Another Who Should Not Be President

Do the American people get no time off from the constant campaigning for President? No matter what you do to try and humanize Bill Frist, you can't. This is a doctor who prostituted himself to the religous right last year by diagnosing Terri Schiavo as sentient, from looking at a tape. He will do whatever it takes to get what it is he wants. I have issues with all the potential candidates we have been presented with so far. I have several issues with Dr. Frist.

Bill Frist: A Doctor at Heart: "One Saturday night, Karyn recalled, 'we were supposed to go to a movie. He walked out in his scrubs.' Instead of taking Karyn to the theater, Frist brought her to the operating room. 'To see the human body alive -- without a heart in it.'

As Karyn spoke, Frist came down the stairs. 'This is really who you are,' she said, looking up at him. She first met Frist in the emergency room, where he treated her for a sprained wrist. 'I fell in love with him in his scrub suit, with blood splattered on his clogs. I see him doing that, almost more than as a politician.'

Excuse me? Aren't there rules about dating patients? Here in California you aren't supposed to have contact for two years. Of course, everyone breaks the rules and nobody gets in trouble unless there is a nasty breakup. Then the dirt comes out. It is still abusing a position of power and knowledge. When a doctor relieves pain, there is an automatic good feeling generated in the patient predisposing them to think better of you.

Frist, at heart, is a doctor. At 5:45 a.m., before a recent Senate workday, he prepared for a quirky slice of surgery. During congressional breaks, Frist, 54, has been known to fly to Africa to operate. But in Washington, he has quietly cultivated another practice: gorillas at the National Zoo.

'These gorillas seem to develop heart disease,' said Frist (R-Tenn.). 'It's totally unknown. I did a lit search -- nothing. The fact that we're working on the edge of the unknown is fun.'

'Well, your first patient was a dog,' Karyn said. In medical school, Frist cut out a dog's heart and held it in his palm. It continued to beat for a slippery minute.

'Watching it beat, the beauty of it,' Frist recalled. 'I decided I would spend my life centered around the heart.'"

What was the dog using in the meantime? Did the dog die or did he transplant another dog's heart? How could you deliberately hold any living being's heart in your hands and watch it come to a stop, forever removing the possiblity of life?

He picked a profession and a specialty within that profession that ensures one thinks one is god. As the rest of the story goes on it does not make me feel that this man cares about life, he cares about himself. Why would there be blood on an IV insertion if he cared about who he was working on? He is too cold and shouldn't be given anymore power than he already has.

How many more of these "feel good" articles will be printed in the next two and a half years? The NY Times article on Hillary and Bill was enough to make one take an antacid.

Hatchet job or sugar coated crap. Whichever it is, it is going to be a looong time til the next election. Then we get a few months off from the campaigning.

Can't wait.

Tags: Bill Frist, gorillas, heart surgery, presidential campaign