McCain Set to Release Health Data on Friday

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain is set to release 400 pages of medical records, including documents related to his melanoma surgery in August 2000, to a tightly controlled group of reporters on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.

Mr. McCain said late last week that he had nothing to hide. Campaign officials have nonetheless said that even if nothing in the records suggests a problem with his health, a rush of news media reports focusing on the cancer surgery was not politically helpful and that they wanted to play down the information as much as possible — something that the timing of the release would seem to accomplish.

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See also DailyKos:

A holiday weekend document dump: It proves nicely how much John McCain has learned from the Bush administration about the manipulation of public opinion. And as if that weren't brazen enough, McCain has also arranged that:

* only a small, select group of reporters will have access to the records in a secure room in Phoenix, AZ
* access is limited to only three hours, between 7 and 10 AM on Friday
* no copying of the records is permitted