Secretary Clinton: successful elbow surgery

June 19, 2009

Secretary Clinton had successful surgery to repair her fractured right elbow and is not expected to have long term complications. Her surgery was not announced until after it was completed for obvious reasons. The press was outraged and stopped just short of asking who was standing by in a secret location as in who she turned over her responsibilities during the 120 minutes she was under anesthesia.

How many urgent decisions does she make in a day? And barry? Has he committed on whether to act on North Korea? He still hasn’t decided what decision on Iran would be most politically expedient – even the NY Times is catching on.

They asked the exact configuration of her cast, how long she will have it and WHETHER IT WAS ATTACHED TO HER! Might be the reason they’d “love to have a photo of her”. They probably want to check if she wears pantsuits for pajamas. And then they wanted to know the specific medications she was taking.

Why aren’t they questioning Gibbs like this? Anyone know what medications — besides nicorette — barry takes every day? What medical problems he presently has? What he is being treated for? Whether he has had any fractures? Whether he’s been treated for gonorrhea, syphilis or genital warts? Anything about his medical history other than the several paragraph summary?

Another clear cut example of the double standard aka pro-obama media bias that exist in the barrymedia and another one that needs no survey to prove.

STATE DEPARTMENT Press Briefing (June 19th)

MR. KELLY: As we announced not long ago, Secretary Clinton underwent a two-hour surgery to successfully repair her right elbow, her fractured right elbow. Her doctors at The George Washington University Hospital had advised – have advised her that they expect her to make a full recovery without lasting damage to her arm. After the surgery, she returned to her home where she is now and where she will remain with her family through the weekend. We know there’s a great deal of interest in her schedule and especially travel. But we will make those decisions in due course, and will announce those decisions in the days to come.

She is grateful for the many prayers and messages of goodwill that they have received in the last few days and are so thankful for the excellent care provided by the doctors, nurses, and staff of The George Washington University Hospital.

As we also announced, of course, she has no public appointments today. She planned to go out to the – make her first visit out to the Foreign Service Institute, and I know she was really looking forward to it, but we’ll reschedule that at a later time.

QUESTION: So is – what’s the – is her arm immobilized? Is it one of those things where, you know, you can’t – you know, it’s —

QUESTION: Is she in a cast?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. She’s in a cast.

QUESTION: And —

MR. KELLY: And she’ll be in a cast for a while. I don’t know exactly how long she’ll be in a cast, but —

QUESTION: But is it like attached to her —

MR. KELLY: I don’t know the exact configuration of the cast, but she is in a cast.

QUESTION: We’d love to get a photo of her.

MR. KELLY: I understand that. But it’s just been a couple hours since she’s gotten home, and we’ll see what we can do.

QUESTION: What about medications at this point? Can you tell us what she’s on?

MR. KELLY: Well, as P.J. said yesterday, she just – she had a painful experience and, of course, today she had an operation. But I don’t have any specific information about what her doctors prescribed her.

QUESTION: Is she —

QUESTION: Or a local or a general anesthetic?

MR. KELLY: It was a general anesthetic.

QUESTION: So she was out?

MR. KELLY: She was out for a couple hours, then.

QUESTION: Is there a reason why you didn’t make it public that she was going to have the surgery before she had the surgery? Why did you wait till afterwards?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think this was mostly – I mean, there’s also some natural concerns about her privacy. We – as soon as she got home, we pressed send on that announcement and got it out. But we waited till she got home.

QUESTION: You thought maybe George Washington Hospital would be mobbed with people if they knew she was going to be there that —

MR. KELLY: Well, like I say, we just – we had some concerns about her privacy.

QUESTION: Has her doctor given her any – has her doctor given her any general advice on travel?

MR. KELLY: Like I say, she just had surgery, literally, a few hours ago. She’ll consult with her doctor, take his advice, and we’ll take it from there.

QUESTION: Any idea how long she’s going to be in this cast?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know exactly. But I imagine it’s going to be —

QUESTION: Can you give a range?

MR. KELLY: — for some time.

QUESTION: Some time meaning months?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.

QUESTION: Is the Secretary going to be working over the weekend or is she taking the weekend off and passing on her duties to her Deputy?

MR. KELLY: Well, she remains fully engaged. I don’t know what her exact schedule is. We have a full complement of senior officials here at the Department: Jim Steinberg, Jack Lew, Bill Burns. But she remains the Secretary of State and fully engaged.

QUESTION: Well, there was – do you know if during the two hours that she was under the general anesthetic if she temporarily handed over acting secretary of state power to Steinberg?

MR. KELLY: As I understand it, and I’m not a lawyer, there’s no formal requirement for her to do that, for the Secretary to do that. And I don’t believe it was done formally.