LAT: As Senator, Physician Also Wants His Practice (Coburn, Oklahoma)

[DeepModem Mom]

As Senator, Physician Also Wants His Practice

By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — Is it good for the republic that serving in Congress must be treated as a full-time job?

Newly elected Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma thinks not. And Coburn, who is also a physician, has already announced he will challenge a long-standing rule that bars him from continuing to practice medicine once he takes the oath of office Tuesday....

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A significant number of conservative political thinkers agree that the country would benefit from a return to the tradition of the public servant who also remains a private citizen. That, it is argued, is the model handed down by the Founding Fathers....

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Even some conservative groups acknowledged privately that they were dismayed when Coburn won election to the Senate in November, despite such campaign gaffes as advocating that physicians who performed abortions should receive the death penalty and alleging that lesbianism had become so widespread in southeast Oklahoma schools that "they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-coburn3jan03,0,1686785.story?coll=la-home-headlines