A false analogy
Dear editor:
Re: “The Trump Analogy,” Aug. 10, 2018, by Jack Sternberg.
I can barely contain my disgust over the specious argument that Mr. Sternberg makes in his analogy comparing a competent oncologist with a poor bedside manner to Donald Trump as a competent presidential leader with “a personal style … at times annoying, crude and bullish … But so what?”
Examine the first part of his analogy. I am a registered nurse who has worked in a variety of health care settings over the last 34 years. There is no place for a technically adept physician (or any health care worker, for that matter) who is a bully, throws fits, denigrates members of the health care team, lies, cheats, exaggerates his/her competence, sets team members against one another and rejects upto-date scientific evidence-based treatments. As the health care team is threatened, so also is the health and safety of the patient.
And now for equating Mr. Trump with that “competent oncologist” … a false analogy! When voters are asked to elect a judge, we seek a person who is not only competent in legal matters, but has “judicial temperament” (ABA definition: “exhibits compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, sensitivity, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias and commitment to equal justice”). Can we not expect that when we elect someone to the presidency of the United States, that the person exhibit some reasonable degree of this judicial temperament?
When the POTUS sneezes, the whole world watches. When he pops off a tweet that has spent two minutes festering in his frontal lobe at 5 a.m., world trade markets tumble. The world is not a lone cancer patient willing to accept whatever a singular physician determines will save him. Malignant persons in power threaten the health of the entire country and the teams that serve them. A malignant “annoying, crude and bullish” (Mr. Sternberg’s words) leader resuscitated the economy of post World War I Germany in the drive to make Germany great again. Acceptable? I think not. Donna Casparian Hot Springs