He’s still a libtard, but kudos to Bob Odenkirk for eating a big wedge of humble pie.

As reported by the New York Post yesterday:

Actor Bob Odenkirk said he regretted dismissing a ‘cranky’ conservative doctor’s medical advice during a podcast.

Odenkirk told podcaster and comedian Tig Nataro that he had a cranky, conservative doctor while discussing a health scare that occurred on the set of ‘Better Call Saul’ in 2021.

At the age of 50, Odenkirk had been with the same physician for 20 years. The doctor was a conservative with “We do not accept Obamacare” signs up around the office, a fact that irked the actor; as Odenkirk said, “I hated this side of him that I only learned over time.” When his doctor advised that he begin taking statins, Odenkirk sought a new practitioner who said the drugs were unnecessary and… Odenkirk had an episode. From the article:

‘And I had a heart attack. And I think the first doctor was right,’ the actor said. ‘The cranky conservative jackass was right, because he was a good doctor. His political point of view doesn’t have anything to do with his ability to judge your health and your health choices and needs.’

Now, I think Odenkirk’s realization highlights two very interesting truths.

The first is that Odenkirk is only half-right. He’s correct in acknowledging that the doctor’s political view didn’t act as a blinder from his ability to practice the best medicine—that’s what I infer Odenkirk meant by his statement above—but on the contrary, the doctor’s political views absolutely have something to do with his “ability to judge” a patient and their needs, in turn, making him an even better doctor. (I’ll explain why in just a moment.)

The second is that conversely, and this point adds to the one I just mentioned, if a doctor’s conservative political views makes him/her a better candidate to provide the best care, then politically left views would be a detriment to a physician’s ability to administer proper care.

Why, though? Well, because “good” medicine is grounded in objectivity and at this point in time, leftists are by and large, proponents of subjectivity. Ideas like “best” and “proper” care are relative to and measured against realities like biology, chemistry, and anatomy. Reality is reality, whether you want to accept it or not, and what is true does not hinge upon how a person feels about it.

If a doctor subscribes to modern leftism, he almost certainly believes that biology is an invented social construct, obesity isn’t unhealthy, plant-based is best, and abortion is healthcare. His approach to medicine is going to be influenced by his conflicting political views. On the other hand, conservative political views are in harmony with reality; furthermore, conservatives likely developed conservative viewpoints because they’re critical thinkers—obviously a healthy skeptic will yield better health advice than a bandwagon dunce.

As my colleague Andrea Widburg always says, conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions while leftists have conclusions and sell them as facts—but I’d further point out that these leftist “conclusions” have no anchor, making them not only illogical given the sequence of “reasoning” but drifting further and further away from the vicinity of what objectively true.

Image: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.