I just love it when feminist female journalists try to prove that they can ask really tough questions — just like the guys! Here they are hounding White House press spokesman Tony Snow over the fact that First Lady Laura Bush had a skin cancer removed from her shin last month — and didn’t immediately go public with it (Thanks, Michelle Malkin–and here’s the video):
Q. And she didn’t feel any obligation as a person of public status to talk about this?
MR. SNOW: No, again, there are any number of — this is a room full of public people who tend not — and I know you say, wait a minute, I’m different than the First Lady. Well, no, she’s a private citizen. And the fact is, she is entitled to her medical privacy. And, again, it’s no big deal. In this case, it’s just not a big deal.
Q. May I follow on that? The President is also a private citizen, as well as being the President. So —
MR. SNOW: Well, he’s an elected official. It’s different.
Q. He’s an elected official and a private citizen. You can make the same claims of a number of people who have public lives. Mrs. Bush has made herself part of this party and this White House’s very public face. So my question is, if this were to be something that is a big deal, would the White House feel obliged to share that with the public?
[snip]
Q. Going back to Mrs. Bush, it seems that there are two things going on, in terms of not informing the public and the press. Which was it, was it that it was medical privacy that was the reason for not informing us, or was it that it was no big deal?
MR. SNOW: It was medical privacy, but also what we’re trying to do is to console you with the notion that, in addition, it was no big deal.
Q. So there was a conscious decision that, okay, we’re not going to tell anybody because this is medical privacy, this is something for us, it’s not for —
MR. SNOW: Well, I don’t know, if you’ll be happy to share all your private medical information, maybe we can change it around. But I don’t think that’s appropriate, nor does the First Lady. She’s got the same privacy rights when it comes to her medical information that you and I do.
Q. But was the decision made not to share it?
MR. SNOW: Yes, in the sense — let me put it this way: It never occurred to anybody that this would be a big deal. It never occurred — but suddenly everybody is —
Q. First it was described as a sore, and now, a month-and-a-half later, it’s revealed that it’s cancer. So there was one story out there that’s been corrected.
MR. SNOW: Do you understand — if you’ve been — there are literally millions of Americans who have been through this, and you can ask them whether they thought this was a big deal or not. It was quickly diagnosed. They said, the sore is not going away, we’re going to take a look at it. They did. They did a biopsy, they found out it was a squamous cell cancer and they removed it. They did local anesthetic; they removed it.
Q. But the White House might have had an interest in correcting the record when bad information was out there.
And on and on and on and on.
And here, again thanks to Michelle, is Pirate Cove’s link to the warm and sympathetic response of the left to Mrs. Bush’s cancer diagnosis.