Tue
Sep 23 2008
09:02 am
McCain's Skin Cancer: Better than 50% chance of a Palin presidency
By: sugarfatpie

In private conversation, even my deeply red McCain supporting friends admit that Palin having her finger on the button scares the crap out of them. Too bad that is more than likely if we elect McCain.

(link...)

If age alone were McCain's biggest health risk, I'd be the first in line to give him a pass and move on to more pressing issues. But his age is only an aggravating factor in a disturbing medical history whose records run 1,173 pages long. And because McCain has simply refused to divulge that history, we're not talking about it.

If the melanoma is in stage IIIB, which is what the possible satellite metastases suggest, the 5- and 10-year rates are 53% and 38%, respectively (McCain is now eight years into that projection). How likely is it that the melanoma is at stage IIIB rather than IIA? It's impossible to say without reviewing the medical records.

Translation: McCain's chances of finishing his first term alive are somewhere below fifty percent and somewhere above 38%. Then there's the question of how competent McCain would be if he were going through all the agressive treatment that would be required. Probably not very.

Here's an interesting video featuring doctor's analysis of the situation.
(link...)

Lying about your health so you can get elected and die in office.
Doesn't sound like Country-First to me. More like McCain-First-then Palin.
bobbylife's picture

Here's what preceded your

Submitted by bobbylife on Tue, 2008/09/23 - 3:38pm.

Here's what preceded your second excerpt:

To put that in terms of McCain's projected mortality during a McCain presidency, the respective 5- and 10-year survival rates for a stage IIA melanoma for a 72 year-old man are 79% and 64%.

Just to put it in perspective, in the US, life expectancy at birth right now is just 75.29 years. It's not like anyone's really buying a pig in a poke. We all know that a vote for McCain is a vote for a guy who's very likely finishing up pretty soon.

Lying about your health so you can get elected and die in office.

Can you substantiate your insinuation that McCain has lied about his health? I'd really be interested to know if he's actually done that. I can't find evidence anywhere that he has.

sugarfatpie's picture

McCain is lying when he says "everything's fine"

Submitted by sugarfatpie on Wed, 2008/09/24 - 8:58am.

When McCain restricts access to his health records to the extent that he has, most people would have to agree that he is trying to hide something. Impeding investigation of his health in this way is something between a lie of omission and a bald faced lie.

Here's a pretty straight forward lie test for you:
McCain goes to the doctor and comes out saying "everything's fine".
(link...)
Then we find out he has at least a 40% chance, and more likely a 50-60% chance of having a recurrence of his skin cancer, the treatment of which will likely prevent him from being a competent president. Does that sound like "everything's fine" to you?
If so, I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you, and a trillion dollar bailout to ram down your throat.

Of course, I would expect nothing different from any politician, which makes pointing out their lies all the more important.

-Sugarfatpie (AKA Alex Pulsipher)

"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin

bobbylife's picture

Your critique of McCain

Submitted by bobbylife on Wed, 2008/09/24 - 9:55am.

is just as subjective as "Everything's fine."

When McCain restricts access to his health records to the extent that he has, most people would have to agree that he is trying to hide something.

Maybe he is; it's certainly possible. The fact that "most people" would, in your estimation, "have to agree" is certainly irrelevant to the facts, if not necessarily to voter behavior.

Impeding investigation of his health in this way is something between a lie of omission and a bald faced lie.

Really? So when a reporter refuses to disclose a story's source to a cop, the reporter is a liar? When psychologists and attorneys protect privileged information, they're all being deceptive?

Interesting. McCain's medical records are private information. Although it may be in the voters' best interest to know what's there, he's not constrained to disclose it. I, for one, wish he would disclose them, but the mere fact that you can't see what's there doesn't make him a liar.

According to the article you linked, he had a melanoma tumor removed in a 5.5 hour operation during which lymph nodes were also removed, and after which it was determined that the cancer had not spread.

That sure seems like good news to me.

Unless, of course, you believe that when the guy says "Everything's fine," he means, "I'm gonna live forever," or something equally dumb.

Do I believe McCain's in excellent health? Not so much. He's an old man who has survived some very crazy sh*t and a couple bouts of cancer. His age alone, regardless of his status as a cancer survivor, is enough to give me pause.

But you have yet to prove the lie. If he is concealing a definite negative prognosis from his docs, and you can demonstrate that, then I'll agree with you that he's lying about this.

Until you can do that, you're just mirroring some of McCain's own worst behavior when he does things like accuse Obama of wanting to teach Kindergartners about condoms: imprecise, broadbrush character attack, tangential to the truth at best. Not the change I'd hoped for.

sugarfatpie's picture

Objectivity eludes us all.

Submitted by sugarfatpie on Wed, 2008/09/24 - 4:49pm.

The negative prognosis is there: 50-62% chance of recurring melanoma, the treatment of which would likely leave him incapacitated for months, if treatment is possible at all.
If you can't see the bald-faced lie in McCain saying "everything's fine" with this kind of prognosis, again, I have that bridge to nowhere to sell you.

McCain's active obstruction of the media in examining his medical history is there: 3 hours to view 1500 pages with no pee breaks. Note- he didn't restrict access like this in 2000. Why is he doing it now?

If you want to refuse to recognize these obstructions of inquiry, and lies of omission, you're playing into Karl Rove's hand.
Lies of omission are central to the political culture Rove has brought us to.

-Sugarfatpie (AKA Alex Pulsipher)

"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin

bobbylife's picture

I know McCain's health is a

Submitted by bobbylife on Thu, 2008/09/25 - 1:22am.

I know McCain's health is a big deal. That would be true even if he'd never had melanoma. Maybe we just have different standards of what constitutes a lie, and I don't think it's happened yet in this case, so we disagree.

If you want to refuse to recognize these obstructions of inquiry, and lies of omission, you're playing into Karl Rove's hand.

Simply remaining silent is not a "lie of omission." A lie happens when it's demonstrated that McCain said something to the contrary of what he knows to be true in his case. There's no evidence that convinces me that he's done that yet (although he may have), and you're sure not providing it. Such evidence may come to light, but it hasn't yet.

If requiring reasonable proof before calling a person a liar is playing into Karl Rove's hand, then I'm okay with that. If you want to believe that baseless character assassination is not playing into the Rovian mitt, then I'm cool with that too.

sugarfatpie's picture

baseless? look it up

Submitted by sugarfatpie on Thu, 2008/09/25 - 8:44am.

First of all, you need to look up the definition of a lie of omission.
(link...)

Second, even if you can't agree with the commonly accepted definition of a lie of omission, and you can't bring yourself to recognize that McCain is trying to hide his health records from public view, you yourself have admitted that McCain has met your definition of a liar on several other instances. So your heroic stand on McCain amounts to that he's not a liar on this but he is a liar on that? Wow, I can see why your standing so firm on not calling him a liar.

Third, there's nothing baseless about what I'm accusing McCain of. Its all there in the public record. Ignore it at your peril. A vote for McCain is a vote for a walking dead man who will be succeeded by a corrupt, governor/small town mayor who didn't even know what the Bush doctrine was.

-Sugarfatpie (AKA Alex Pulsipher)

"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin

bobbylife's picture

From Wikipedia, your authoritative moral compass:

Submitted by bobbylife on Thu, 2008/09/25 - 9:39am.

One lies by omission by omitting an important fact, deliberately leaving another person with a misconception. Lying by omission includes failures to correct pre-existing misconceptions.

You seem to misunderstand this definition.

What is the important fact that you know to have been omitted? Are you saying that McCain knows that he has received a prognosis from his doctors that his cancer has metastasized, and he's not admitting it to the public? That would be a lie of omission, for sure. The prognosis would be the important fact omitted, hence the lie of omission. Has McCain withheld such a fact?

I'm not so much defending McCain as attacking your sloppy thinking. By your use of the term above, Obama is guilty of lies of omission regarding his relationship with Bill Ayers, for instance. There's stuff about that that he's not saying. Is the fact that he's not disclosing a lie of omission? Maybe, but just as in the case of McCain, we don't know yet, so we should refrain from slinging slurs.

sugarfatpie's picture

Why are McCain's health records no longer accessible?

Submitted by sugarfatpie on Thu, 2008/09/25 - 1:25pm.

We can go back and forth on the "what is a lie" question, but we probably won't convince each other of much. So please answer me this.
Why do you think McCain is no longer allowing anyone to look at his medical records?
Do you think he might be trying to hide something?
Why didn't he feel the need to do this in 2000?

-Sugarfatpie (AKA Alex Pulsipher)

"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin

bobbylife's picture

Well, maybe...

Submitted by bobbylife on Thu, 2008/09/25 - 3:41pm.

Do you think he might be trying to hide something?

He might, rabbit, he might.

But it might be something relatively innocent, like a hemorrhoidectomy or a penile implant or something, and he doesn't want it late-nighted. That's just as plausible to me as anything else at this point on my personal knowledge curve.

But I'm not sure, which is why I eschew the "L" word. It becomes meaningless if you sling it too often, and it suckifies the political discourse. All that screaming starts to sound too much like rabid rightist radio.

GBA's picture

Palin as President

Submitted by GBA (not verified) on Tue, 2008/09/23 - 5:37pm.

My personal opinion, Governor Palin would make a much much better President than both Obama and McCain. I trust her much more to do the "right thing" than I do either of them.

When McCain finishes his term, however that end may come, Palin will have her two terms, without any doubt.

Justin's picture

You and the people who think

Submitted by Justin on Tue, 2008/09/23 - 5:49pm.

You and the people who think like you scare the hell out of me. She isnt fit to lead a girl scout troop much less a country.

WhitesCreek's picture

In my personal opinion, your

Submitted by WhitesCreek on Tue, 2008/09/23 - 6:42pm.

In my personal opinion, your personal opinion isn't backed up by much in the way of reason or fact.

Sarah Palin must be really feeble...more feeble than McCain, even. She is being protected by absurd lengths to keep anybody from asking her a question.

She's a Bridge to Nowhere.

MDB's picture

The "right thing"?

Submitted by MDB on Wed, 2008/09/24 - 7:42am.

I trust her much more to do the "right thing" than I do either of them.

right is the operative word in the above.

blue moon's picture

But...who would be

Submitted by blue moon (not verified) on Wed, 2008/09/24 - 6:55am.

Palin's VP? I'd bet money that Dick Cheney would be happy to assist.

cooperhawk's picture

scared?

Submitted by cooperhawk on Wed, 2008/09/24 - 2:54pm.

In private conversation, even my deeply red McCain supporting friends admit that Palin having her finger on the button scares the crap out of them.

Yea, & we are all excited about Obama with his finger on the button. His only difficulty would be deciding whose side he was on. Plus, has anybody noticed who his running mate is?

sugarfatpie's picture

must have struck a nerve

Submitted by sugarfatpie on Thu, 2008/09/25 - 8:31am.

to bring you out of the woodwork.
I must be doing something right.

-Sugarfatpie (AKA Alex Pulsipher)

"X-Rays are a hoax."-Lord Kelvin

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