No Chemo for You

Oh the blessed irony. Last Tuesday, the 30th—you know, the day all the papers looked like this—President Bush was in San Diego at the Naval Medical Center, with the intention of the visit to thank medics who aided tsunami victims in Southeast Asia. Well, not only was he busily ignoring the needs of the people in New Orleans; his little photo op in San Diego was also preventing patients there from receiving the medical care they need.

The Naval Medical Center in San Diego's Balboa Park was shut down to accommodate a visit by President George W. Bush Aug. 30, RAW STORY has learned, forcing patients to cancel chemotherapy treatments and hundreds of scheduled patient visits.

[…]

"I think it's disgusting. People who are getting chemotherapy or radiation are on a very set schedule. They are not supposed to miss a session or put it off by even a day, because it's based on the life cycle of a cancer cell," the volunteer said, adding that some patients had waited weeks for appointments. "Some had to postpone for quite a while, because the radiation and chemo rooms were full on other days," she added. "They closed everything down just so he [Bush] could have his photo op in the lobby with the corpsmen."

Totally, unremittingly repulsive, these people. They’re like sharks who need to keep swimming to survive, prowling the depths for one photo op after the next.

In the end, he didn’t even get his photo op. His visit was cut short, and though the conventional wisdom was that he ran off to pretend to care about the hurricane, this story notes that he was seen

laboring to ascend steps up to Air Force One, aided by his wife, Laura. A newscaster commented on the President's wavering gait and noted that it was unusual for him not to pause to shake hands with well-wishers at the airport. The broadcast led to local speculation that the President may have encountered a medical problem.

Perhaps a medical problem known as “falling off the wagon,” considering within days he was back to jocularly noting he used to go to New Orleans to get fucked up back in the good ol’ days.

Of course, if he is really sick, that would be sad for him—although I bet no one searching for a photo op would interrupt his much-needed treatment.