history

Health Lies at the White House – A long and rich history of misleading the nation

Another masterful column from Mark Barakak (LA Times) about the history of medical lies and coverups at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Marks’s words absolutely deserve to be shared.

It’s not just Biden. There’s a history of presidential health cover-ups

By Mark Z. Barabak ColumnistFollow May 21, 2025 3 AM PT

Far from transparent, the White House allows a president to hide in plain sight.
Biden is just the latest to be protected by family and his political inner circle.
Suddenly, it’s 2024 all over again.
Once more we’re litigating Joe Biden’s catatonic debate performance, his lumbering gait, his moth-eaten memory and his selfish delusion he deserved a second term in the White House while shuffling through his ninth decade on earth.
Biden’s abrupt announcement he faces an advanced form of prostate cancer has only served to increase speculation over what the president’s inner circle knew, and when they knew it.
“Original Sin,” a book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, published this week, is chock-full of anecdotes illustrating the lengths to which Biden’s family and palace guard worked to shield his mental and physical lapses from voters.
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John Robert Greene is not at all surprised.
“It’s old news, hiding presidential illness,” said Greene, who’s written a shelf full of books on presidents and the presidency. “I can’t think of too many … who’ve been the picture of health.”
Before we go further, let’s state for the record this in no way condones the actions of Biden and his political enablers. To be clear, let’s repeat it in capital letters: WHAT BIDEN AND HIS HANDLERS DID WAS WRONG.
But, as Greene states, it was not unprecedented or terribly unusual. History abounds with examples of presidential maladies being minimized, or kept secret.
Grover Cleveland underwent surgery for oral cancer on a yacht in New York Harbor to keep his condition from being widely known. Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, a fact covered up by his wife and confidants, who exercised extraordinary power in his stead.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy both suffered serious, chronic ailments that were kept well away from the public eye.
Those surrounding Ronald Reagan downplayed his injuries after a 1981 assassination attempt, and the Trump administration misled the public about the seriousness of the president’s condition after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 a month before the 2020 election.
The capacity to misdirect, in Biden’s case, or mislead, as happened under Trump, illustrates one of the magical features of the White House: the ability of a president to conceal himself in plain sight.
“When you’re in the presidency, there is nothing that you can’t hide for awhile,” Greene, an emeritus history professor at Cazenovia College, said from his home in upstate New York. “You’ve got everything at your disposal to live a completely hidden double life, if you want. Everything from the Secret Service to the bubble of the White House.”
Greene likened the Neoclassical mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to a giant fish bowl — one that is painted from the inside. It’s highly visible, but you can’t really see what’s happening in the interior.
That deflates the notion there was some grand media conspiracy to prop Biden up. (Sorry, haters.)
Yes, detractors will say it was plain as the dawning day that Biden was demented, diminished and obviously not up to the job of the presidency. Today, Trump’s critics say the same sort of thing about him; from their armchairs, they even deliver quite specific diagnoses: He suffers dementia, or Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
That doesn’t make it so.
“It’s a very politicized process. People see what they want to see,” said Jacob Appel, a professor of psychiatry and medical education at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, who’s writing a book on presidential health.
“You can watch videotapes of Ronald Reagan in 1987,” Appel said, “and, depending on your view of him. you can see him as sharp and funny as ever, or being on the cusp of dementia.” (Five years after leaving the White House, Reagan — then 83 — announced he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.)
To an uncomfortable degree, those covering the White House — and, by extension, the public they serve — are forced to rely on whatever the White House chooses to reveal.
“I don’t have subpoena power,” Tapper told The Times’ Stephen Battaglio, saying he would have eagerly published the details contained in his new book had sources been willing to come forth while Biden was still in power. “We were just lied to over and over again.”
It hasn’t always been that way.
In September 1955, during his first term, President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while on a golf vacation in Denver. “”It was sudden,” said Jim Newton, an Eisenhower biographer. “One minute he’s fine and the next minute he was flat on his back, quite literally.”
The details surrounding Eisenhower’s immediate treatment remain a mystery, though Newton suggests that may have had more do with protecting his personal physician, who misdiagnosed the heart attack as a bout of indigestion, than a purposeful attempt to mislead the public.
From then on, the White House was forthcoming — offering daily reports on what Eisenhower ate, his blood pressure, the results of various tests — to a point that it embarrassed the president. (Among the information released was an accounting of Ike’s bowel movements.)
“They were self-consciously transparent,” Newton said. “The White House looked to the Wilson example as something not to emulate.”
Less than 14 months later, Eisenhower had sufficiently recovered — and voters had enough faith in his well-being — that he won his second term in a landslide.
But that 70-year-old example is a notable exception.
As long as there are White House staffers, campaign advisers, political strategists and family members, presidents will be surrounded by people with an incentive to downplay, minimize or obfuscate any physical or mental maladies they face while in office. (Italics, mine, PS)
All we can do is wait — years, decades — for the truth to come out. And, in the meantime, hope for the best.

Scary! When a judge rules against a newspaper’s right to print an opinion story!

“Judge Orders Mississippi Newspaper to Remove Editorial, Alarming Press Advocates

The owner of The Clarksdale Press Register said he planned to challenge a judge’s order against an editorial that criticized city officials.

A brick building with a black-and-white sign saying “Press Register.”
“I’ve been in this business for five decades and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,”
Wyatt Emmerich, the president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns The Press Register in Clarksdale, Miss., said of a judge’s order.

By Michael Levenson {{<— New York Times reporter}}

Feb. 19, 2025 5:54 p.m. ET

A Mississippi judge on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order requested by the city of Clarksdale requiring a local newspaper to remove a critical editorial from its website, a move that alarmed press advocates.

By Wednesday, the newspaper, The Clarksdale Press Register, had removed the editorial from its website. But Wyatt Emmerich, the president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns The Press Register, said he planned to challenge the judge’s order at a hearing next week.

“I’ve been in this business for five decades and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Mr. Emmerich said in an interview, adding that the judge had targeted “an editorial that is pretty plain vanilla, criticizing the City Council for not sending out the approporate notices.”

The Press Register, which dates to 1865 and serves about 7,750 readers, published the editorial on its website on Feb. 8 under the headline, “Secrecy, deception erode public trust.”

The editorial criticized officials in Clarksdale, a city of about 14,000 residents near the Arkansas border, for what it said was their failure to notify the news media before they held a special meeting on Feb. 4, where they approved a resolution asking the Mississippi Legislature to impose a 2 percent tax on alcohol, marijuana and tobacco.

“This newspaper was never notified,” the editorial read. “We know of no other media organization that was notified.”

The editorial also questioned city officials’ interest in the resolution.

“Have commissioners or the mayor gotten kickback from the community?” it asked. “Until Tuesday we had not heard of any. Maybe they just want a few nights in Jackson to lobby for this idea — at public expense.”

Clarksdale’s Board of Mayor and Commissioners voted on Feb. 13 to sue the newspaper for libel, saying the city clerk had created a public notice for the Feb. 4 board meeting but forgot to email a copy of it to Floyd Ingram, the editor and publisher of The Press Register, as she usually does.

After the meeting, Mr. Ingram went to the clerk’s office, where the clerk apologized for not sending him the notice and gave him a copy of it and the resolution that had been approved, city officials said.

In their lawsuit against The Press Register, city officials said that efforts by the mayor, Chuck Espy, to lobby for the tax proposal in Jackson, the state capital, had been “chilled and hindered due to the libelous assertions and statements by Mr. Ingram.”

On Tuesday, Judge Crystal Wise Martin of the Chancery Court of Hinds County, Miss., granted the city’s request for a temporary restraining order and told the newspaper to remove the editorial from its “online portals” and to make it inaccessible to the public.

“The injury in this case is defamation against public figures through actual malice in reckless disregard of the truth and interferes with their legitimate function to advocate for legislation they believe would help their municipality during this current legislative cycle,” Judge Martin wrote.

Mr. Ingram referred questions on Wednesday to Emmerich Newspapers. Mr. Emmerich said the editorial was clearly free speech protected by the Constitution.

“I don’t know how they can argue that a critical editorial is interfering with their businesses in a country that has a First Amendment that protects our right to criticize the government,” he said. “That’s the very idea of what an editorial in a newspaper does.”

The city’s lawsuit was part of what Mr. Emmerich described as an ongoing feud between The Press Register and Mr. Espy. He said that the newspaper had irked the mayor and other officials by reporting on their increased compensation and other issues and that “they’ve been at us ever since.”

Mr. Espy, a Democrat, said that the increased compensation had “nothing do with” the city’s lawsuit against the newspaper and “its malicious lies.” He said the city had threatened to sue the newspaper in the past, forcing it to retract an article.

“The only thing we’re asking for in city government is to simply write the truth, good or bad,” Mr. Espy said. “And I’m very thankful that the judge agreed to impose a T.R.O. against a rogue newspaper that insisted on telling lies against the municipality.”

Adam Steinbaugh, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which supports free speech, criticized the city’s lawsuit, writing on social media that it was “wildly unconstitutional.”

He said that governments “can’t sue for libel” under New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark First Amendment decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964.

“Free-speech threats come from all corners of society, whether it’s the president of the United States or a mayor, and they come from all political parties,” Mr. Steinbaugh said in an interview on Wednesday. He said that once “we start eroding those rights, all other rights are threatened.”

Layne Bruce, executive director of the Mississippi Press Association, said he supported The Press Register’s right to publish the editorial and its effort to challenge the judge’s order.

“This is a rather astounding order,” he said, “and we feel it’s egregious and chilling and it clearly runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

President Trump’s Hiraeth

Again and again, Ameican’s are promised a return to a life, a universe, a world of glorious ‘agains.”
But, just when was this: again?

I want someone in the press to ask, when was ‘again’?

When was America strong, again?
Was that in the post-WW2 era when our military and nuclear might were unmatched? Again here certainly can’t be Vietnam… a war from which the President excused himself, and what’s more, we lost.
Was it 1959 when President Eisenhower warned of the unchecked military-industrial complex rampantly growing to unsustainable proportions?

Was when America safe, again?
It certainly couldn’t have been the 1960s and 70s which saw dramatically higher crime spikes. But maybe it was before cameras in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, among other cities showcased poverty and injustice directly into our living rooms, and Black Lives Matter was splashed on downtown DC streets?

Was safe again when people who made us uncomfortable were compelled to hide in the shadows?
Was that the 1950s and 60’s when sexual repression castigated fags, queers, and dykes in even the most polite conversations, if they were recognized at all? Sniggers and condemnations… Shall we return to that? Again?

Was safe before desegregation? Before the Freedom Rides? Before Selma and Montgomery? Before Little Rock? Or Boston even in the 1970s?
Before the riots of the late 1960s which burned American neighborhoods to ash? Before blood was spilled in the streets; when was that again?
Was that when America was safe? Or when white people felt safe?
Is that the ‘again’ to be sought?

When was America at peace, again? Surely not in my 7 decades of life… from Korea to the Iron Curtain, to the Bamboo Curtain, to Vietnam, to the innumerable battles and terror of the Middle East and the armaments provided by the U.S., Kosovo, to civil wars and revolutions (Argentina, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Senegal), to the Iran Contra affair… and what about Afghanistan, Iraq? Kuwait? Wars all – again, and again.

AI calculates, “As of 2024, there are 56 ongoing conflicts worldwide, with 92 countries involved in conflicts outside their borders. This represents the highest number of countries engaged in conflict since World War II, highlighting the continued prevalence of armed conflicts in the modern era.” It calculates today 160,000 active duty military personnel are assigned to foreign posts in 80 countries at 750 bases. Again? Is that safe again?

So when was there peace, ‘again’?

When was America good, again? Was it again before the Poverty Program which lifted the living standard and fed so many impoverished Americans? Was it before a health safety net – perhaps before Medicare? Before LBJ? Certainly, it must have been before the Obama Affordable Care Act, but just when was it healthier, ‘again’?

Was America better before desegregation – in schools, hotels, restaurants, and public transport? Or even baseball? Surely, better must be before DEI – so what are we returning to, ‘again’?

Was America better and stronger in the world when U.S. corporations ran entire governments? When the CIA choose who would rule and who would fall in a coup? When we determined who would be bribed, regardless of the consequences to their citizens, but always to our advantage — think oil prices or bananas… and so much more. When was that ‘again’, Pax America?

And what about some of the poorest of the poor – the American farm worker? Is returning to the era of Harvest of Shame what is meant by again? When prices at the market were at a low because the pickers on American farms were treated as slaves.

Just when was ‘again’?

I am puzzled.

America is not a Norman Rockwell painting – a romanticized distortion of life years ago, a saccharin reminder of a supposedly gentler time that was never completely accurate but has become a political symbol of a supposedly better life then.

Thomas Wolfe wrote you can’t go home again for what was has surely changed and evolved, just as we have individually.

Is ‘again’ really better? Is ‘again’ even realistic?

Where is “again” anything more than a political rallying cry? And for what?

Is your again my again? And are you sure? I’m not.

Mr. Trump’s oft-repeated word ‘again’ is, still, once again, undefined, unasked, and unanswered.

Who in the media will ask, yea demand, and ask, and ask again until he defines his ‘again’… and then we can see if there is a consensus for that destination or if are we just being taken for a ride?

Can Anything About a Nazi War Criminal Be Newsworthy Today?

I suppose it depends on your definition of news.

In the contemporary era of “fake” news, alternative facts, and presumed media bias, what constitutes news to you?

How do you define newsworthy?
Is it primarily what affirms or echoes your defined set of beliefs?
What or whoever endorses your accepted truths?
What boosts your self-esteem and opinions?

For some, traditionally, what’s considered news includes large and catastrophic events; proclamations of elected officials; wars and civil strife; as well as the work, decisions, or actions by anyone (or thing) that consequentially affect our lives, families, and communities, whether for good or bad. We note those who influence our lives, both positively and negatively.

Admittedly for some with a more limited scope, the only news they consume is whatever is positive and non-threatening in a world which increasingly seems so negative and beyond their control or effect.

The cliché of news being a first draft of history is also a truism. Equally true is the role of obituaries for and appreciation of people who played a role, even accidentally or tangentially, in history

I believe the most impactful stores are always about people – first and foremost. We best relate to those of our species. (Perhaps our pets second). Who’s interesting, perhaps entertaining, provocative, intriguing, or offensive?

Our most frequent triggers: who (and what) do we fear or make us angry?

Let’s take a deeper look at something which, on first blush, you may not consider newsworthy.

I pose this question: Can anything about the 1962 execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann be newsworthy, or even interesting today?

Consider this:

An elderly man named Shalom Nagar died last month. His death received scant attention. It was reported in the Israeli press, on the BBC, in the New York Times… but little mention appeared elsewhere.
Most news gatekeepers determined that a story featuring a bit player in a global event 6-decades ago would generate or even deserve interest today. No buzz. Few clicks. The story was too old, or too difficult to tell briefly, and few remember or much care.

Who was he?

Shalom Nagar was the reluctant 23-year-old Israeli guard who hanged Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Shanghaied by the authorities and press-ganged onto the execution team, Nagar’s job was to release the trap door on the gallows.

Nagar’s story and Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s are intractably entwined in history. It is ironic that such a notorious war criminal who caused such suffering for the living and who, even after his death, still haunted and caused lifelong dismay – he scarred even his executioner.

A simple guy – a prison guard of no particular rank – a schlub selected against his will to do a job that no one else would accept… Nagar did that job as assigned. He was, to use the phrase, “just following orders” too.

He was the little story in the larger event, the small story in the big one. But can’t we all relate to something similar in our own life’s journey?

According to the NYTimes obit by Sam Roberts (Dec.5, 24), “Eichmann’s face was white as chalk, his eyes were bulging and his tongue was dangling out,” Mr. Nagar told Mishpacha magazine in 2005. “The rope rubbed the skin off his neck, and so his tongue and chest were covered with blood.”
He added: “I didn’t know that when a person is strangled all the air remains in his stomach, and when I lifted him, all the air that was inside came up and the most horrifying sound was released from his mouth — ‘baaaaa!’ I felt the Angel of Death had come to take me, too.”

Continuing from Roberts’ obit, “In discussing the execution with Mishpacha magazine, Mr. Nagar invoked Amalek, the biblical archenemy nation of ancient Israel, to justify his task.
In spite of the trauma, he said, he appreciated the value of his experience: God “commands us to wipe out Amalek, to ‘erase his memory from under the sky’ and ‘not to forget.’ I have fulfilled both.”

There is an irony here. I think that irony is what triggered media coverage; it is what caught my eye as a reporter/producer/editor/and teacher.

For executing someone convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the executioner too suffered mightily.

Nagar’s burden of taking a life became, apparently, a life-long cross for him to bear.

We presume Nagar found his peace, as is shared in Sam Roberts’ appreciation.
That does add context to a larger story as it reveals little-known-till-now-nuggets of history. And in that is an irony.

More than a half century after Eichmann’s execution, I submit a backstory is still interesting and informative – offering new details, or a previously unknown perspective or consequence. It meets my working definition of being news-worthy, being interesting and informative, shedding new light on people and events in our worlds.

My definition expands: Newsworthy is something that makes me pause and think as I take note of the evolving history.

So, what do you think? Was the New York Times, the BBC and the few others right to consider this newsworthy for their audiences?

Would you have made the same decision, or not, and why?