Thursday, December 01, 2005

POLITICAL FAITH HEALING

A soldier, currently serving in Baghdad, thinks that Americans should listen to President Bush and says:

However, when you discover you have cancer the treatment is always the same - attack it at the source. You don’t wait for it to spread. And when is the last time you heard a doctor putting a limited timetable on cancer therapy? I can picture it in my mind. “Mr. Smith, we have seen some progress with your tumor. It’s shrinking. But we need to move on now. The timetable for treating you has passed. Good luck.”


That approach has the same effect in Medicine that it has in Politics. It's no good appeasing a tumor; and if you enable it by encouraging its growth....well, you can imagine the consequences.

That is why I wouldn't recommend Drs. Kerry, Reid, Pelosi -- or anyone trained at the Democratic Party School of International Medicine. Their alternative medical strategy when treating a potentially lethal disease--instead of aggressive or radical therapy--is wishing; hoping for the best; and/or pretending that a miracle will happen and that everything will magically turn out all right.

It represents a form of political faith healing.

UPDATE: The Anchoress links to a remarkably similar analogy!

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