GOP Senate candidate from Oklahoma is a world-class sleazebag

[LTR]

And an unethical doctor:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/13/coburn/

Get the day pass. This article is worth it.

The future of GOP control of the Senate depends on Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn, a former doctor who has covered up a scandal from his past until now.

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According to records obtained by Salon, Coburn filed an apparently fraudulent Medicaid claim in 1990, which he admitted in his own testimony in a civil malpractice suit brought against him 14 years ago by a former female patient. The suit alleged that Coburn had sterilized her without her consent. It eventually was dismissed after the plaintiff failed to appear for the trial. In his sworn testimony, Coburn admitted he sterilized the then 20-year-old woman without securing her written consent as required by law. He blamed the omission on a clerical error, but maintained that he had her oral consent for the procedure. (Salon has been unable to contact the woman and is withholding her name out of respect for her privacy.) Coburn also revealed under oath that he had charged the procedure to Medicaid -- despite knowing that Medicaid, also known as Title 19, does not cover the cost of sterilization for anyone under age 21.

This previously unpublicized episode from his medical practice cuts to the heart of Coburn's political identity. He has built his congressional career on extreme gestures against government programs, exceeded in virulence only by his pronouncements on social issues, including advocating the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions under any circumstances other than those threatening the life of the mother. (And yet, as a doctor, he has performed abortions.)

Oh, and did I mention he is pro-life? "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life," he told AP last week.

[WMliberal]

1. sounds like he's a good a person as Inhofe

n/t

[LTR]

2. This guy seems worse than Santorum!

[Tony_FLADEM]

3. Coburn has also admitted to performing abortions in the past.

[BurtWorm]

6. And he's in favor of other abortionists getting the death penalty.

Not him, of course. :eyes:

[Awsi Dooger]

4. Bullshit!

Isn't that a Republican talking point in Oklahoma?

[karlrschneider]

5. I have known him very personally since was in high school, was chief pilot

for his dad's company for many years - his old man was a huge letch and a virulent Repuglican, we had many arguments about politics. Tom wasn't nearly as much a wingnut back in those days (70s), something which I've never figured out took him on a hard turn to the "right." His 2 brothers are Republicans too but pretty much middle of the road on both social & fiscal issue. I think TAC (as we all call him) had some sort of epiphany when the old man croaked (think was in 1985...I had left there before when they sold "my" airplanes to generate some cash for an upcoming merger) that might have something to do with O.W. (his father) had given Oral Roberts several million bucks not too long before he died - he sure as hell never gave any of his employees anything of that magnitude, I figure he knew he wasn't long for the world and thought he might buy his way into "heaven" although in all the years I watched him screwing anything with a skirt he could latch onto, he never exhibited any signs of religious beliefs...I do somewhat keep in touch with Tom and he knows I think he's full of shit on practically every issue. I don't hate him, really, but no way in hell would I ever vote for him.
But then I might not vote for Brad Carson either...he supports the "marriage amendment" and is marginally a DINO.

[DarthDem]

7. GREAT News

Coburn, incidentally, is going to lose this one big. Remember, the state just elected a Democratic governor. And yes, Carson is a bit of a DINO, but he's no Zellout. He'll caucus with the Dems in the Senate.