Getting More From Les

Donald Trump Is No Doctor Ben Casey

We have been inundated with the news that Donald Trump successfully remembered for a few minutes the sequence “person, woman, man, camera, TV” as part of his recent cognitive skills test. Well, I can remember five words with a similar cadence, and they are from a lot more than a few minutes ago. In fact, they are from the 1960s. I first heard the words in 1961 when I was five years old. My cognitive skills must be pretty good because I have no trouble remembering “Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity.”

A memorable moment in John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s inauguration speech? No way. The recitation was the introduction to each week’s episode of Ben Casey, the TV drama about earnest young physician Dr. Casey (Vince Edwards) and his older mentor, Dr. Zorba. Each week the two docs would battle deadly diseases on ABC, while also waging a ratings battle with much more handsome, but much less broody, James Kildare (a pre-Thorn Birds Richard Chamberlain) on rival NBC’s Dr. Kildare.

Being the curious sort, I decided to see how Dr. Casey would compare with President Trump. Let’s see how they stack up!