Obama, Doctors in White Lab Coats

UPDATE, March 3, 2010: More doctors in white lab coats.
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White House Photo, Lawrence Jackson, via Flopping Aces:



When I saw the images of yesterday's gathering in the White House Rose Garden with Obama speaking to doctors wearing white lab coats, I couldn't believe how silly it looked.

It looked like a scene from a low-budget horror movie, with the president enlisting the nation's doctors to do everything in their power to save the population from some monstrous menace.

What were these doctors doing wearing lab coats as they sat in Rose Garden?

I thought it looked so ridiculous, so staged, positively goofy.

HILARIOUS!

The New York Post reports on what lengths the White House went to get this astoundingly lame photo op, including PASSING OUT LAB COATS.

Good grief.

This is worse than President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" sign fiasco. That was a misinterpretaion regarding the returning aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln.

There's no way to misinterpret the staging of Obama's photo op with these doctors.

President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet -- and handed out doctors' white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message.

In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama.

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.

So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession.

"Nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do," Obama told his guests.

The president was flanked by four white-coated doctors at a podium as he delivered his pep talk.

What an embarrassment!

I wonder what the invitation to the event was like. Obviously, it didn't read, "White lab coat optional."