Krugman on Gupta
Paul Krugman reminds us of Sanjay Gupta’s unfair and inaccurate attacks on Michael Moore and Sicko. It’s a fair point, but if this is the worst thing you can say about Gupta it’s honestly not so bad. The plus side is that it means you’ll have as Surgeon General a guy who’s genuinely excellent at going on television and talking about medical issues. That’s potentially a very useful asset in a debate over health care reform, and even leaving that aside just means a guy who can do the Surgeon General’s basic public health and health education functions with an unusual degree of effectiveness.
But the Sicko thing really should remind us that we do exist in a pretty demented political culture, and one that reaches its peak of derangement on cable television broadcasts.
43 Responses to “Krugman on Gupta”
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January 7th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I have not seen Sicko and I would probably agree with many of its conclusions but let’s be clear. Moore is a gasbag. With his stalking of the late Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine (ironically, who could have imagined turning Heston into a living martyr) and his ridiculous conflations in Farenheit 911 (mind you- Moore is indeed an excellent filmmaker)- he is, in my view, the equivalent of a Lowry (in other words not as offensive as Coulter as the right makes him sound). But the point here is that he is a gasbag. My opinion of him would improve if he made a film like Gore’s film: an honest presentation without propagandizing an issue. BTW- I recently saw an Inconvenient Truth again- it is scarier the second time around.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:47 am
I saw that exchange when it happened on CNN, and I had seen Sicko the night before. It was a hit-job and although it doesn’t disqualify Gupta, it really pissed me off at the time. For the most part (except the Cuba bits) Moore had created a convincing, heart-breaking movie and it was aimed at the middle class. It talked about how people who have insurance get screwed. It was an excellent movie to lay the groundwork for universal healthcare, and so people like Gupta had to make asses out themselves trying to find mistakes, NPR ran a list of his “errors” instead of discussing the film, and David Denby in the New Yorker wanted a wonkier film. Really, David, wonkier? In any case, I am sypmathetic to Krugman’s objections.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I agree that Gupta will be an excellent mouth piece for SG.
It is disturbing that Sanjay never met a BigPharm product he did not like, but then he is not at FDA so no harm no foul.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:04 am
yeah, he was lying on camera. get used to it, he’ll be doing this a lot. I think this is a corny, silly person to fill the SG role with. apparently Dr. Phil wasn’t available. Gupta’s medical knowledge, when it intersects with politics, always, always seems to just turn into right wing talking points. whether its about drugs, alcohol, or the health care process in general. he’s a rich celebrity who doesn’t really know otherwise. he simply can’t sympathize with the uninsured and under-cared. not surprising, I guess. I’m getting really annoyed with Obama’s need to bestow honors and high positions on silly celebrity types.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I’d say his poorly thought out marijuana policy is worse than his Sicko opinion…this short article is riddled with errors on his part and misses the big picture by miles.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1552034,00.html
January 7th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before. Moore’s fat. Yep, he’s fat and he’s a slob. Gotcha.
On the other hand, skewering Charlton Heston was a goddammed good thing. Let’s be honest here, the guy was a homophobe and a racist, he parlayed a movie career into being a poster boy for right wing extremism, and he used his iconic celebrity status to take all sorts of cheap shots and support all kinds of vile lunatic positions.
I’ll shake Michael Moore’s hand over Chuck Heston any day.
Your real problem with Moore is that he’s got some balls.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:11 am
I think Wolf Blitzer should be Secretary of the Interior since, y’know, his name is Wolf.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Al, I encourage you to read the exchange at the bottom of the link you provided. Then ask yourself if Gupta didn’t have an agenda and wasn’t trying to discredit Moore’s film.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Well, if Roul thinks Michael Moore is a gasbag, then anything goes when attacking him, even outright lies. It’s the American way, apparently. And Sanjay has shown himself an adept.
Cynical triangulation, naive celebrity worship and/or a brilliant tactical move in the fight for a decent healthcare policy — only time will tell. But please, Barack, enough! — no more like this.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I hear Paula Abdul is going to be Director of National Drug Control Policy.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:41 am
harold,
The CNN quote you provide does not differ much from Gupta’s critique of the film, which as Yglesias points out, was in the context of a not very useful cable news culture.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Bah! Bad thinking and punctuation in my previous comment! Gupta was working to put Moore’s film in context.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Yeah! Being a troll! All right! Down with scolding progressivism as a political power and everything else with which I disagree!
January 7th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Charlton Heston was a lot of things, but a racist he was not. Or have you simply forgotten all the work he did for the Civil Rights movement in the 60’s? Nor was his views on homosexuals all that easy to sort out, just read this:
Strange how quickly someone gets labeled a “poster boy for right wing extremism” simply for being a heavy supporter of the NRA.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Thee link didn’t show, for some reason.
http://www.pageoneq.com/news/2008/Charlton_Hestons_turbulent_gay_0407.html
January 7th, 2009 at 10:54 am
context of a not very useful cable news culture
So your argument was that Gupta’s disingenuous claims about Sicko were ok, because that’s just what cable news is all about?
January 7th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I saw the hit job too, and got the impression that Gupta’s heart wasn’t in it, he was just going after Moore unfairly at the behest of the CNN corporate masters.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Well, the fact that he was kowtowing to CNN corporate masters gives me no relief. If he can’t even stand up to them, how is he going to act as Surgeon General with integrity?
Bring back Koop!
January 7th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Skeptic: Charlton Heston was a racist? I’m glad your ignorance, the ignorance of you Michael Moore-rimjobbing fucktards, is here as ever so clearly on display. People might mistake you for actual, principled liberals.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I watched it on youtube, and what I remember is a quick hatchet job by Gupta, followed by a dialogue in which Moore cut the doctor a fresh new asshole.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Perhaps Obama wants Sanjay Gupta to be inside the tent pissing out, not outside the tent pissing in, when it comes time to comment on Obama’s health care reforms. This move may be shrewder than you think.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:50 am
By the standards of India, US healthcare is overfunded and too generous.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I just always found the guy to be a smarmy prick. This notion that he’s America’s beloved family doctor is baffling to me. No one likes Sanjay Gupta.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
No one likes Sanjay Gupta
Whether you personally like him is not the point. CNN’s ratings seem to disagree. I’m even willing to concede that some people like Bush. I suspect even more like Sanjay Gupta.
Heck, people liked the movie Titanic. There’s no accounting for taste.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Whether you personally like him is not the point. CNN’s ratings seem to disagree.
What ratings? He might have his own show, but I don’t think it’s widely watched. You can’t give him credit for Anderson’s ratings.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Read Al’s link (#8)
Gotta say, CNN looks like it basically got it right.
Basically they gave him credit for essentially being factually accurate, then sought to put figures into context. (Anything more deferential, and they would basically just be summarizing or promoting his movie.)
Moore took offense, so they gave him a number of opportunities to respond and debate on their program, which he accepted.
And in doing all this, they got one figure wrong — and then corrected and apologized, on air and web. To say, as Matt’s link does, that theirs are “grossly misleading characterization[s]” strikes me as a subjective statement — “How dare you bring focus to that aspect of the data, when there’s another aspect right there!”
And to those who still say it was a hit job — what then would you call Moore’s film?
January 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Unfortunately, “the Sicko thing” is really, really, really bad. Maybe Gupta’s piece was just a kneejerk reaction to an outsider, but I don’t see how that helps. Healthcare is an area where a whole lot of good can and, quite frankly, needs to be done, and maybe Gupta realizes that, but spewing garbage like he did in that piece certainly doesn’t help.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Ezra Klein has a good post on this:
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=01&year=2009&base_name=gupta_vs_moore
January 7th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Anyway, you need to bear in mind that if your pool of candidates consists entirely of doctors, then it’s inevitable that your final selection will be an asshole.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Fucktard, qjk you snivelling little she-male, cock walloper, if your balls ever drop and you sprout a spine, come see me and we’ll sort it out. In the meantime, watch your mouth, people tend to mistake it for your ass.
As for Chucky Heston, yeah I’ll stand by. The sixties were a long time ago, and a lot of water under the bridge. By the 21st century, he was a sock puppet running cover for extremist douchebags.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The worst part about Gupta isn’t the Michael Moore stuff, but simply that he’s got a habit of giving bad medical advice. He may be a wonderful neurosurgeon, but as a public health officer, he doesn’t know jack.
His program has consistently given wrong, or misleading, advice about a variety of health topics, all under the guise of journalism.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
What an in depth analysis. You’ve totally convinced me he was a racist.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Here the exchange on Larry King:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR2U_SAWHdQ
tell me Gupta isn’t a sanctimonious prick pulling stuff out of his ass smugly as to appear as though he knows what he’s talking about. This is more of the obligatory attack on Michael Moore by the “centrist” media (NPR, the CNN of FM, did it too).
This is totally apart from the fact that every time I walk into my doctor’s office I see Gupta peddling drugs on closed-circuit TV.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Gupta overall strikes me way too much as Celebrity Doctor Guy. Please tell me he’s not the most qualified SG we can find.
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