NYT: Trump "Obese"

After having promised to reveal a medical status report, then reportedly deciding not to, millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump finally offered a handful of details via TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz. He takes statins and weighs 267 pounds, which Oz describes as "slightly overweight" but which The New York Times eagerly informs us is, in fact, medical obesity for a man of Trump's height.

Over many months, Mr. Trump has sought to raise questions about the health of Mrs. Clinton, 68, and his supporters have asserted that she is hiding something about her health (her aides have denied this). But Mr. Trump has answered almost no questions about his own health over the last 15 months of his campaign, except for issuing a highly unusual doctor's note.

So the appearance on Dr. Oz's show, announced on Friday, had been anticipated as a potential breakthrough, as Mr. Trump's aides had said that over the next few days he would release results from the physical examination, which was conducted last week.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told Fox News that she did not think the candidate should release medical information on a television show.

This paragraph at the end of the Maggie Halberman's story caught my attention:

He has also been criticized for questionable assertions over the course of his television career, and sometimes speaks in the same type of hyperbole as Mr. Trump, which the medical profession has been known to reject.

What you are supposed to know from these words: that Oz is paid to pitch weight-loss pills on his show, that he describes them as "magic," and that his colleagues think he's a quack.

That 36-word sentence exemplifies the euphemistic language that the Times indulges in like a literary crack addict. Once you start noticing these passages, they're impossible to miss: another one today comes from "Public Editor" Liz Spayd, who writes in passing that journalist Suki Kim "considers herself a journalist." Oof! I've met NYT journos who think tabloid Britishisms such as "tired and emotional" are erudite and worthy of emulation. Perhaps the writers of these paragraphs should be sent for enhanced conversational repartee with occupying authorities.