to me it wasn’t therapeutic, it just made me better. Okay, I call that a cure.”
Apathy. All those "best words" and not a word about all the people who he has infected. Not a word about the the 210,000 Americans that have lost their lives under his watch. Not a word about the more than 7,700.000 more Americans who have become ill with the virus. Not a word about the nearly three dozen people in his immediate orbit who have been infected with coronavirus. Not even much about his wife. Not a word about the secret service members who suffered forced exposure to his filthy exhalations during his joyride; not a word about senior advisor and chief lizard Stephen Miller; communications director Hope Hicks; press secretary Kayleigh McEnany; former counselor Kellyanne Conway; campaign manager Bill Steplen; several Pentagon officials; a couple of Senators; White House housekeepers; nor a word about at least three White House journalists. And not a word about his friend Chris Christie, who remained hospitalized in New Jersey until this morning. There was great concern for Christie; he has several risk factors, and he was in sustained close contact (mask-less) with 45 during debate prep. Not a shred of empathy or even acknowledgement.
Derision. But he did have something to say when he was guessing about how he contracted the virus. He suggested that he probably got infected by the Gold Star families he met a couple weeks ago. There is not one shred of truth to it, and thankfully, none of them has been reported to be ill. Just one more example of his disdain -- hatred, really -- for the military and military families.
Myopic. We're a little more than a week after his "official" diagnosis, so we must prepare for more folks in his orbit -- and the spiraling orbit out from them -- to become ill. We may never know the true extent of this superspreader situation, because there has not been even an attempt at contact tracing. And we know from stories like this that the effects of a superspreader event can reach far and wide. WaPo: Maine wedding ‘superspreader’ event is now linked to seven deaths. None of those people attended.
Persevere. As for the rest of us, we must take up the fight. Wear a mask. Wash your hands frequently. Stay six feet away from others. And go vote. Today.
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