I was hoping to hear from the good doctor Dean on this, and he did not disappoint. As quoted in the
Knoxville News Sentinel (reg.) Gov. Dean, talking to Tennessee reporters in advance of his first trip to TN as Chair of the DNC, rebuked Sen. Bill Frist for his video diagnosis quackery involving Terry Schiavo (emphasis mine):
"
This is a deeply personal matter and ought to be left up to physicians," Dean said in a telephone conference call with Tennessee reporters.
"For Sen. Frist to say he could make a diagnosis based on a videotape is certainly not medically sound," said Dean, who, like Frist, is a physician-politician. "I wouldn't want my doctor making any diagnosis of me on videotape."
Sen. Frist inexplicably then accuses Dean of trying to "stir the political pot" over the Schiavo case. Details after the jump.
It seems to me to be an extremely reasonable and restrained comment for Gov. Dean, a trained physician, to make. And while I'm sure many Democrats who are still wary of Dean as a party spokesperson would prefer that Dean stay silent on this sensitive issue, I think his status as a "physician-politician" makes it all the more important that he stand as counter-point to Sen. Frist's quackery from a distance.
Of course, Frist's office tried to turn this back on Dean and make it look as if Dean was the one trying to politicize the issue. First, a spokesperson tried to claim that Frist didn't make a diagnosis:
Nick Smith, spokesman for Frist, said the Tennessee senator "in no way made a diagnosis.
"He simply expressed what he had seen and come to understand from court documents," said Smith. "He (Dean) ought to read the text" of Frist's speech.
Okay, so here's what the Knoxville News Sentinel says of Frist's speech to the Senate:
In a speech Thursday to the Senate, Frist questioned Florida physicians' diagnosis that Schiavo is in "a persistent vegetative state."
"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office," said Frist, going on to quote medical texts and standards.
So, arguably, Frist didn't make a diagnosis. He questioned a diagnosis. But given the context of the rest of his speech, he essentially rejected a diagnosis, which is arguably making a new diagnosis. Based on a videotape. That he spent an hour reviewing.
Frist's spokesman's response? ""It sounds like Howard Dean is interested in stirring the political pot despite the Senate speaking in a unified voice that Terri Schiavo deserved one more chance."
No. Howard Dean is simply, in his usual blunt and forthright style, pointing out that it is inappropriate to make medical diagnoses based on reviewing a videotape.
Elsewhere in the interview, Dean answers reporters' questions about perceptions about him in Tennessee:
Asked how he deals in Tennessee with the perception that he is a "liberal Yankee elitist," Dean replied, "I actually don't believe there is a perception like that.
"It's Republican propaganda," said Dean, adding that he was consistently given an "A" rating by the National Rifle Association as Vermont governor and that he shares Vice President Dick Cheney's views on gay marriage and civil unions.
"If I'm liberal, so is he," said Dean.
What do you think - good for Dean to speak up on this, or should he have stayed quiet and let his fellow physician-politician's antics go unanswered?