McCain’s elusive medical records

from the Carpetbagger Report
Posted April 3rd, 2008

In 1999, during John McCain’s first presidential campaign, the senator, then 63, couldn’t have been any more forthcoming when it came to his medical history. Months before a single vote was cast, McCain instructed his campaign to release 1,500 pages of medical and psychiatric records. What’s more, journalists with additional questions were given direct access to McCain’s personal physician.

That was then; this is now. The NYT’s Lawrence Altman, a physician, reported a month ago:

[T]his time around, Mr. McCain has yet to make his full medical records or his physicians available to reporters. At least three times since March 2007, campaign officials have told The New York Times that they would provide the detailed information about his current state of health, but they have not done so. The campaign now says it expects to release the information in April.

That was the standard line in early March. McCain sat down for an interview with Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes,” and was asked about his health. McCain said it’s “excellent” (three times), and said his campaign would be “doing the medical records thing” soon. Pelley followed up, “There has been some criticism that you have not released your medical records. You’re saying in this interview that you’re about to do that.” McCain replied, “Oh, yeah, we’ll do it in the next month or so, yeah.”

With this in mind, it came as a bit of a surprise when CNN reported yesterday, “The McCain campaign said Wednesday the Arizona senator’s medical records will no longer be released by April 15. They now say the new timetable is ’sometime in May.’”

(Continued here.)