Sunday, December 11, 2005

RIP: Eugene McCarthy, 1916-2005

"As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences."
--Eugene McCarthy

That's me at left, in 1968, wearing a flower-shaped Eugene McCarthy sticker on my dress

What's the disability angle? There are several--maybe readers can point us to others. But here's one: When Eugene McCarthy ran for as an independent candidate for president in 1976, he refused to make his medical records public, citing privacy as the reason, and insisting that the president should be elected "on the basis of his or her record of service, of thought about the issues and programs to deal with them, and not on the basis of any private status such as that of patient." [That link probably requires a subscribing account, but the cite is George J. Annas, "The Health of the President and Presidential Candidates--The Public's Right to Know," New England Journal of Medicine 333(5 October 1995): 945-949.]

Eugene McCarthy
died yesterday, in Washington DC, after several years living with the effects of advancing Parkinson's disease.

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