One can understand why Hillary Clinton didn’t want to admit to the press and the public that she had pneumonia. Donald Trump and his most unhinged surrogates (yes, Rudy Giuliani, we see you spitting brain cells when you rant about her) have been campaigning against her in a misogynist way to portray the woman candidate as weak and physically unable to cope with “the man’s job” of being President.
One can also understand that the lifetime she’s spent having every part of her life and every word’s she ever said scrutinized and demonized by someone on The Right, may cause her to be more guarded about allowing anything personal to be publicly aired unless it’s unavoidable.
That said, if you know that you keep tripping over your untied shoelaces, maybe you should change your preference for keeping them untied?
Even though there may be reasonable justifications as mentioned above for Hillary not being open and honest about her pneumonia, she and her campaign have exhibited yet another example of why they’re having trouble tying their own shoelaces in the one area that is the most important for Hillary…trust.
Hillary is distrusted by over 60% of voters. It is very lucky for her that Trump is distrusted by about the same amount of voters, otherwise this could have been fatal for her candidacy.
Hillary does seem to have a first instinct to hide or withhold the truth when she thinks it won’t be to her advantage. Again, this is par for the course when it comes to politicians in general but since this aspect has been hammered on mercilessly by her opponents, every time she does it again, she validates that charge and the worse ones about her that aren’t legitimate.
Hillary needs to win this election to Make America Sane Again so this critique is not about undermining her campaign, it’s about slapping her campaign in the face and saying to them:
Since it hasn’t worked to leave them to take care of this like halfway reasonable people would, I think it’s time for a little tough love inspired by the scene above.
A Less Than Polite But Well Meaning Letter to Hillary Clinton’s Campaign
Hey, Hillary’s campaign! What is your mental malfunction? You don’t understand that Hillary’s main problem is that people don’t trust her? Really?! And your response to that is, “Hey, let’s make up a phony excuse to cover up her having pneumonia because we don’t want to provide ammunition for the crazy and disbelieved accusations about her health. Let’s instead lie about it so if the truth comes out, we’ll only be validating the most damaging and believed charge against her, that she’s untrustworthy! Yahtzee!!!”
I mean, WTF? You defy the most basic thought process of primitive humans! When they burned their hand in a fire, guess what? They didn’t keep sticking their hand in again and again (except the distant relatives of Trump voters, you can’t stop them from self-immolation). If cavemen and cavewomen could learn from this simple exercise in aversion, why can’t you geniuses?
Listen, stop lying about things you don’t want people to know! They’re gonna find out anyway then you all look like idiots! And you give aid and comfort to all the crazy conspiracies about her that she says aren’t true. We need Hillary to win and when you lie, you keep uncovering manholes for her to fall through.
Smarten up!
Prove that your Ivy League diplomas say something more about your smarts than your parents’ wealth and understand that the best campaign tool Hillary can use is the truth. Not only is truth on her side in this election, it lessens her main vulnerability in the election, perceptions that she’s untrustworthy.
It ain’t complicated! If you had come out much earlier to admit Hillary had pneumonia, it would have been before many of the conspiracies came out about her health. You see? You could have prevented a lot of these accusations! You wouldn’t have had Crazy Rudy yammering about how she had all these coughing fits which proved she had ebola-zika-AIDS-IBS-zombieism. You helped cause the very situation that made you want to lie about her condition, get it? You’re helping the Trump campaign every time you lie, how do you not see this, you mooks (that includes you Robby).
Do you need us to do your job for you? Too hard to figure out how you can put Hillary in the best light while inoculating her from more charges of dishonesty? Okay Einsteins, here’s how it works.
You present the truth using your smarts to simultaneously undermine Trump’s campaign. How? Jeez, do we have to explain everything to ya?! You could have come out immediately to address Hillary’s pneumonia and been upfront about why she isn’t excited about sharing this news, because Trump’s people will use it to fabricate lies against her but she felt she owed it to voters to be open and honest. You could have also positioned it as, “Nothing stops this workhorse from getting the job done! Nothing!”
She could also have said, “I’m being honest with voters about my health but Donald Trump is not, he hasn’t released any of his medical records and the public should demand that he releases all of them and his tax returns!”
Turning a weakness into a strength is what winning Presidential campaigns do. Look at Obama, I don’t remember him once denying that he was black and he won using that as a strength, despite all the racial attacks against him.
Listen up, Hillary’s numbers ain’t gonna get better due to any lies that are told, they just ain’t! Ever heard, “The truth will set you free”? Think about that! You want to unshackle Hillary’s polling numbers? Tell the truth and you disarm that powerful accusation that’s hurting her most. If she is stridently honest, she can’t be dishonest, simple logic, I’ll bet even you could understand that!
I’ll leave you with one last thing my grandfather used to say, “Sometimes you’re so smart, you outsmart yourself.” When you’re sitting around the conference table and patting yourselves on the back about how clever you are for coming up with a lie to cover something up that you think will be a negative, just remember this incident and work instead on coming up with a positive spin on the truth that helps Hillary and throws a punch at Trump.
By being aggressive about being truthful while using the truth to hammer Trump, you can have your cake and eat it too…as opposed to handing Hillary a custard pie and telling her to throw it in her own face. I think we’ve seen more than enough of that.
Now get to work, knuckleheads!
And we all know that Presidents never get sick…
https://youtu.be/XnOnDatqENo
I, like so many of us, am utterly sick of the MSM and it’s vulture reportage.
Goebbels himself, and Stalin, would burst with pride at the magnificent , utterly insane – but attractive – Propaganda machine that the MSM has become.
God help the USA. What will be left of the GOP? The media? Is the USA condemned to this type of shite unto eternity? Will any kind of navel-gazing bring the MSM back to anything approaching normality?
Who knows. I’ for one, am turning away from US reportage and checking the other World News outlets. You know the ones, those that are fully convinced Trump is a dangerous lunatic and aren’t backwards in calling it. The ones who think ‘enough of friggin emails already’ and recognize that HRC is flawed, but infinitely more of a genuine prospect for POTUS.
Well said, PPO! The MSM doesn’t vet stories before reporting any more.
Remember when Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America? That was because all the stories he reported on were checked and double checked for accuracy. They don’t do that now.
PPO, what’s sad is that even after Trump is beaten, the corporate MSM that so strongly promoted and supported him will still be with us, only wealthier and more justified about exploiting extremists for the increased revenue they bring.
Wish we could vote to change the MSM leadership every 4 years.
Very well put, P! It’s beyond embarrassing at this point. Money, once again, has won the day in America.
I understand that we were founded by a bunch of rich guys, but at least they had certain principles that were beneficial to mankind (and some that clearly were not). I truly fear this country has lost any sort of decent ideology and concern for mankind as a whole. Money is all important. Fucking sad!
Hi, AdLib – Chill! 😉 Your scathing summation of Hillary and her campaign is like a simmering stewpot that is ready to boil over. There is more derision, denigration and disrespect than in some of the MSM articles against her. – It was 48 hours between her diagnosis of pneumonia and the notification of the public. Perhaps we should be notified immediately every time President Obama has a cold. – This is not a “lie” that has earth shattering implications for the election or for our nation.
Discussions about her pneumonia on the MSM have been nothing more than speculation with attributions to political agendas. The individual medical history can be significant when determining how serious pneumonia could be. Each person has their own usual state of health that may or may not affect the recovery from pneumonia. There are those who take antibiotics and continue their usual routines. This determination can only be made by one’s own physician. – Of course Hillary should have rested more and could have informed everyone that she had pneumonia in that first hour she knew. Yet finding out 47 more hours after that does not transform her into some nefarious and pathological liar who is untrustworthy…..that would actually be Trump.
Clinton is more than aware of how to interact with the public, she has had over three decades of interacting in public service both in the U.S. and internationally. Her campaign staff are not that ignorant and incompetent – she IS the Democratic nominee to be President.
If one is honestly concerned about getting Clinton elected rather than that narcissistic dingbat Trump, one should focus their energies on fighting FOR Clinton. Repeatedly attacking her and her campaign staff negatively has been promulgated already by the MSM to the point of blatant bias in their so-called reporting. – Perhaps try getting with the ground troops, my husband and I have been doing the phone calling to help elect Clinton. And my younger millennial daughter has been doing the phone calling as well, she volunteered last month to join our western PA campaign headquarters for Clinton. She is freely giving her time to help organize actual strategy meetings, she asked me last week if one could be held at our house as our community center has limited times available for rooms. I said yes – I will do my part to help prevent any possibility of Trump even getting near the White House.
In politics, it is often open season during a Presidential election year for opinion after opinion after opinion…..each voter has to make his/her own determination as to where are those little things called facts. – Members of her campaign staff already acknowledged their mistakes yesterday yet for some, that will never be enough. – If some citizens decide to relinquish their privilege of voting for true justice in this nation, that is their own choice.
There is another old saying, sometimes “you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” – There will always be Monday morning quarterbacking. – As for concerns about transparency and truth, I have far greater of the unanswered and ignored-by-the-media concerns regarding the utter lack of these in Trump’s entire campaign.
Although it is difficult to find the “well meaning” section – your article definitely provided a jump-start to my week! 🙂
Aquarius, first of all, I really appreciate your frank response to my post!
As for my post, consider it more of an intervention. It was written tongue-in-cheek in the voice of a crass Brooklyn/New Yorker like Cher’s character in the Moonstruck clip I used, I did mention that in the post.
The truth is, she and her campaign have repeatedly shot themselves in the foot by not being honest and open. We can’t afford for her to lose this election but this penchant for covering up truths is continuing to drag her down in the polls.
Rationalizing away her repeated covering up of the truth is ultimately harmful to her image with the only voters who will make the difference in November, undecideds and independents. Today her lead has shrunk to 4% nationally and she has lost her lead with independents. So on results alone, I’d suggest that what she’s been doing is only hurting her.
As I mentioned in my article, over 60% of voters see her as untrustworthy so I have to disagree that she knows well how to interact with the public. In fact, she couldn’t even win younger women away from a 75 year old man in the Dem primary because she had trouble connecting with them. She has the highest negatives ever for a Dem Presidential candidate, I would suggest that she needs a course correction in order to be viewed more positively by independents.
Pneumonia is far more serious than a cold, people can die from pneumonia. Because it is serious, it’s something that I think the public has a right to know, when either candidate has a serious health issue. That’s why they all release health records to the public (except Trump). Fortunately, it’s temporary and with rest and anti-bacterial medications, it can be cured.
IMHO, the difference between Progressives and Republicans is that Progressives retain their principles even when it comes to their own candidates, they’re honest about calling out when anyone does the wrong thing even when it’s someone on their side. Principles are consistent things or else they’re not really principles.
We’ve all seen how Trump supporters march lockstep behind him, they can never admit that he’s said or done the wrong thing no matter how outrageously wrong it is. That’s not behavior I think Dems should be mirroring. In fact, it is that kind of behavior that gives Trump affirmation to keep saying the horrible things he’s saying, there is no consequence from his supporters.
I personally believe Hillary needs to stop doing this to reverse her decline in the polls, I want her to win so when she steers onto the shoulder of the road, I think it’s important to let her know that.
When Hillary covers up something new, all those phony conspiracy theories Trump and the Repubs are spreading about her covering up become more validated. Undecided voters may think, “Well, if she’s covering up the truth about this, maybe these other things are true too.”
Simply put, she needs to be as transparent as she’s vowed to be or the whole country and world could suffer a Trump victory. And to that end, I think it is more important for Dems to respond to her honestly when they think she’s messed up.
As to her campaign’s response, they did originally cover up her condition after she fainted this weekend, claiming that she was just overheated. They may claim after the fact that it was only 48 hours after her diagnosis that they finally admitted it was pneumonia but who’s to know how accurate that claim is, coming right after they weren’t honest about this in the first place.
Seeing many incidents recently of her having coughing episodes (that Giuliani seized on to claim she was covering up a more serious illness), it certainly seems like she’s had it for a bit longer than they describe.
Though you’re right, Hillary and her campaign probably consider the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” dynamic, I do think that time and time again it’s been shown that she’s most damned if she’s perceived as not being open and transparent so the choice might not be as difficult anymore.
Lastly, I do agree that Hillary is generally being held to a higher standard than Trump, the bar has been so lowered by the MSM when it comes to Trump that if he just reads a teleprompter without blowing up, he’s done well.
Trump’s lying is record setting, his ignorance and lack of character is breathtaking. His emotional fragility is stunning. As Pres. Obama said today in his speech, there shouldn’t even be a choice. Trump should be crushed under the weight of his bigotry, dishonesty and covering up of the truth. It massively outweighs any questions about Hillary.
Unfortunately, since Trump and a close election mean profits to the MSM, they won’t come down on him as they should. It will be up to Hillary in the debates to take him down on all his crap and I think she will.
At the same time, by erring on the side of transparency, I think she’ll avoid anymore self-inflicted harm on herself.
Hi, AdLib – Yes, I know you’re post was tongue-in-cheek – your writing had quite an impact! 😉 So was my comment about the cold, it is well known that pneumonia is more serious than a cold. My point was that her illness should have been respectfully presented in the news rather than as the grandstanding media circus wildly wrapped up in a frenzy to promote political agendas.
I understand your concern about Hillary being the often- repeated-in-the-media “untrustworthy”. This has been used against her like forever. – I would have to respectfully disagree, this term ignores and minimalizes the realities of her remarkable achievements throughout her entire lifetime. As I mentioned, each voter has to make their own determination as to a candidate’s qualifications. – For me, the reality of her track record far outweighs the instances of when there is less than perfection.
In reference to your observation ” . . with the only voters who will make a difference in November, undecided and Independents.” – IMHO, every single vote counts. I think that every demographic by whatever nomenclature will contribute together to her becoming our next President. And ultimately, it is not only the popular vote but the electoral college that determines who has won the election. – Hillary continues to have strong predictors in the numbers for the electoral college.
I would like to offer a different perspective to your other observation that “Principles are consistent things or else they are not really principles.” – IMHO, it is the striving to maintain principles that provides the foundation for fundamental standards. Human nature is not consistent, that does not mean one has no principles.
Well, AdLib – the countdown is in progress for that first Presidential debate. I have no clue as to whether or not Trump will even attend. – To quote from Bette Davis in an old movie: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride! 🙂
Hey Aquarius!
I don’t think Hillary’s pneumonia would have become as big of a deal if her campaign hadn’t tried to cover it up. So unnecessary, they should have just been forthright about it at the time and not tried to hide it by saying that she was just overheated.
Sure, Trump and his beasties would have still used it to attack her fitness as a candidate but most people wouldn’t have cared as much.
Hillary has one big Achilles Heel, her trustworthiness. She needs heal that heel, not make it worse. I don’t understand why any Hillary supporter wouldn’t want her to fortify her main weakness against attacks.
I agree that the media has acted as a megaphone for many dishonest attacks against Hillary. At the same time, Hillary and her campaign do offer falsehoods to the public from time to time.
When she went on Fox News a few weeks ago, she claimed that FBI Dir. Comey said she had been truthful with the public about her email server. She soon had to claim she “short-circuited” when she said that and revised that claim to say he had said she was truthful with the FBI. Then a few weeks later, her campaign’s not truthful about her health. I would hope we could at least agree that this kind of thing isn’t helpful to building a perception with undecided voters that she’s trustworthy.
As to principles, I do think intentions matter but the question arises, is a principle just having a belief or does one need to abide by that belief through their actions in order for it to truly be a principle?
Personally, I think a principle is only proven to be such when it is reflected by a person’s actions and choices. For example, I’m sure that many Trump supporters believe they’re principled but by their support of a bigoted candidate and their being in denial when their candidate hates and deceives, they prove that their intentions are irrelevant, they’re actually unprincipled. We are the choices we make and the things we do and say, that’s what truly describes who we are and what principles we really hold.
I’d of course agree that Hillary has done many valuable and meaningful things in her career but that doesn’t obscure the reality of the times when she’s not open and honest. Both are demonstrably true.
As of June, the percentage of undecided voters was 25%. ( http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/20/25-of-voters-in-2016-race-remain-undecided-survey.html ). Hillary is below 50% of the vote in every poll.
Hillary can’t win the election if she loses most of the undecided voters, the math is clear. The reason that I said that undecided voters are who really matter at this point is that the rest of voters have already made up their mind.
Hillary supporters aren’t going to change their vote and neither are Trump supporters. So none of them need to be sold on why they should choose Hillary over Trump. When Trump unloads more bigotry and hate, he won’t lose his voters. When Hillary doesn’t tell the truth about something, she won’t lose her voters.
The only ones affected by the behavior of either candidate at this point are the undecideds. They’re not prone to ignoring the stumbles of candidates as supporters of each may be. So when Hillary has the chance to be open and honest but is later shown to be covering something up, it can make a negative impression on those voters that she needs to win. They may not be well informed on all she’s accomplished, many will just judge her by what they see her doing in the campaign. I simply don’t want them having a reason to vote against her.
Wouldn’t we all feel better about Hillary’s strength as a candidate if there were no more opportunities for Trump or the MSM to prove that she hasn’t been open and honest again?
As they say, the first step in solving a problem is first recognizing that it is one.
I do think Trump has no choice but to participate in the debates, even with his gains, he’s still behind Hillary and he’ll want to find some way of getting ahead. The debates represent the biggest possible gamechanger between now and the election so he can’t afford to skip them.
Not to mention how Hillary will and should portray him as a coward who can’t even face up to debating the woman running against him, how could he ever face up to a strong leader anywhere in the world in a crisis if he’s too cowardly to just debate?
I want her in full good health for that debate, staying off the campaign trail between now and then as much as she needs to because that will have a much bigger impact than any campaigning she could do over the next week.
Hi, AdLib – It is all a matter of individual perspective. What one views as significant, another may not. And what one views as not significant, another may view that it is.
However, as a Hillary supporter – I have never ignored and never will ignore both the failures as well as the achievements of any candidate for President of our nation. – Peace. 🙂
Peace back at ya, Aquarius!
Dementia is not a pleasant way to go, poor Rudy, I am sending my sympathies to his family.
Rudy has been seen raging against Hillary Clinton to a tree in his front yard wearing only his bathrobe.
[img]http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2015/02/22/rudy-giuliani-s-raging-bull/jcr:content/image.crop.800.500.jpg/47488252.cached.jpg[/img]
Is Rudy Giuliani okay? –
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-rudy-giuliani-okay/2016/08/24/4eb134f6-6a28-11e6-ba32-5a4bf5aad4fa_story.html
Kalima, I think the answer to that question is a resounding “no”.
It’s so completely undeniable that Hillary is a smart, smart woman. A hard working woman. A woman with dreams and ambitions.
Why does she seem to periodically feel the need to self-sabotage?
It makes me crazy!
This is not the first time she’s fainted. She has broken an arm fainting and falling. She’s had a serious blood clot as the result of fainting and falling. And yet — still — she puts herself in the position of pushing herself to the literal dropping point. WHY?
Her staff said today that she’s consistently “reluctant to drink fluids.” She knows what happens when she gets dehydrated and still she will not drink fluids. WHY?
The doctors told her to rest with this pneumonia. But no. “Mother” must push onward, lest the children become frightened by the absence of “Mother.”
Hillary, I mean this in the nicest possible way. And I speak — not as a mean, judgy person — but as a “Mother” type who has also at times believed that I single-handedly kept the solar system in motion: “This has to stop.”
The only way to be able to take care of others is to take care of yourself. Anything else is hubris. Sorry for the tough-love talk, girlfriend. But it is hubris. You are human — just like the rest of us. You must sleep. You must stay hydrated. You must pace yourself.
Otherwise this job is gonna kill you. And you’re only at the beginning.
Now get well quick, Hillary! And go a little easier on yourself, okay? And tell the truth. People will forgive you for being human, for getting sick. But not for sticking to that old school cover-up game. It ain’t 1935 and you’re not FDR hiding his wheelchair from the public.
Now here’s a bowl of virtual chicken soup, fellow Mom. Drink up.
Kes, after seeing her in that marathon Benghazi hearing, which I guarantee you that Trump would not be able to endure, I don’t think anyone should doubt her strength or how hard she can push herself.
As you say though, she drives herself hard and refusing fluids seems the same kind of self-sabotage that her dishonesty is.
We all have our complex psychologies, we can sometimes kind of know we’re not doing the right thing for ourselves but still do it. When it becomes a major obstacle to our succeeding at something, we have to apply the self-discipline not to do that.
She needs to take better care of herself and as I mentioned, put to rest the now-archaic concept of the public accepting that politicians aren’t forthright with voters. Those days are over now…for non-Trump voters at least…and especially since that’s the main attack line against her, she needs to stay honest about everything with voters. That doesn’t mean she has to share everything with the public, just the things that matter.
I am wishing her a quick recovery…from pneumonia and in the polls!
I’m with you on all points, AdLib! This is about much more than her, so she needs to think in “big picture” and “long game” terms. The current occupant of the White House has a PhD in those areas. She should have a good chat with him and listen hard!
Kes, I don’t doubt it would be a struggle for Hillary and her campaign to change this defensive mentality they’ve cemented in themselves over the decades.
But resorting to obfuscation and lies to defend against attacks is worse than the attacks now, they’ve seen more than enough evidence.
Like all campaigns, they operate in their bubble and no doubt most if not all have been on board with the knee jerk reaction of, “We can’t let this truth get out because they’ll attack her as usual, how can we cover it up?”
Bad habits are hard to break and this old school politician behavior is a bad habit that only hurts her.
As hard as it is to change, she and they have to do so now because more incidents that expose they’ve been dishonest could really harm her hopes of winning.
I think a lot of this will be set straight in the debate/s. Hell, Trump is already trying to weasel his way out of debating her, in the time honored tradition of these debates. He says he doesn’t want any moderation. Gee, I wonder why?
This whole health thing is a frickin joke and obvious ploy by Trump and his sleazoids. The corporate lackies in the MSM are doing nobody any favors. Well, none of “we the people,” anyhow.
KT, I agree, I think the real shakeout of the election will be in the debates. I think Hillary will hang his lies and bigotry around his neck for good.
And he’s being such a ridiculous ass, there is no such thing as a debate without a moderator. How is a subject presented for debate? Just 2 hours of yelling at each other and talking over each other? That would be Trump’s version of a debate but it ain’t gonna happen! He’s just trying to pressure the moderators not to truth-check him but he’ll do the debates because he needs to and can’t look like a coward.
Hillary could have derailed this whole health BS from Trump’s camp if she hadn’t tried to hide her pneumonia so she has to take some of the blame for teeing this up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if as they were scouting her public appearances, they concluded she had some kind of respiratory issue because of all the coughing she was doing.
With Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon on Trump’s team, it wouldn’t be a leap to wonder if they purposely attacked her on her health knowing she was covering up a problem. That way, they already won that battle. They accuse her of covering up massive health issues and in the end when she has to admit to a temporary one, they’ve hit her on her honesty and sown more doubts about her health.
That’s why I’m arguing for Hillary to quit hurting herself and helping Trump through covering things up.
Trump may hammer her on all kinds of BS but as long as she doesn’t give him a lane to accurately accuse her of not being truthful and open, he’ll won’t be able to land a meaningful blow.
i’m replying here, for lack of other space.
I agree, but I don’t really see this as hurting HIllary in any serious way. I think most of the people who already support Hillary have the same view I do. This is just more of Trump’s bullshit. It’s not going to change anybody’s mind, especially at this point in the campaign.
I understand your frustration with Hillary, because she does tend to, as Samantha Bee put it so hilariously, “trip over her own dick,” but that is just Hillary. It’s, god I hate to say this, like Trump supporters saying, “let Trump be Trump.”
I heard that she did rehydrate, at Chelsea’s place. I don’t know why in the world she would refuse to drink anything. That just doesn’t make sense, and Hillary is a very sensible person.
She said in an interview that after she drank some water, she began to fell better almost immediately.
I mean, who really knows what is true or not true these days, as far as Trump and Hillary and the MSM is concerned?
I really don’t blame her. She knows all about the attacks on her health, before this happened. I’m sure she thought she should try to keep it secret, Jeebus knows how the Trump campaign would blow this way out of proportion.
It’s really a bullshit issue to begin with, ginned up by Trump and his deplorables.
This alters my opinion of her in no way what so ever. When you’ve been hounded for long as Hillary has, by the “somewhat sane,” right, you’d have to be expecting far worse from this alt right crowd.
President Obama remarked on how incredulous it is to slam Hillary on transparency, when Trump is hiding all sorts of bad behavior, and no one presses him on it.
I agree with Ad, that she should just be straight with us, but who can really blame her for not wanting to give those assholes any sort of legitimacy?
Again, this is yet another nicely manufactured “scandal,” by Trump and his basket full of snot suckers, and our corrupt MSM plays right along, as usual. It really is barf making.
KT, I described in my article that I understand her reticence in coming out about her pneumonia after the rash of health propaganda Trump and his slimeballs were spreading about her.
My point is that her biggest vulnerability is being viewed as untrustworthy and trying to avoid getting stung by a bee by running into the street to be hit by a truck isn’t the best trade off.
Yes, it would have been fodder for Trump if she had been open about this from the start but as I suggested in my post, there were ways for her to spin the truth to hammer Trump while avoiding once again being hit for being deceptive.
Of course, none of us supporting Hillary will change our support of her over such things and in the scheme of things, it’s not the biggest deal.
But we’re not the ones who will ultimately decide this election, it may be the independents and undecided. Their view of Hillary is impacted by these things, 60% of voters already see her as untrustworthy and this kind of thing makes that worse.
She just has to stop trying to choose between covering something up to protect herself from attacks and being open and taking hits for what she admits. The choice is clear, she has to be open and take whatever hits she has to because they will be far less profound than more hits to her trustworthiness in the eyes of undecided voters.
Thank you. Aside from all the reasons listed, there’s also the fact that once you tell a lie, you usually have to tell another lie to cover up the original lie; then another, & another, & try to remember which lie was told when, in what sequence, to which situation. So much easier to just tell the truth. Aside from all THAT, my question is: Why did HRC go along with this? Can it be attributed to feeling poorly, or a fever? Or is it a matter of poor judgement?
Hi PegsIsKatzencats, it is a lot more work to have to remember and support lies and though many politicians are experienced at it, it often gets them into trouble.
I would guess that Hillary and her campaign chose to lie about her pneumonia for multiple reasons, the primary one being that they didn’t want the announcement of it to suddenly validate all the outrageous lies that Trump and his band of loons have been spreading about her health and mental state. And the discouraging impact it could theoretically make on some voters, hearing that she was ill.
I completely understand those justifications and the average politician may have done the same but Hillary can’t afford to be caught hiding the truth anymore. She and her campaign need to understand that.
As for poor judgement, since we have to grade on a curve in a binary election, it’s a fraction of the lying and horrible judgement Trump exhibits on a daily basis (today he declared Hillary’s “deplorable” comment was aimed at our military and people of goodwill and that all Americans must worship one God…so much for the 1st Amendment).
Hillary and her campaign are old school and that doesn’t work as well today with moderate and Progressive voters. GW Bush, Bill Clinton, GHW Bush, Reagan and Nixon, all used lies when they were convenient so this is nothing new…and that’s the problem.
Many Americans are tired of old school politics, both Dems and Repubs. Unfortunately, many Dems but only a fraction of Repubs hold both candidates to that standard, the core Trump supporters rationalize away the constant flow of lies and bigotry he spews and are happily conned into thinking he’s honest and wants to help them.
One can only hope that Hillary and her campaign will finally learn from this episode that you can’t play the old school politician in 2016 and lie about things you don’t want voters to know, thoughtful voters don’t put up with it like they used to.
Trump voters on the other hand…