Tipsheet

Amanpour: This Scrutiny of Hillary's Health Certainly Seems Unfair and Sexist to Me

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  September 13, 2016 10:15 AM

Last week, the Washington Post editorial board excoriated their media colleagues -- including some of their own colleagues, presumably -- for paying too much attention to Hillary Clinton's ongoing email troubles. In doing so, they sanitized the details of the scandal, and exhibited embarrassingly scant curiosity about the Democratic nominee's avalanche of verified lies about her improper and unsecure scheme. Here we have another journalist upbraiding the members of her profession for (a) covering a legitimate news story, and (b) criticizing a politician's opacity toward the press in regard to said legitimate news story. As an added bonus, she frames the argument by applying a prism of sexism throughout her entire lecture. Actual quote: "Can't a girl have a sick day or two?"

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After dismissing this medical incident as a "human being having an off day," Amanpour complains that "like so many things Hillary, the media are having a field day," resulting in a "debilitating case of indignant outrage." With this spin, Amanpour dives deeper into the tank for Hillary than top strategists within Hillary's own political party. She out-partisans the partisans:

The CNN anchor continues to ridicule the press for pressuring Clinton's camp over what she eye-rollingly calls a "transparency breakdown" -- to which Hillary's campaign has effectively admitted, mind you.  Amanpour is pushing spin that even Hillary's own team seems to have rejected as too ridiculous to fully attempt.  She then interjects a quick "but Trump!" side note (raising a legitimate issue) before really digging into the sexism portion of her harangue: "Don't get me started, because when it comes to overqualified women having to try 100 times harder than under-qualified men to get a break -- or even a level playing field -- well, we know that story," she says, referencing her own self-stylized heroism.  Sure, let's talk about level playing fields. Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' nominee for the presidency of the United States, an achievement her party worked hard behind the scenes to ensure by stacking the deck in her favor, to the detriment of her main (male) primary opponent.  And when an oldler white man ran atop the Republican ticket eight years ago, questions and speculation about his old age were commonplace in the media.  Some of the coverage was not at all subtle:

McCain was 72 at the time. By election day, Hillary will be a spry 69. Try to imagine the media reaction if McCain faltered and fell at a public event, then was revealed to have covered up a medical condition as serious as pneumonia.  It would be just as intense, if not more so, as the tone of the last 48 hours. And the phrase 'cover up' does appear to be applicable here:

Hillary Clinton was headed to an emergency room following her sudden collapse during the Sept. 11 memorial ceremony — but ditched her NYPD escort and detoured to daughter Chelsea Clinton’s apartment to keep details of her medical treatment under wraps, The Post has learned. Secret Service protocol called for the Democratic presidential nominee be taken to a state-designated Level I Trauma Center in the wake of her Sunday morning health crisis at Ground Zero, sources said. But a campaign operative decided to change course to avoid treatment by doctors, nurses or other medical workers who could leak details to reporters, a source said. Clinton’s van was supposed to be escorted by an NYPD protective detail, but the Secret Service whisked her away from Ground Zero before cops could accompany her, another source said. Clinton had told police officials that she didn’t want the escort at all, but the NYPD overruled that request, the source added.

But hey, who cares about the distorted and deliberately-hidden details of a senior citizen presidential candidate's on-camera collapse?  Leave Hillary alone, Amanpour might as well have wailed at viewers. She winds up for her big finale by talking about presidents -- all men, remember! -- from bygone eras who had medical issues of their own, and for whom their media contemporaries gamely concealed their ailments from the public. Are these the "good old days" of anti-transparency media collusion to which Amanpour wishes to harken back, as some golden age?  Maybe disclosure and information are just overrated.  Again, this is a professional journalist speaking. After all, she asks, "if the boys can [govern while ill], why not the women?"  Well, here's a quote from Bill Clinton in 1996:

Asked about such criticism, Mr. Clinton said that he did not regard the interview about his health as an invasion of his privacy and that "the public has a right to know the condition of the President's health."

A younger Bill Clinton, then a candidate, also succumbed to political pressure and released a detailed medical history to the press in 1992. To paraphrase Ms. Amanpour, if that boy can do it, why not this woman?  I'll leave you with a former Democratic governor and Senate nominee assuring voters that just in case something else happens, Tim Kaine is fully capable of being president.  Pretty misogynistic, biased stuff:

Oh, and here's Hillary's top spokesman saying that he doesn't think his boss lost consciousness on Sunday:

UPDATE - Gosh, I didn't realize my pneumonia would be a big deal, Hillary said when she called in to CNN last night, reprising her blanket excuse for more or less everything. Except here's what Bill told Charlie Rose yesterday. This has happened before?

She also reportedly often refuses to drink water, frustrating her staff -- who at least have settled on a talking point. See if you can identify it. Very subtle: