Sen. John Boozman of Rogers was still a House member when he chided me once, years ago. He told me I needed to wear one of those gadgets that count the steps you take. I should walk a certain number of steps each day, he said. I sat at a desk and stared at computers too much, he told me.
He was right. He's still right. I've been sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen all day as I write this.
I have no doubt that walking a certain number of steps every day for years is helping with the senator's recovery from emergency surgery on Tuesday. That exercise may have saved his life. I'm quite sure he's faring much better than I would in his circumstances. I'm so sure of that, I'm writing this column about recovery on Wednesday, only about 24 hours after Boozman's operation.
The Boozman family knows the hopes and prayers of well-wishers are with them. The best I can offer them and all those friends and well-wishers is my little story about pedometers, to remind them that that senator is as prepared for what he's going through as anybody can be. Nothing can make a human body safe from everything, but strength and health can bring you back. We should all remember that.
Boozman suffered an "acute aortic dissection" very early Tuesday morning, his office confirmed. This is an extremely serious condition when the inner layer of the aorta simply tears away from the outer wall. It has to be treated quickly if it is to be treated successfully at all. It can happen to anybody, although the Mayo Clinic website says it happens most often to men between 60 and 70. Boozman is 63.
A U.S. senator could have gone to anywhere in the country, time and circumstances permitting, for emergency surgery. While it's certainly true that speed's vital in these cases, it's still noteworthy that Boozman stayed in Northwest Arkansas. He wasn't airlifted to Springfield or Tulsa or Little Rock.
Twelve years ago, the shortage of cardiovascular capability around here was a serious problem. Nobody had ever performed an open-heart surgery, for instance, anywhere in Benton County. Twelve years isn't all that long ago.
Getting up to the level where you can be the hospital of choice for one of "The Hundred," whatever the circumstances, took a lot of work by a lot of people at Mercy Hospital for a lot of years. That deserves some mention.
The other congressman from Rogers was home Tuesday too, on much less urgent matters. There was nothing newsworthy in Rep. Steve Womack's speech to the Rogers Noon Rotary about a trip he took to the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Turkey and Portugal. What's worth some comment is who he went with, which I looked up later.
Womack mentioned in his speech that the House Speaker went. He didn't mention that the other guests included the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Another was one of the two leading prospects to be the next chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Three other traveling companions aren't running for re-election. The last has a Democratic opponent and, at least until recently, was considered a rare vulnerable Republican House member. That makes Womack the only congressman in a safe seat to go on this trip. That's pretty choice company for a second-term House member who was mayor of a mid-sized town in Arkansas in 2010.
Now all that may seem very "inside baseball," but compare that to Rep. Tom Cotton, the darling of the conservatives and by far the most famous member of the Arkansas House delegation. He rocked the boat and defied the Washington establishment. He made a lot of headlines doing it.
Cotton's running 10 points behind in his bid to unseat Sen. Mark Pryor, according to a New York times poll that came out Wednesday. Meanwhile, Womack's going to Istanbul and Lisbon with the Speaker of the House and getting named to the Defense Subcommittee of House Appropriation, an almost unheard of slot for a second-term congressman.
It's the progress, not the headlines, you make that counts. Cotton may still pull his race out. If he does, it will be a grand and glorious victory for the Republican Party. But it's a gamble. However Cotton's gamble turns out, Womack will still be standing.
Commentary on 04/27/2014