All the best sorts of people have been talking for weeks about the dangerous pathology revealed by questions about Hillary Clinton’s health—that pathology being a toxic, mutant strain of Right-Wing-Derangement Syndrome.
Conservatives who have suggested that there might be something wrong with Hillary’s health have been presented as proof positive that conservatives are crazies.
NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben pronounced confidently at the beginning of September that “there is no evidence that Clinton is in failing health.” She proceeded to talk about the enduring paranoia in American politics, and the need for strategies for getting such “misinformation out of people’s heads.”
The Atlantic denounced questions about Hillary’s Health as “The Birtherism of 2016” and said the people asking such questions suffer from “an unhealthy obsession.”
USA Today began its article about the controversy with this unambiguous statement: “There is no evidence there is anything wrong with Hillary Clinton’s health.”
Yes, there have been wild and conspiratorial assertions about Hillary’s condition, but even questions about the candidate’s distressing coughing fits were said to be beyond the pale. Not that the Clinton camp was forthcoming about her condition. They kept her illness secret for two days, until she stumbled and seemed to faint.
Who knows how long Mrs. Clinton has been suffering from walking pneumonia—or whether it’s come and gone and come again. Let’s hope now that the campaign isn’t trying so hard to pretend Mrs. Clinton is in prime, pickle-jar-opening vigor, she will get the care, treatment, and rest she needs for a full and speedy recovery.
But what’s clear is that Hillary’s surrogates were more than willing to deny the obvious: that there was evidence—bouts of uncontrollable coughing and some unsteadiness—that the Democratic nominee was less than 100 percent, and not in tip-top, A-Okay shape. Would it have been that hard to admit as much? Mightn’t such an admission have gained the campaign a little more credibility in its claims about Hillary’s health?
It’s something to remember the next time we’re lectured about the collective paranoia of the non-left-wing electorate.
