Aggregated News
For those who have always thought politicians are a sick bunch, this week's Senate debate on stem cell research provided ample confirmation.
"I sustained an episode with Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer two years ago," disclosed Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).
"As a child I suffered from polio," confided Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
"My wife is a breast cancer survivor, my brother died of a stroke, my sister died of an aortic aneurysm," offered Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
"I just lost my uncle in Huntington, West Virginia, last year to a form of cancer," submitted Tom Carper (D-Del.), currently on crutches himself.
On and on they went. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) invoked her grandmother (Parkinson's), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) cited unidentified kin and his best friend (diabetes), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) mentioned his grandson (asthma), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) recalled her father (multiple sclerosis), and Alzheimer's was linked to both New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez's mother and Tennessee Republican Bob Corker's father.
Then came Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) with a medical trump card. "I watched my grandmother die of Parkinson's," he said. "I watched my uncle, Addison Udall, die of Parkinson's...