You know, Dennis Hastert for years was on TV pretty much every day as Speaker of the House, and that man looked like cartoon drawings of Humpty Dumpty dressed up like a Weeble. Strangely, I do not recall stories about how he was setting a bad example for America by wobbling but not falling down.
Dr. Regina Benjamin, on the other hand, apparently has some problems to overcome, one of them being she’s not a tiny little stick insect person thing.But that’s okay, because, well, take it away MSNBC:
some rather impressive bona fides to the job. She was awarded the
Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, was the first person
younger than 40 to be appointed to the board of the American Medical
Association, is the immediate past chair of the Federation of State
Medical Boards (meaning other doctors think highly of her) and won a
“genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Most remarkably,
she chose to practice among the rural poor at the clinic she built
herself in Bayou La Batre, Ala., charging her poorest patients
nothing.
I
don’t know about you, but a doctor who chooses to care selflessly for
the poor and who has the respect of her peers as a good clinician is a
doctor whom I am willing to listen to — even if she wears a plus-size
lab coat.
So generous! Thank God you’re willing to look past her apparently outlandish size (I dunno, looking at that picture she looks like every third person who lives in my building, so whatever) and appreciate her accomplishments! Go you! What a virtuous person you must be! I know he means to defend Dr. Benjamin here, but it comes off so … I don’t know, like he’s doing her favors she doesn’t really need.
He starts by conceding she’s big, and conflating “two assholes on a ‘national news site’ message board” with “the blogosphere:”
You would think the entire population of the blogosphere had suddenly reverted to the seventh grade.
“I
refuse to let fat be socially acceptable … The President should have
known better and picked a doctor who could kick start the debate on fat
not perpetuate it,” commented one reader on a national news site.
Yes. The comments section at the Beaver County Tidbit Online is exactly the same thing as all blogs ever. That’s a totally fair comparison! After all, you can completely see both of those sites on your computer! They’re on the same Internet!!!!11!
Also? I recall the liberal blogosphere’s reaction to Benjamin’s appointment being OMG SQUEE and the conservative blogosphere’s reaction being SHE’S NOT A WHITE MAN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AGAIN or something, and the non-political blogosphere was all OH HEY A LOLCAT and then we all moved on to bitching about how much the Emmy nominations suck. Dr. Generosity up here had to hunt down anonymous freakazoids one step below the Freepi to prove his point, which isn’t unusual in the annals of “oh shit, it’s due tomorrow,” but it is kind of weaksauce, nonetheless.
Speaking only for myself, I’ve had several skinny doctors and one I suppose Dr. Caplan here might classify as obese, and about half the skinny ones were assholes and the other half were awesome, and they could all hold a stethoscope and dispense antibiotics competently so who really gives a fuck? When a doctor gives me advice I don’t ask to see his diploma, much less his blood pressure readings, I just take the advice if I want to and forget it if I don’t. Cheetos are totally a breakfast food. Shut up.
I am not saying we give an inch on the war on blubber. Obesity is an epidemic in the U.S. and growing quickly around the globe.
But
people need to relate to the surgeon general, and if she can battle her
weight on the job, she will do more to curb obesity then all the salads
added to the menus of burger joints everywhere.
See, she can USE it, so it’s good! I’m sure that helps her sleep at night. Thank God Dr. Caplan is here to tell me it’s okay.
Via ONTD.
A.