News-Record.com

I saw Rep. Howard Coble at the GOP gubernatorial debate this weekend.

Cordial as always, Coble looked like he came fresh from a fight with a angry badger. When I asked his spokesman, Ed McDonald about it over e-mail, he said, "Actually, it was a wolverine!"

Then he pointed me to this story in "The Hill" newspaper (fourth headline down):

Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) was diagnosed with skin cancer in the late 1990s and has had several growths surgically removed from his forehead over the years. But he now treats himself with a topical solution that burns the skin cells and turns the outer skin on his face a blistery red.

"It's painful and not real good-looking," said Coble spokesman Ed McDonald, explaining that his boss has recently begun another treatment on himself. Coble undergoes these treatments three to four times annually. "The doctors swear he'll look like Robert Redford. That's his joke."

Aw, geeze, I feel bad about the badger thing now.