If Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president, the busiest office in the White House might be the nurse’s office.
Hillary Clinton’s recovery from pneumonia has required hubby Bill to hit the campaign trail hard for her, but now his health, jittery hands and “mental capacity” are getting an unwanted focus, as is her history of fainting and blood clots.
Once the symbol of youthful politics, the 70-year-old former president has been hit with heart problems and has admitted that his hands shake when he gets tired. He sometimes fumbles for words and has made several verbal slips that have hurt his wife’s effort.
His 1996 Republican presidential campaign foe, former Sen. Bob Dole, has even suggested that Clinton won’t be the big help he once was on the campaign trail due to his failing health.
“Bill Clinton, who would be a great asset, has had this health problem and doesn’t look strong and robust like he has been in the past,” Dole told CNN in late May.
“(The health issue) affects his voice. He is not going to be able to go out there with the fire and brimstone he would have had earlier,” Dole added.
Several news reports have raised concerns about his sometimes far off gaze, his shaking hands, and general looks. Even the New York Times wrote that Clinton’s “magic” is missing. In that article, the Times quoted a Nevada political operative who saw Clinton at a primary event.
Wrote the Times: “‘He seemed perfunctory, looked gaunt, didn’t seem to captivate the crowd,’ said Jon Ralston, a veteran political commentator in Nevada, who attended the Las Vegas event last Friday. ‘I have seen him speak many times, and he just didn’t seem to be the same guy. He could still summon stats and an anecdote or two, but not with the same verve.'”
In an interview this week, biographer Edward Klein, author of the upcoming critical book about Hillary Clinton titled Guilty as Sin, said Bill Clinton “is having problems.”
Klein said, “It’s not only physically, his mental capacity seems to have deteriorated as well. Sometimes he’s at a loss for words, and from time to time he literally says something that he means the opposite of and he gets himself all tangled up.”
Clinton was even fact-checked after repeatedly claiming that President Obama’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, Merrick Garland, was approved by the Senate unanimously when Clinton picked him for a federal judgeship. In fact, Garland was approved 76-23.
This week, in a CBS interview he stirred more concerns about his wife when he said that she had fallen down before. He said, “Frequently — well, not frequently — rarely, but on more than one occasion over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing happened to her where she got severely dehydrated.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
