Shouldn’t the media be demanding Romney’s medical records, in addition to his tax returns?
There continues to be a great deal of attention being given Mitt Romney’s tax returns - specifically, his refusal to provide an adequate number of them. As the September 28th deadline for their “release” by anonymous approaches, they are certain to return to the media forefront quite soon. And I am confident that Romney’s resistance to their release has everything to do with how damaging their contents would be for his candidacy. But, there is another variety of documents that he has apparently never made available to the public: medical records.
In an August 20th press briefing which included questions about Romney’s tax return defiance, Obama commented:
I'm not asking him to disclose every detail of his medical records -- although we normally do that as well. You know?
Juliana Maine Writer recently wrote about them in
Someone Must Ask the Question about Governor Romney's Medical Records: Are They Hidden with His Tax Filing?, suggesting that they might provide some explanation for his eccentricities and outrages:
Will the news media please ask to see Governor Romney's medical records? His mis-statements and ramblings appear to be going pathologically off course.
I responded:
I have a strong suspicion that Romney will resist releasing medical records even more stridently than he has refused to provide tax returns. This is because he is likely to have a history of traumatic brain injury from 1968. His forgetfulness, impulsiveness, self-contradictions and interpersonal eccentricities can, to some degree, be attributed to subtle but significant longterm adverse sequelae from brain damage in his adolescence. This has been addressed on DailyKos:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Many TBI survivors have posttraumatic epilepsy, which requires anti-seizure medication. In fact, some of Romney's "gaffes" resemble the thought disorders that can occasionally be a side effect of such drugs. His medical records might reveal that he is prescribed these, and while epilepsy alone should never disqualify him as a presidential candidate, if it is being used to treat seizures from TBI, more troubling questions regarding his executive competence are raised.
Many Kossacks have commented that
my hypotheses warrant further speculation and investigation. Others simply want to attribute his fuckups to his being a rich, spoiled, clueless asshole, and - I must agree - that’s a temptingly simple and straightforward explanation. But the coffin of Mitt's candidacy could use a few more nails, and I believe this aspect of his pathological past would be a sharp one.