TheDC: You mentioned during your speech that there are some intelligent people leading this country. Do you consider President Obama among those?
BC: I think he’s very intelligent, absolutely. I would hope that at some point he would open himself to more dialogue and that’s why I gave the eagle analogy. We need that wisdom from both sides and when we try to solve a problem, we need to ask, what’s important to this side and what’s important to this side? And we need to move toward something that both can agree with. That’s what real leadership is about.
TheDC: Are there any politicians who are currently in office who speak eloquently to the ideals that you have?
BC: I certainly like Marco Rubio. I think he’s a very, very rational individual. But I’m sure there are many rational people on both sides of the aisle. And one of the things that I would hope that the controversy that has been stirred up here will help us to understand is that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
And we need to be asking ourselves questions like, “What is the problem that we’re trying to solve?”
So if we’re trying to solve a horrible budgetary deficit, then we should say, “How do you solve that problem? Do we spend more money? Do we do more stimulus?”
Well, if you’re going to do more stimulus, you have to ask yourself, “Where does that money come from?” Either it comes from borrowing, because we don’t have the money, or it comes from more taxes. In either case, we’re taking money out of a productive segment and putting it into government. That doesn’t make any sense.
TheDC: The president will give the State of the Union address tonight and in the first lady’s box will be middle-class families, and the president will talk about how their day-to-day lives are benefited by his policies. What do you expect out of the State of the Union? What do you hope for?
BC: Well, I would hope that he would moderate his tone and recognize that he is the president of all the people, not just of a particular constituency and he needs to stopping thinking of people who oppose him as the enemy. He’s actually said that in some of his speeches: ‘The enemy.” That’s un-presidential, and I would hope that he would begin to move away from that — and start to think more about a legacy.
If he really wants to be successful, we need to get this economy moving. And you’re not going to get the economy moving by just taxing people and regulating people and proclaiming that the economy is better when it isn’t. That doesn’t work. And I think, from the responses that I’ve been getting, that is quite well-known by a very large segment of our population.
TheDC: Yesterday, you said that in June you’ll be retiring from your surgery work to focus on other aspects of your professional life. Is a political run a possibility for you?
BC: I detest politics, to be honest with you. It’s a cesspool. And I don’t think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don’t believe in political correctness and I certainly don’t believe in dishonesty. So, the only way I would ever end up in the political arena is by appointment or draft, but I would never get into that cesspool.
