Look! Another example of IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”)!
It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday.
The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon.
Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House.
The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said.
Meanwhile, conservatives “pounced”: “What possible motive could there be for doing this? Who knows? It didn’t make a lot of sense, but the Biden administration has an extensive record of covering up scandals, so it wasn’t exactly out of character for the Biden administration to cover something up,” wrote PJ media’s Matt Margolis. Other wags noted that hiding such health-related information about important government officials is the kind of thing China does.
To be fair, the White House itself has a long and ugly history of covering up Presidential illnesses and medical treatment, such as right now, for example.
The Defense Secretary—firing him would be racist, as Claudine Gay, Ibman X. Kendri, Charles M. Blow and Joy Reid will happily explain—said it was all his fault in a statement yesterday. “I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better,” Austin said. “This was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decision about disclosure.”
Naturally, a White House official told the Times that the President has full confidence in his defense secretary.
Why?
Ethics Alarms 
The fact that his “absence” was unnoticed, demonstrates his insignificance to most.
Question- How does an inidvidual with Cabinet level security admit himself to an ICU?
Yes, the fact that nobody noticed he wasn’t around for 4 days means he doesn’t do anything. He is just a figurehead who is trotted out to show how progressive the Democrats are.
Remember when Elon Musk fired 80% of the employees and the company ran at least as well? Is this the real reason all the government agencies are after him?
“…complications from an elective procedure.”
With this White House and military leaders, probably “gender affirmation surgery”.
Saw an America in Color episode the other night that include FDR hiding his polio disability from the public. The press had been required to shut off their cameras whenever he was getting in or out of a vehicle, or using stairs. They did have one video of him being helped up the steps in a stadium; he was significantly impaired.
He never even bothered telling his deputy what this was all about.
This makes perfect sense if they actually don’t have any authority and don’t do anything. Why would he need to tell anyone if he wasn’t needed for the next week or so? When Trump ordered the military out of Afghanistan numerous times and they said ‘no’, it was obvious that there is no actual civilian control of the military.
And no, I don’t mean the time he did that after the 2020 election.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/trump-wants-pull-all-troops-out-afghanistan-2020-election-n1038651
When I first read this story, I assumed that what had happened was this:
1. Austin had scheduled a minor, elective procedure, expecting to be out of the office for only a few hours.
2. Something went terribly, unexpectedly wrong and he was rushed to the ICU, where he remained for days.
3. He, like many ICU patients, was in no condition to notify anybody of anything, and his doctors and nurses didn’t think of it.
Given those assumptions, I assumed the Biden administration would soon put an end to the controversy by detailing the nature of the elective procedure and what went wrong. The fact that they continue to keep the details under wraps suggests to me something embarrassing, not nefarious.
My own preferred guess about the embarrassing procedure: penile implant for impotence.