Missed by a hare.
We may be over-reacting a bit to the AP article about Frist's statements-- I caught the replay of Meet the Press earlier tonight and did not think Frist was as wishy-washy as the AP article made him out to be. Let me be clear, I am not a huge fan of Frist and certainly wish he were a stronger leader, but after hearing the interview with my own ears, it's VERY clear AP cherry-picked his comments to give the impression he's repudiated his actions trying to save Terri.
Tim Russert was trying to bludgeon him over the head with Terri and Frist was STEADFAST that as a physician, he felt she was not PVS, and should be retested, and if I heard it right, he indicated he did NOT regret getting involved. Unfortunately I had a phone call in the middle of the segment and could not listen to the rest with full attention. I can't say with 100% certainty, we need to find a transcript, but I think AP has pulled a fast one here. I expected to be outraged after reading the article earlier in the day, that's specifically WHY I watched MTP, but the actual interview surprised me--Frist was standing by the effort to save Terri from what I heard.
We need to check this out more before jumping all over Frist. If Frist said what AP indicated, we need to educate him and bring him back out of the media's alternate universe on Terri, but we shouldn't unfairly excoriate him over misrepresentations by the Associated Press. "Trust but verify" is a good policy, but with the AP maybe it should be "verify, then verify again."
I am going to be extremely busy the next few days and not online much, can someone find the actual MTP transcript instead of just relying on AP?
It is not a heavenly statement but rather hellish.
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