According to The New York Times, John McCain is set to release his long-awaited medical records on Friday to "a tightly controlled group of reporters." I guess he hopes the holiday weekend will provide him some cover in case there is any problematic news.
Senator John McCain is set to release 400 pages of medical records, including documents related to his melanoma surgery in August 2000, to a tightly controlled group of reporters on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.
Mr. McCain said late last week that he had nothing to hide. Campaign officials have nonetheless said that even if nothing in the records suggests a problem with his health, a rush of news media reports focusing on the cancer surgery was not politically helpful and that they wanted to play down the information as much as possible — something that the timing of the release would seem to accomplish.
“There are going to be no surprises,” Mr. McCain, 71, told reporters last Friday aboard his campaign bus on a trip to West Virginia. His doctors, he added, “have told me that everything’s fine.”
I sincerely hope that McCain's health is well. It just seems odd that he would pull a Friday dump on an issue where transparency would help, given the concerns voters seem to have about his age. Releasing it like this only fuels speculation that he is hiding something. Age shouldn't be an issue, IMO. Good health obviously should be though.
UPDATE: It's even sketchier than I first thought. Via dKos, these are the circumstances under which McCain will make his records "public":
- only a small, select group of reporters will have access to the records in a secure room in Phoenix, AZ
- access is limited to only three hours, between 7 and 10 AM on Friday
- no copying of the records is permitted
Nothing to see here, people. Move along.
