I’ll not live to see the day
Wednesday, January 28 2009
The Colbert Report had a good bit after the Inauguration about all the black notables asked on camera, “Did you ever think you see the day when a black man was President?” According to Tim Meadows (as P. K. Winsome), the point is: “we don’t age in dog years. We live just as long as you do. Stop asking us when we’re going to die.”
Now I wouldn’t equate being chronically ill with being African-American: these are two different experiences. But for the record, I don’t think I will live to see a President who has a major chronic illness.
I could imagine a President with something like well-controlled diabetes, maybe – but nothing more serious than that. The intense scrutiny of candidates’ medical records makes it unlikely that someone with serious illness could win a Presidential election. Granted, Dennis Kucinich had (or has) Crohn’s – but he was never a frontrunner, and never got the sort of scrutiny that Obama and McCain did. Were Kucinich – or someone like – him to start winning primaries, there would be a lot of tough, intrusive, ignorant questions about his health; whatever his answers, they wouldn’t be good enough for many voters.
The rationale for all that scrutiny is more or less this:
A presidential candidate is potentially the leader of the most powerful nation on the earth. We need to know everything we can about the person whose finger is on the trigger. His medical record needs to be a matter of public record.
The problem with making things “public record” is that the public sometimes reads them; it’s just not true, as the above author claims, that “we belittle the public when we do not give them credit for having the ability to understand and interpret a medical condition.” I mean, it is true that we belittle the public – but deservedly so. The public has proven more than given to prejudice and ignorance when it comes to medical conditions. I remember Lawton Chiles’ gubernatorial campaign, and thinking how weird it was that they were letting a crazy man run for office; I was still a kid, but somehow I knew it was a big, big deal that he was taking Prozac. Chiles got elected governor – twice – but Florida doesn’t have a nuclear arsenal, so the stakes were lower, I guess.
The problem with this prejudice – as with most prejudices – is that it’s wholly unjustified. There’s no real reason to think the country or the world would be less safe with a sick person in the Oval Office. In fact, there are at least four reasons to think things would be fine. First, a Presidential candidate typically has a real record; in Kucinich’s case, he was mayor and now Congressman before running for President: the suspicion he might not be able to do an important job because of illness ignores the fact that he has done an important job despite illness.
Second, the President gets the best health care in the world. He has great insurance, an in-house doctor, and an ambulance following him around wherever he goes. Third, even should something happen, we have in this country a set of institutions to ensure the continuity and function of government even when the President is incapacitated. We’ve used those institutions before, and the world hasn’t fallen apart.
Fourth: we’ve had sick Presidents before, without knowing everything about their health. Eisenhower spent most of June 1956 in the hospital, recovering from an ileitis attack – basically, Crohn’s disease, of which he had been symptomatic for decades. Kennedy, of course, had something similar – probably ulcerative colitis, among other illnesses – that was kept entirely secret for decades. When I was in high school, our teachers still taught us that Kennedy’s only health problem was back pain from his war injuries. And though it might not count as illness, Roosevelt kept his paralysis a secret from the public before and during his years in office.
In retrospect, Kennedy and Eisenhower were right to keep their health a secret: there was too much stigma associated with being ill to give them a fair shot at the White House. Unfortunately, I don’t think the stigma has changed, so much as the now-quaint notion that even Presidents are entitled to a little privacy. Today, a person couldn’t keep the sorts of secrets they kept back then.
All of which is to say: there was a time when a chronically ill person could be elected President. My grandmothers saw at least two such Presidents, but I don’t think it will happen again – not in my lifetime, anyway.
George W. Bush had extensive colonoscopies (two in three years) during his term as President. His brother had ulcerative colitis and a colectomy. Who knows, maybe the President had a mild case of UC.
Reagan probably had the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s during his term as President. Nixon was severely mentally ill. Kennedy had Addison’s Disease, and was on Prednisone.
I think it is somewhat unlikely for a IBD patient to get elected President, but only because the campaign trail induces bad diet, worse work habits, irregular medicine routines, etc, which are likely to lead to flares. Whether an IBD patient would be up to the rigors of a Presidential campaign is an open question.
However, I have no doubt that I will live to see the sad day when a sitting President gets diagnosed with IBD or cancer, or some other horrible disease. People like Paul Tsongas almost won in 1992–Tsongas had recurring cancer a few short years later.
If the disease is in remission, I do not see it as an obstacle to getting elected. Heck, Joe Biden has some serious, serious health problems (two brain surgeries) and he was elected Vice President without much fuss over his health records.
Bush underwent two colonoscopies in his term – 2002 and 2007 – which is consistent with routine screening for men over 50. Biden’s aneurysms were serious twenty years ago, but don’t count as chronic disease.
It’s one thing if the President develops the disease while in office, and that’s mostly irrelevant. But I don’t think a candidate with an a priori serious chronic illness will get elected simply as a matter of prejudice. At least where IBD is concerned, we know it’s mostly prejudice. We already know someone with IBD could be up to campaigning and serving as President, because both Eisenhower and Kennedy did so. Incidentally, Kennedy took DOCA, an early form of prednisone, for his colitis; the DOCA gave him (or triggered) Addison’s.
I don’t think Kennedy could win today, and I doubt Eisenhower would even be allowed in the military.