SHOULD SOMEONE HAVE COME CLEAN ABOUT CARSON?
My fellow blogger Gary Welsh at Advance Indiana is throwing some pretty heavy criticism at the Julia Carson campaign for playing coy with her health and not being up front with the voters about her health.
Welsh cites and an RTV 6 interview with Jonathan Baily, Carson’s minister…
The Rev. Jonathan Baily said he was with Carson when doctors told her she had cancer about a year ago. He said the doctor finally told her that she had just days to live recently. “She asked the doctor, ‘How long have I got?'” Baily said. He said, ‘It’s not our thing to tell you how long, just make you comfortable.’”
However, as Welsh points out, a statement put out by her campaign office Carson says leads readers to believe that the cancer discovery was more recent…
In the late summer of 2007, Congress granted me a leave of absence because of my leg infection. My wonderful doctor cured the leg, and I went into rehabilitation, planning to be back in Washington shortly. Then the second shoe fell — heavily. My doctor discovered lung cancer. It had gone into remission years before, but it was back with a terminal vengeance.
It’s pretty apparent that Carson has been more ill than anyone knew and she’s known this for a long time. The question is should she have disclosed this information to the public and would it have mattered in the last election? My personal rule has been that elected officials private health matters are just that, private.
However, when their health affects their job performance or when there are noticeable differences in their physical appearance, I do think they owe their constituents an explanation. They have to make the ultimate decision as to whether they are fit to serve, but at the very least they need to be honest.
