By The Prowler on 11.18.03 @ 12:04AM
Dr. Dean likes to minister to the suddenly stricken. Plus: Hillary booked.
PLAYING DOCTOR
The Kerry campaign in Iowa is looking into the events that
transpired on Saturday in Des Moines, when former Vermont Gov.
Howie Dean, a licensed physician, helped a man who
appeared to suffer a seizure on a street. It turns out the man was
a Dean volunteer, and Dean just happened to be passing by when he
noticed a crowd and wondered what had happened. According to
eyewitness accounts reported by numerous press outlets, Dean pushed
his way into the crowd (apparently certain that a doctor was needed
for whatever was occurring), cradled the man's head in his lap and
administered a brief examination by taking his pulse and asking him
a few questions about his medical history.
Surprisingly, this is the fourth time that Dean has been in the
right place at the right time during his campaigning, and has
played a role in helping an ill supporter.
"It's just way too coincidental," says a John
Kerry volunteer in Des Moines. "And it was one of
his people that was sick. It just looks like a setup. Most
doctors goes a lifetime without being on the scene of a something
like this, and it happens to him four times in four months? Maybe
he is making people sick."
This volunteer said the campaign is now looking into each of the
times Dean assisted fallen supporters, and is looking back to
Dean's time as Vermont governor to establish a pattern, which all
sounds just a bit desperate and petty on the part of the Kerry
campaign.
"You know what they say about desperate times," says the
volunteer. "This is going to get nasty real fast. It's the only way
we can stay in it."
Kerry is rolling out a new, get-tough image that he tested out
in Jefferson-Jackson remarks on Saturday. The press spotlighted the
speech, and initial reviews were good, thought internally, some
Kerry supporters say it is too little too late.
OPEN BORDERS
Now we know it wasn't party loyalty or presidential ambitions that
brought Hillary Rodham Clinton to Des Moines last
weekend. She went there to sell books. The senator showed up Sunday
morning at a Des Moines Borders bookstore and autographed about 900
copies of her book. Copies of her tome were also being sold at the
Jefferson-Jackson dinner the night before.
Hillary showed up at the store on time, and left on the dot,
leaving a few disgruntled fans without her autograph.
topics:
Books, NATO
