Tim Johnson's Duration In Coma "Unusual"

...according to a doctor (not one treating him, just asked for comment), whose opinion is now deleted from a WaPo article.

Dr. Keith Siller, director of the Comprehensive Stroke Care Center at NYU Medical Center and assistant professor at the NYU School of Medicine, said it is unusual for a patient to be sedated after brain surgery for more than a few days.

"The two-week period is longer than I would be happy with," he said.

Question: Why was this quote deleted? Did they get the quote wrong? Did they discover Dr. Keith Siller was not an expert on the subject? Or did they just decide they didn't want to add fuel to the low-heat fire to remove Johnson from the Senate and thus imperil Democratic control?

Remember when I suggested a Schiavo-Johnson comparison? Mickey Kaus credits Tim Noah as being the "only" person with "the balls" to speculate on a "partisan do-si-doh" on Johnson, with liberals now believing so long as you're alive, you're alive.

Well, he's an idiot and he wasn't the first.

Actually, he doesn't knock liberals. It's Kaus who more-evenhandedly suggests a change in position by both sides.

Noah, an absurd hack, of course sees this through the prism of conservative hypocrisy only, wondering if Tom DeLay would support legislation to prevent a feeding tube being removed from Tim Johnson, should it come to that.

Well, that's jackass; how about looking at the liberal hypocrisy? Are liberals now maintaining that someone who as of yet demonstrates no motor, speech, or other higher brain activity can remain a sitting Senator?

Terry Schiavo was in much worse shape, as I've said, but the issue there was only if she should be permitted to live, not permitted to continue "serving" as a US Senator in a seriously impaired state.

So there's not really any conservative hypocrisy on this. We pressed to keep Terry Schiavo alive, not to put her in charge of, say, the TSA.

Although, seriously, she wouldn't have been worse than the current regime.

posted by Ace at 09:08 PM

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