Washington Post raises health issues about Perry
After one of the early Republican debates, I raised the issue of whether Perry was having problems with his recovery from back surgery. Perry had looked so uncomfortable in that debate that I wondered if he were wearing a back brace. He kept twisting his torso a little, as if he were trying to find a comfortable position. My comments were carried on the web site politicalwire.com and in the National Journal.
Today, the Post’s conservative blogger (“Right Turn”), Jennifer Rubin, addressed the issue:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry had back surgery on July 1. Saturday night David Carney (Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s chief campaign strategist and long-time advisor) confirmed to me via email a report from a source who met with the governor before his made the formal decision to announce that Perry was in a back brace “on in [sic] off for a few weeks in July after his procedure.” He told me Perry had not worn the brace since his August 13 announcement. Carney denied that Perry is now experiencing any back pain or is on any medication. “He is not in any pain — why would he need pain medicine? No he is not taking pain medicine,” he emailed me. I asked if he was tired during the debates. He answered, “Not that I know of.”
As I wrote at the time, I have had back surgery to repair a ruptured disk, and I can sympathize with Perry. What concerned me most was that Perry’s surgery, which, as I recall, involved fusing part of his spine, included an experimental treatment with adult stem cells taken from his hip, a procedure that is not approved by the FDA and that has not been proven to have any clinical benefit, nor is it covered by insurance. This raises the question of who is paying for the operation. The answer at the time was that Perry would pay for whatever isn’t covered by insurance. Well, the amount covered by insurance is zero. That a candidate for president would undergo such a nonstandard procedure borders on recklessness, in my opinion. Perry should make his health records public.
Tagged: back surgery, rick perry, stem cells, Washington Post
Mollie says:
Ode to Rick
My smile is bright
My cheeks are rosy
I say Adios, mofo, to all who oppose me
Money to the banks?
Money to the poor?
Give your money to me, I can always use more
So you wanna do somethin’ about HPV?
Lucky for me
I know people
In the industry
They talk about cronyism
They talk about hate
I got news for y’all in the media
That’s how we do things, down in the Lone Star State
Michelle & Mitt
John & Paul
This is one frontrunner who’s not going to fall
Barack Obama can kiss it goodbye
The big one on Pennsylvania Avenue?
That’s the house I’m goina buy
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anita Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 11:50 am
Bravo!
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Blue Dogs Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Mollie, you’re going to be crying your eyes when Obama gets RE-ELECTED.
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Ida says:
Sort of raised on SNL, too (i.e. all the stuff about him getting tired and falling asleep).
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AreYouKiddingMe says:
One of our best Presidents was in a wheel chair, so Perry’s back surgery doesn’t bother me. I am much more concerned about his policies and what he says than I am about his back hurting. But, whatever will keep him out of the Whitehouse is fine with me. He has no business there and it is becoming increasingly clear that he is in WAY over his head. I predict a freefall in polls very shortly…
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The House is Not a Home Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Barack Obama seems to remind us every few months that he has no business being in the White House either.
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Blue Dogs Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Unless Obama dies in office between now and 2012, he ain’t going anywhere.
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Anonymous says:
Hmm, back surgery and constant back pain…. I didn’t realize it before. Perry is the second coming of JFK!
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Blue Dogs Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Perry is NO JFK whatsoever, and if I were him, I wouldn’t put some corrupt Senator as VP either and we saw how that turned out.
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Robert Morrow Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
We sure did, didn’t we? The blockbuster 2nd edition of LBJ: Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination by Phillip Nelson is coming out in one month:
http://www.amazon.com/LBJ-Mastermind-Assassination-Phillip-Nelson/dp/1616083778
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Dave says:
Post debate CNN poll still has Perry up on Mitt. Lots of movement. Perry’s gap over Mitt drops 5, Newt up 5 into 3d place, Palin down 7, Paul down 7.
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Dave Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Should be Palin down 8, Paul down 5.
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Robert Morrow Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
http://www.intrade.com has Perry at 23% chance of being GOP nominee. Romney 44%. Intrade is a far better gauge of fortunes than most polls which are push polls.
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Jed says:
on what day?
those mnumbers are different now than they were a month ago, and they’ll be different in a month.
intrade is probably a very good predictor on about election minus one day.
sort of like pollsters.
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Robert Morrow Reply:
September 30th, 2011 at 3:41 am
Intrade is far, far better than polls. Most polls are garbage. Intrade is composed of pretty sophisticated bettors/investors.
For example many of the early polls after Perry’s Thursday debate debacle had Perry still in the lead nationally. Intrade immediately dropped Perry into 25% of winning and Romney about 45% chance of GOP nomination because Intrade recognized just how drastically Perry had discredited himself among the elite opinion makers and big donors.
Intrade recognized quickly there is not going to be money or opinion makers propping up the Perry campaign over the next 2 months. It immediately assessed how serious Perry’s situation is.
The Perry campaign is over.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
republicans have core values
democrats need polls to know what they’re for.
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Anonymous Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Awesome! Best comedy line of the day!
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Anonymous Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Core values! Like: get money for my buddies, ignore science, pollution is ok if I’m gettin’ mine, the earth is 3000 years old, my values are how you should live, free markets are for big business, ignore the right to health care but gimme my gun. Republicans have NO values, just a price.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
You’re a dem, core values are a foreign concept.
What are the dems core values?
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Beavis everything is funny to you.
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Alan Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Is booing a member of our armed forces on national television a core value of the Republican Party? Because it certainly was on full display at the last debate.
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 7:59 am
no one booed the member of the armed services, they booed his stupid question.
The grownups don’t need this explained to them.
John Johnson says:
Is this thread suggesting that Perry’s poor performances in the debates has been due to a bad back?
He is following a script with answers that would have been delivered with or without back pain. They were not answers that potential voters, including the ones he thought he had locked up, wanted to hear. They are answers that he cannot take back or twist and contort to mollify. He has to live with them and they are not going away.
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anita says:
I just watched the final hour of the last debate — wow. Perry completely ran out of gas. He couldn’t compose even a simple sentence. I’ve never seen a meltdown like that from a candidate at this level. It reminded me of a good friend who has to eat regularly or he crashes due to low blood sugar, he simply shuts down. That was bizarre.
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Robert Morrow says:
Liberal columnist Brent Budowsky over at the Hill is the one who correctly saw the Rick Perry Hindenberg immolation. While other genious insider pundits were saying Perry is not just the GOP nominee, but the next POTUS, Budowsky saw right through the fraud and actually predicted a one month blowup. Bingo!
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/183807-when-rick-perry-drops-out-ron-paul-could-be-second-place-republicans-enter-the-wild-west
Brent Budowsky:
“I wrote in August that Rick Perry will self- destruct within 30 days. His prospects for the presidency were as phony as the fantasy of a two-person race was false. Perry is a phony conservative who is not conservative. He is a pay-for-play politician who gobbled up Obama stimulus like a hound dog eating a bone, and created oceans of new government jobs in Texas while his big donors mysteriously received big government contracts. The Texas deficit ballooned and the Texas jobless rate doubled on Rick Perry’s watch.
I will not speculate about the reasons for Rick Perry’ s strange, weird and incoherent debate performance. Major new negative stories about Perry will soon emerge in the media. Trust me. Perry will drop out long before the year ends. If he dropped out today Ron Paul could well be in second place. Will pundits say it is a two-man race between Romney and Paul?
This is the most unpredicable campaign in many years. One insider recently asserted that if the election were held today Obama would certainly lose. Nonsense. Obama would cream Perry.”
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Reminder Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:14 am
Ron Paul in second place??? Hahahaha… Seriously??????
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Robert Morrow says:
Now for the low grade quality analysis of Perry.
James Moore: “The only place Rick Perry is going is further out in front of the GOP pack.”
That is the kind of stuff you write when you are writing a highly anticipated book about Rick Perry and it looks like he won’t even last to Christmas 2011, much less the Iowa caucuses.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-cain-mutiny_b_981574.html
James Moore and the Perry campaign may be different politically, but they have one thing in common: denial.
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Robert Morrow says:
And have you ever seen the AIPAC money dance before?
Rick Perry, dancing with the rabbis, performs it quite well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdOrVT_13OI
Quick question: how many Palestinian donor bundlers are there in GOP or American politics?
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Alan Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Does Farouk Shami count? He endorsed Perry for governor after he lost the Dem primary as I recall.
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Blue Dogs Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
So did former Texas State Attorney General Dan Morales (D) who backed Perry’s bid for a full term back in 2002 after he got his butt kicked by Sanchez in the Democratic primary ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Morales
Speaking of Morales, what has he been doing these days since being released from prison ?
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Blue Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Isn’t it funny that conspiracy theorists almost always reveal themselves as anti-Semitic eventually?
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Jed Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
yep, moderate.
but persuadable.
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Major Tom says:
Perry is perhaps suffering from “electile disfunction”…
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JohnBernardBooks says:
Wow you democrats are so afraid of Perry. How can you sleep?
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TX1957 says:
I’ve been waiting for someone to get their hands on the payment records for that back surgery.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 8:01 am
American voters are wanting to find out Henry Waxman’s ties to Solyndra.
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Andrew in D.C. says:
Why are you quoting that disgusting self hating Jew, Jennifer Rubin. She hates Obama and should be honest with herself and go back to representing employers who discriminate. Just like Krauthammer, Goldberg, Cantor, Strauss, the only Jews who are conservatives are those whose employment is tied to their professed beliefs. Or perhaps they were with the 2% of Jews who voted for George Wallace. You have a decent Texas politics blog.Don’t demean it by quoting dumb, hate peddling bigots like Rubin.
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Jed Reply:
September 29th, 2011 at 11:37 am
um, way to rise above?
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Anonymous Reply:
September 30th, 2011 at 10:22 am
liberal derangment syndrome. well represented in these parts.
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Ellaquince says:
I had a lumbar fusion five years ago and I’m still experiencing pain. For about 12 weeks after my surgery, I could hardly walk and felt as though I’d been hit by a truck. I lost 25 pounds and my muscles atrophied. This guy does not look like someone who’s had a fusion surgery.
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