"Media Flu" update

Yes, I remain a Swine Flu skeptic – meaning I think it should be monitored, of course, but isn’t that big a deal. I don’t know a single person with Swine Flu yet – or even anybody who knows anyone anywhere in the world who has it.

And, yes, I could be criticized for falling into the Pauline Kael trap when she famously said in astonishment at Nixon’s election that she didn’t know a single person who had voted for the man from Whittier. Nevertheless, tens of millions voted for Nixon, while, thus far, the CDC validates a grand total of 160 cases (mostly mild) in 21 states. In other words, you still have about as much chance of dying of spinach overdose as you do of Swine Flu.

SF remains a “Media Flu” fanned by CNN, Drudge, etc. and seems even to have infected otherwise brilliant members of the media with whom I normally agree. [So maybe it’s you.-ed. Shut up. I told you I came from a medical family. Read my book. It’s on my night table.]

Worth noting is what enhances this media flu: political bile. Just as the left made a heyday (oh, how they made a heyday!) out of Bush’s reaction to Katrina, the right is attacking Obama on Swine Flu. It’s all nonsense. The right, of all people, should realize the President is not God. He (POTUS) does not control natural phenomena. He does, however, control his policies. Let’s go after those – especially the substantive ones.