The Governing Body Is Immune
By
Leonard Zwelling
In The Wall Street Journal on July 2, constitutional lawyers David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley defend the recent Supreme Court decision that immunizes Presidents of the United States from criminal and civil prosecution deriving from their official actions in office. This decision is meant to strengthen the presidency and assure that ex-presidents are not prosecuted by their successors.
That’s a great story, but largely poppycock.
Under this latest Supreme Court ruling Richard Nixon could not have been prosecuted for what he did during the Watergate affair and his declaration to David Frost in the famous post-presidency interviews that “if the President does it, it is not illegal” would have been correct. For those of us old enough to remember Watergate and all the awful things done by and in the name of Richard Nixon, this is anathema.
However, it is consistent with the presidency of any organization being the Governing Body for that organization as is the case at MD Anderson right now.
The current president of Anderson, much like the current President of the United States, hides behind proclamations and prefabricated communiques in lieu of actually communicating with those who are purported to be his constituency. Biden hasn’t had a real news conference in months (this was written before his recent one) and Pisters never has them. He won’t even allow himself to be questioned by the faculty in an open town hall meeting.
These are clear signs of presidential insecurity and inadequacy.
It is my contention that not only should Mr. Biden not run for a second term, he should resign now as it is clear that he is impaired judging by his debate performance last week. It wasn’t that Mr. Biden wasn’t smooth. He was not coherent. He had no answers to Mr. Trump’s lies and could barely articulate his own accomplishments.
A blog reader recently emailed that Biden should resign and get Kamala Harris to agree to not run for the presidency, thus throwing the convention open for a consensus nominee. He even suggested a unity ticket of Klobuchar and Haley. I love it. Great idea! But, that will never happen.
The coming election is not about what Biden has already done. It is more about what he can do in the future and that looks pretty shaky to me.
Similarly, Dr. Pisters touts as his major accomplishments the high rankings of MD Anderson in magazine polls, but has yet to articulate a vision for MD Anderson other than being big. I have never heard a single utterance about the scientific goals of Anderson or the plans to improve the science there. Seeing more and more patients has no bearing on quality nor does it distinguish the care at Anderson from that at other cancer centers. That’s what basic and clinical science does.
Furthermore, sequential surveys have demonstrated real angst in the faculty body that endangers the quality that the world has come to expect of MD Anderson.
Like Presidents of the United States it seems, presidents of MD Anderson appear to be functionally accountable to no one.
I have no answers to these dilemmas. The President of the United States can still be impeached but in this partisan political world, no president will ever be convicted by 60 votes in the Senate. Surely the case against Donald Trump in his second impeachment was strong enough, yet he slid by as he always seems to do.
Presidents, like everyone else, need to be accountable to somebody. At least Presidents of the United States can be voted out of office. How do you change the course at a place like MD Anderson? How, indeed.
2 thoughts on “The Governing Body Is Immune”
It astounds me how CEOs who fail in many organizations will be removed by responsible boards, but an incompetent or corrupt President of USA or the CEO in some “great” medical centers will NOT be removed.
Our Roper St Francis Physician Partners Group has a Board of Physicians who take a vote of confidence or NO confidence in the Medical Director, leading the hospital CEO and President to replace them as needed. I saw that work when I was in practice, giving physicians a real say in who led them. It sounds like MD Anderson may NOT have the oversight that you wish.
Not even close! LZ