This is a very delicate area, and completely unscientific (there are many overweight people who are not Republicans, after all), but Republicans do seem to blather on the most about personal responsibility and the importance of taxpayers not having to bail people out of poor choices, especially poor health choices.
Fair enough, but have you ever noticed that Republicans all have the same body habitus?
Notice the chin of Karl Rove as it flows liquid-like over his collar.
Look at Karl Rove,
Dick Cheney has aged since this picture, but notice also the flow of chins over the collar. What is often mistaken as a scowl is simply a facial asymmetry perhaps the result of an old stroke (notice the left palpebral fissure is narrower than the right and the labial folds are flatter on the left), itself the result of longstanding cardiovascular disease worsened by decades of alcohol abuse.
Dick Cheney, and
Here Limbaugh illustrates 2 modifiable health risk factors: obesity and tobacco abuse. His illicit narcotics addiction is allegedly in remission.
Rush Limbaugh. Then look at
Glenn Beck here illustrating multiple folds under his chin. Of the cases presented here, Beck's is perhaps the least severe on the Body Mass Index front, but this could be because his drugs of choice (cocaine and amphetamines) are powerful appetite suppressants.
Glenn Beck and
New Gingrich.
I had a full frontal shot of Newt which reveals what his suit was partially concealing:
Remember Jerry Falwell, the man who said feminists, not anti-feminist religious fundamentalists, had caused 9-11? He suffered multiple medical stigmata of obesity, including advanced atherosclerosis requiring a stent to be placed in 2005 to open a 70% coronary artery obstruction; he died of a probably heart attack on May 15, 2007, being found down without pulse-less and unconscious in his office. He died at 74, which is relatively young for such a wealthy white man with access to the best medical technology (including dieticians and physical trainers whose advice he apparently did not or could not follow). Again, the man who was spent so much time telling everyone that the Antichrist would appear by 2009 (and "of course he'll be Jewish") should have spent more time watching his caloric intake and cholesterol level.
But all these "do as I say, not as I do" personal responsibility Republicans look like hell. They all have this soft, jowly look, as though some mother has been spoiling them, giving them extra portions, telling them what a smart boy they are.
What is it about people who think they have found Jesus that makes them also think they don't need to lose a few pounds?
All this personal responsibility stuff seems to end with the guy in the mirror for these Republicans; what on earth was Dick Cheney, a man with a pacemaker, 5 heart attacks, heavy smoking history, and at least 2 DUIs, doing DRINKING ALCOHOL when hunting before he shot his friend in the face on February 11, 2006?
Cheney's friend, Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, shot in the face after Cheney had "a beer" for lunch prior to hunting; the taxpayer-funded healthcare necessitated by this accident was never reimbursed by the shooter. Whittington was quite lucky he did not die; he suffered a myocardial infarction and atrial fib as a result of irritation from pellets lodged in his pericardium.
We as taxpayers had to pay for that aftermath; why do we not send the bill to Cheney who clearly was not showing personal responsibility by hunting after drinking (the amount of alcohol is unclear, but irrelevant; personal responsibility dictates that firearms and alcohol do not mix, particularly when the firearm is handled by a man with a history of 5 heart attacks and 2 convictions for Driving Under the Influence).
We are well beyond the days when it was thought you could tell a man's moral character by his physical appearance (although Hollywood directors and novelists often forget this), but when one's physical appearance is a direct byproduct of individual decisions made over a lifetime, the consequences of which all of us must ultimately pay for, do Republicans or conservatives in general really have the moral high ground from which to preach to the rest of us about personal responsibility? No more than Dick Cheney, a man who sought and obtained 5 deferrals to avoid military service in Vietnam, has a right to lecture us about patriotism.
Fair enough, but have you ever noticed that Republicans all have the same body habitus?
Notice the chin of Karl Rove as it flows liquid-like over his collar.
Look at Karl Rove,
Dick Cheney has aged since this picture, but notice also the flow of chins over the collar. What is often mistaken as a scowl is simply a facial asymmetry perhaps the result of an old stroke (notice the left palpebral fissure is narrower than the right and the labial folds are flatter on the left), itself the result of longstanding cardiovascular disease worsened by decades of alcohol abuse.
Dick Cheney, and
Here Limbaugh illustrates 2 modifiable health risk factors: obesity and tobacco abuse. His illicit narcotics addiction is allegedly in remission.
Rush Limbaugh. Then look at
Glenn Beck here illustrating multiple folds under his chin. Of the cases presented here, Beck's is perhaps the least severe on the Body Mass Index front, but this could be because his drugs of choice (cocaine and amphetamines) are powerful appetite suppressants.
Glenn Beck and
New Gingrich.
I had a full frontal shot of Newt which reveals what his suit was partially concealing:
That's not Newt's granddaughter, but his third wife, his mistress when Newt was impeaching Clinton for having a mistress. But I don't want to focus on his inability to control his appetite for sex here, instead focusing on his inability to inhibit his intake of food. Notice the fully-developed man breasts, generous paunch, and (if you zoom in) distended varicose veins, all evidence of decades of over-eating and insufficient exercise. The man is a walking cardiovascular time bomb and of course when he requires healthcare, he will get the best and the most expensive, and since he is Medicare-eligible, we will all pay for it.
Remember Jerry Falwell, the man who said feminists, not anti-feminist religious fundamentalists, had caused 9-11? He suffered multiple medical stigmata of obesity, including advanced atherosclerosis requiring a stent to be placed in 2005 to open a 70% coronary artery obstruction; he died of a probably heart attack on May 15, 2007, being found down without pulse-less and unconscious in his office. He died at 74, which is relatively young for such a wealthy white man with access to the best medical technology (including dieticians and physical trainers whose advice he apparently did not or could not follow). Again, the man who was spent so much time telling everyone that the Antichrist would appear by 2009 (and "of course he'll be Jewish") should have spent more time watching his caloric intake and cholesterol level.
But all these "do as I say, not as I do" personal responsibility Republicans look like hell. They all have this soft, jowly look, as though some mother has been spoiling them, giving them extra portions, telling them what a smart boy they are.
What is it about people who think they have found Jesus that makes them also think they don't need to lose a few pounds?
All this personal responsibility stuff seems to end with the guy in the mirror for these Republicans; what on earth was Dick Cheney, a man with a pacemaker, 5 heart attacks, heavy smoking history, and at least 2 DUIs, doing DRINKING ALCOHOL when hunting before he shot his friend in the face on February 11, 2006?
Cheney's friend, Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, shot in the face after Cheney had "a beer" for lunch prior to hunting; the taxpayer-funded healthcare necessitated by this accident was never reimbursed by the shooter. Whittington was quite lucky he did not die; he suffered a myocardial infarction and atrial fib as a result of irritation from pellets lodged in his pericardium.
We as taxpayers had to pay for that aftermath; why do we not send the bill to Cheney who clearly was not showing personal responsibility by hunting after drinking (the amount of alcohol is unclear, but irrelevant; personal responsibility dictates that firearms and alcohol do not mix, particularly when the firearm is handled by a man with a history of 5 heart attacks and 2 convictions for Driving Under the Influence).
We are well beyond the days when it was thought you could tell a man's moral character by his physical appearance (although Hollywood directors and novelists often forget this), but when one's physical appearance is a direct byproduct of individual decisions made over a lifetime, the consequences of which all of us must ultimately pay for, do Republicans or conservatives in general really have the moral high ground from which to preach to the rest of us about personal responsibility? No more than Dick Cheney, a man who sought and obtained 5 deferrals to avoid military service in Vietnam, has a right to lecture us about patriotism.
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