My Descent Into Medical Specificity; or, Being Right in the Most Boring Way Possible

Introducing: History Lunch Live

Where your favorite presidential historian interrupts the present for an hour. The inaugural session:

Tuesday, 12–12:45 p.m. EST

I’ll be joined by Seth Masket, professor of political science at the University of Denver and Director of its Center on American Politics. I love the way he thinks about political parties, state legislatures, campaigns, and elections.

Before/after, please let me know your thoughts on the timing. In my world, discussions between experts, book talks, and keynote lectures all happen at night. And I protect my writing hours like a mama cub. But Substack seems to function differently, so: an experiment.

My Descent Into Medical Specificity; or, Being Right in the Most Boring Way Possible

It started with a quote. My name appeared in a story next to someone else’s — Jacob Appel, a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine — in an article. Both of us saying almost, but not exactly, the same thing.

He said Gerald Ford was the last president to undergo multiple annual checkups in one year.

I said no modern president has more than one annual exam per year — unless you count the little things, an oil change, which is different than a service.

I was in lockstep with other experts which was, for me, a red flag. I don’t do consensus history! It lacks nuance. It’s tidy, self-satisfied, and sometimes wrong — in the most interesting ways.

But if someone’s wrong, it better not be me. And that’s how I got here: I briefly checked my google alerts last night when my dinner date went to the bathroom, noticed the incongruity, went to sleep without giving it another thought…until I woke up at 4am on a Saturday determined to figure out if a president’s second physical in 1976 was technically “annual.” And so I started out the day reread 1970s White House medical statements before sunrise.

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