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Barack Obama Medical Records:
The Unreleased Medical Records and
The Mainstream Media Double Standard

“No presidential candidate should get to the point that he has locked up his party’s nomination without public vetting of his health.”
–New York Times, on John McCain in May 4 2008 “Missing Records”

Many were the words written about John McCain and his medical records. That he delayed in releasing them, that his health records were crucial to the public’s right to know.

After McCain released nearly 1200 pages of medical records–the Arizona Senator not only had war-related injuries, but also bouts with skin cancer–the Mainstream Media complained that reporters were not given enough time to go through McCain’s records: they were given three hours to look through them.

Three hours is far less time than it would take those same reporters to go through Barack Obama’s medical records that have been released.

Because there are none.

The Obama campaign has stated that no medical records will be released. Instead, a one-page undated letter from a doctor will have to satisfy reporters on that issue.

The Mainstream Media’s curiosity has been satisfied: there have been no calls for Barack Obama to release medical records.

The New York Times on Barack Obama in May:

The letter is the first publicly released information about Mr. Obama’s medical history or current condition. The six-paragraph, one-page statement summarized the senator’s health for the last 21 years and was signed by Dr. David L. Scheiner, who said he has been Mr. Obama’s primary care physician since March 23, 1987. The undated letter was released less than a week after Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, released his medical records.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama said his campaign would not make Dr. Scheiner available for a telephone interview.”
–New York Times, May 8 2008, “Obama’s Doctor, Praising His Health, Sees No Obstacles to Service”

Legion were the stories written assuring readers that “Barack Obama is in excellent health”. That’s great, then why not release the records?

Other presidential candidates have assured the MSM that they were in “excellent health”, too.

It depends where your starting point is. I would say, yes, if you’re looking at the history of say, presidential candidates or candidates for high office. In the past, White House physicians have been known to lie; candidates for president or nominees have been known to evade the truth, distort the facts, or lie. You’ve got Woodrow Wilson with a stroke and his wife allegedly running the affairs of the country; you’ve got Franklin Roosevelt who may or may not have been told how deathly ill he was in his last term, and certainly nothing was told to the country about it; you’ve got Kennedy every which way not acknowledging that he had Addison’s disease; you had [Thomas] Eagleton who had to leave the [Democratic] ticket in ‘72 because he didn’t tell [George] McGovern about his past history of electric-shock therapy and depression; and there was [Paul] Tsongas in the mid-1990s and the fact that he had a recurrence after they had maintained that he was cured of cancer.
–Lawrence Altman, Covering Candidates’ Medical Records

Barack Obama stands alone in the last three elections as the only candidate to not release medical records to the public.

Gore did it in 1999: Gore’s Health ‘Outstanding,’ Doctors Say

Bush released medical and service records in 2000 and again in 2004: Bush releases his Vietnam-era military files

Though there were some questions, Kerry released records in 2004: Kerry allows Navy release of military, medical records

The MSM interest in George Bush’s records was so intense in 2004, it lead CBS News and Dan Rather to report on forged records–though they weren’t identified as such until the blogosphere pointed out the forgery.

What is in those medical records?

DBKP does not pretend to know–most likely nothing of interest. But we can’t report that: we don’t know. No one but the Obama campaign knows and they’re not saying.

The medical records join Obama’s college and university records as parts of the candidate’s past that is off-limits.

We won’t address the senator’s birth records: that’s another subject.

The refusal to release the medical records–as well as other information that Joe Sixpack has to provide–only leads to suspicions that only the Obama campaign can quiet.

The refusal of the Obama campaign to release records any American has to provide to secure employment is a puzzler: Obama promises “change” and “hope” and transparency.

The Obama campaign can demonstrate its commitment to transparency by releasing those records most American have to pony up every time they are interviewed for a job.

by Mondo Frazier
image: dbkp file