A presidential candidate diagnosed with an illness that could possibly kill you isn’t a big deal. A presidential candidate who was seen having a medical episode by the press, whisked away by her team, and then disappeared for 90 minutes isn’t a big deal either. That’s what Hillary Clinton told CNN’s Anderson Cooper last night; that she thought keeping her pneumonia diagnosis hidden wouldn't be that big of a deal (via Politico):
“I just didn't think it was going to be that big a deal,” Clinton said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper when asked why she opted to keep her Friday pneumonia diagnosis hidden until Sunday. “It's just the kind of thing that if it happens to you and you're a busy, active person, you keep moving forward.”The Democratic nominee has been the recipient of intense criticism since Sunday morning, where she stumbled while exiting a memorial service in New York City for the Sept. 11 attacks. The Clinton campaign later said Clinton became “overheated” and “dehydrated” causing her to leave the event.
Asked about husband Bill Clinton’s assertion earlier Monday that she “rarely” became extremely dehydrated as she did Sunday except “on more than one occasion,” the Democratic nominee was confronted by Cooper to quantify how often these incidents occur.
“Oh, I think really only twice that I can recall,” Clinton said. “You know, it is something that has occurred a few times over the course of my life, and I'm aware of it and usually can avoid it.”
Right, because she’s been so forthcoming and transparent about other issues, where allegations of uber-secrecy have been lobbed against her—said by no one. Well, maybe a few misguided and delusional Clintonites. She turned over all her work emails from her unauthorized, unsecured email server when she was our top diplomat. She said she turned over 50,000 pages of emails, but deleted 30,000 she deemed personal. The FBI found 15,000 more emails that weren’t initially turned over, then another 30 related to Benghazi.
With the Clinton Foundation, all donors were disclosed and no apparatus of the nonprofit accepted foreign donations, except that they did accept those monies, not all foreign donors were disclosed, and the foundation had to re-file their tax returns due to discrepancies as well. We can now add her health to the list.
She’s healthy. She’s fine, but she has pneumonia. Questions about her health that were scoffed at by the press a week ago are now fair game after this failed covert operation. Questions about the Clintons being overly secretive are certainly going to be asked by the news media. This health trip up was an avoidable fiasco, but like with most issues that have prevented Clinton from maximizing support with voters, they botched handling it—and the grenade has blown up in their face.
It also gives a brief glimpse into the Clinton world. That a) they think serious issues aren’t a big deal; and b) because they think these issues (email, Clinton Foundation, pneumonia) are of little to no importance--they’re committed to doing the bare minimum. Something to say that they did turn over all work-related emails, which was a lie; to say that they never received classified information, which was a half-truth; to say that no arm of the Clinton Foundation accepted foreign money during her tenure as secretary of state since she promised that would stop, which was a lie; and she was diagnosed with a rather serious illness and didn’t tell anyone about it. Yes, there are many other scandals that have put the power couple in the crosshairs, but I’m just talking about this election cycle—and it’s always better to lay out things in threes.
In all three instances, the Clinton team has done the bare minimum regarding transparency. Is that what we want in our president? She gave up some emails, we found more. She said the foundation wouldn’t accept foreign donations, but six years worth of tax returns needed re-filing since they omitted foreign government contributions. She thought the pneumonia diagnosis was a nothing-burger, the campaign ended up being forced to admit the illness and promise to release more documents about her health within the week. In all of these examples, the Clinton team was forced to fork over more information, which ended up with her being entangled in bad news coverage. It’s just a serial failure in being honest and forthcoming.
How would @TheFix and the media have reacted in '08 if my father had his lifeless body thrown into a van and lost a shoe on camera?
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) September 12, 2016
And let’s not forget that the media obsessed over John McCain’s health, many had articles that pretty much said his brain was disintegrating due to age and that he could die in office. So, you can just shut it about how asking questions about Clinton’s health is sexist. She just tried to hide the truth, folks—typical Clinton.
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