Dick Cheney: age, status, and heart transplants
As soon as Dick Cheney’s heart transplant was announced, the predictable unfunny jokes began to proliferate:
Have they put Bush on the brain transplant list?
Don’t they mean an implant, since he didn’t have a heart to begin with?
Too bad there’s no soul transplant list.
So funny I forgot to laugh, as my brother used to say.
I’ve never understood the intensity of the hatred for Cheney. Disagreement, yes. Disapproval, yes. But there’s no end of rabid hatred from the left, so much so that many people really do seem to wish him dead.
As far as Cheney’s transplant goes, I wish him well. And I have to say that I’m astounded he’s lasted this long; when he was nominated as VP in 2000, and then re-elected in 2004, I never never never thought he’d live to finish out his terms. In fact, one of the many thoughts that passed through my mind on 9/11 was that Cheney must have a stronger heart than I thought he did to have survived the shock.
And here it is almost eleven years later, and 71-year-old Cheney’s got his new heart. Apart from all those who hate his guts (another body part), there are quite a few people discussing whether or not someone of that age ought to be eligible for a transplant. I don’t think there should be any hard-and-fast rules about that. It depends on so many things: need and availability and match, first and foremost; and then how otherwise healthy and active person is. In this, many physicians in the field of transplants seem to agree:
His age may be 69 [when he was first put on the heart-transplant list] but we talk about physiological age. There are transplant centers who will definitely consider a 69 year old,” [heart surgeon Magliato] said. “There is no national cut off age for heart transplants; it depends on the transplant center. Some have abolished a cut off age and will consider every patient on a case by case basis.”…
According to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing, the survival rate for a heart transplant on a patient over the age of 65 after one year is 84 percent. Magliato stressed that the prognosis for these patients is quite good considering their chances of survival without the transplant…
“You don’t get on the list by buying your way on. People think somehow wealth plays a role, and that is absolutely not true, nor does socioeconomic status,” she said. “The bottom line is the sicker you are, the higher on the list you are.”
Yes, but I’ve got a question: what if this had happened while Cheney was VP? Would (and should) the priorities have been different? Should he have gone to the head of the line then, no matter what? And my question isn’t specifically about Cheney, of course, and whether you like or hate him. It’s about someone holding that office (or the presidency) who becomes ill. Shouldn’t they get some sort of special treatment? And if so, where would it stop? How about members of Congress? Personally, I think it should stop with the presidency and vice-presidency, but I do think they should get priority.
[NOTE: It seems that Cheney waited longer than average for his new heart.]
I’ve never understood the intensity of the hatred for Cheney.
My take on it is that for the most part Dubya didn’t reply to his detractors. Cheney, on the other hand, was an articulate, passionate defender of the Bush Administrations’ policies both before and after January 20, 2009. The left resented Cheney’s doing so.
Another reason they resented Cheney is that while Dubya could be panned as dumb and inarticulate- which he really wasn’t- Cheney could not, as he had decades of high-level experience inside the Beltway. He had proven himself to be competent at a high level decades before he became Vice President. As Cheney couldn’t be labeled as stupid/incompetent, the left labeled him as evil.
The recent death of a comedian Steve Bridges had a clip of Dubya with Bridges impersonating Dubya. Steve Bridges had a good Cheney joke: why did Cheney have to shoot the only trial lawyer in the country that was for Bush?
Cheney was a moderate Republican on many issues. He was a believer in a strong national defense and activist foreign policy. He was a moderate on social issues and favored government solutions to many issues. He could have been a “Scoop Jackson democrat,” but preferred the Republican party because his home state, Wyoming, was solidly Republican.
IMO, the progs demonized him because he was seen as very competent, well connected, and articulate. In other words a danger to their lust for power. When they can’t defeat a rival on issues or lack of competency (their portrait of W), they use the politics of personal destruction with ad hominem attacks and erection of straw goblins. (Darth Cheney) It’s the Alinsky way.
All effective Republicans on the national stage are hated and reviled. Nixon, Reagan, W, Gingrich (back when he was effective), Cheney. Even people who look like they may have the potential to be effective get the smears and hatefest — see e.g. Sarah Palin, Clarence Thomas.
Without lies and slander, what would the Democrats do? Look at the ‘war on women’ and ‘war on blacks’ they have ginned up the last few weeks. Same old tired lies and slander.
“I’ve never understood the intensity of the hatred for Cheney.”
Even more was the hatred so many gay folks displayed toward his daughter – Mary – who was/is an out lesbian. So many would scream that “hate is not a family value.” Yet, here was a woman, loved and accepted by her family, who supported her father and was scorned for that family value (supporting her father) by those very folks.
The screaming at Cheney is, of course, BDS. But there are cases among celebrities that give one pause. Why did David Crosby get a liver transplant and Cheryl Smith did not? It’s enough to make one think that level of celebrity makes a difference, at least in Hollywood. And I speak as someone who’s been a Byrds fanatic since 1965.
“The screaming at Cheney…. etc is a different Charles from the one before.