Senator’s Illness Requires Monitoring

[Summer93]

Source: New York Times

The announcement by Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico that he has a progressive brain disease and will not seek re-election has left unanswered questions about how the illness is affecting him and whether it could interfere with his plans to remain in the Senate until his current term expires in January 2009.

Mr. Domenici, who is 75 and in his sixth term, revealed on Thursday that he had frontotemporal lobar degeneration, a term that describes a family of diseases that damage parts of the brain that control language, behavior, planning, organizing, decision-making and movement. Patients can have either speech problems or behavioral ones, or both, and the symptoms can vary from subtle to flagrant. There is no treatment or cure. The cause is not known, though in about 40 percent of cases, there is a family history of it.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/us/07dementia.html

[hobbit709]

1. Judging from those symptoms

a majority of repukes have this condition.

[Hepburn]

2. Sooooooo.....what would happen if Pete steps down?

Appointment by Gov. Bill Richardson...or a special election?

If the gov appoints, then maybe it would be interesting to force Domenici to step down. I can see an appointment like former USAtty David Inglesias! Talk about poetic justice!

[spotbird]

3. Strom Thurmond

hadn't spoken a coherent sentence for years and was allowed to "serve."

[pinto]

7. Apparently, if this is current, Governor appoints from a group of nominees:

http://legis.state.nm.us/Sessions/03%20Regular/resolutions/senate/SJR11.pdf

[VP505]

12. Although Inglesias

Has shown a lot of integrity and I have a lot of respect for him doing what he did, he is still a Republic, we don't need another Republic in the Senate, we need another PROGRESSIVE Democratic Senator.

[Hepburn]

16. Good point.....

....I forgot that Inglesias is a Repub. But...maybe after all the Repigs did to him...he might want to change parties? That still might now make him a progressive and that is actually more important.

Sooooo...anyone from NM have any ideas on this?

[bobbolink]

21. changing parties doesn't guarantee a progressive mindset.

It isn't a matter of a "D" behind the name, as surely we've learned.

It would mean, for Iglesias, a brain change.

Thinking differently.

That's not highly likely.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

4. I grew up in NM and have been hearing for a while about the Senator's cognitive deterioration

It must have gotten to the point where it could no longer be kept hidden.

I can't imagine that he can make this announcement and fully expect to finish his term, but cognitive deficiencies are the norm in DC for R's.

MKJ

[VP505]

13. With some of

the electorate we have in NM, those that keep voting for him, Wilson and Pearce, he would have to get pretty bad before they would notice.

[bobbolink]

22. Like walking around the Capitol in his pajamas?

That wouldn't have been too obvious, would it?

:rofl:

[Renew Deal]

5. This session of congress is cursed with bad health.

At least it seems that way.

[pattmarty]

6. The Lay term for his disease is, "Extreme Conservatism".

[Warpy]

8. I noticed his language problems nearly 10 years ago

and I imagine the nature of his phone call to Iglesias, a question about a case followed by silence, was affected by it.

He's senile, folks. He should have been out of there 2 terms ago!

[Donnachaidh]

9. laying the framework to weasel out of charges?

Okay - he's got a problem.

However, I'm of the opinion that this *problem* would never have seen the light of day IF he hadn't been caught trying to manipulate the DOJ.

I'll bet he had a sudden onslaught of the *disease* the minute his backdoor power plays hit the media.

:nopity:

[shraby]

10. My father has that and it's called senile dementia.

He is now at the stage that he can't remember anything hardly for over 5 minutes. Stress seems to make his problem worse, as my mother died last year and at the time his memory really went downhill fast.

[Hepburn]

17. Oh, I am so sorry for you and your dad and your family.

This has gotta be very hard to deal with and thanks for sharing and letting us know how severe it can get. It seems from what you are saying that Demenici needs to go very soon.

Best wishes to you, your Dad and family. :hi:

[undeterred]

11. Bush has major psychological problems and we let him be president.

I'm just sayin'. :shrug:

[Eurobabe]

14. Mad Cow Domenici?

From eating too much GOP beef.

[Bitwit1234]

15. I read a medical history of the disease and found

that is usually shows up between 40 -70. That by 70 a person would know that he has the disease. And if you read the one sentence in the article, he had to have known he had the disease before he ran.

I read one article that said that but I can't find it I have gone back about five times. It isn't there. He can't blame any "I don't remember" statements on the disease. It does not take away memory. In fact the disease progress to where you know what is going on and remember everything but can't control your actions. So If he is lucid enough to talk he can remember. And since Johnson from South Dakota was allowed to still keep his seat, the republicans will say until he is fully incapacitated they will say why not Domenici?

[Hepburn]

18. IMO, the difference between Johnson and Domenici

is that what Domenici has cannot be cured and has a very bad history of downward progression viz sanity and cognitive ability. What happened to Johnson is nothing even maybe close...and in his case, he has been diagnosed as having a upward curve on his progress.

[Warpy]

19. Not only that, but Johnson's CVA affected his motor ability

and his speech center, not his cognitive ability.

They're completely different!

[Hepburn]

20. Totally agree.....

....Johnson's CVA had -0- impact on his ability to do cognitive reasoning. There was absolutely NO impact on his thinking abilities.