Every night this week, Fox News’ Sean Hannity has drawn attention to a story that was largely debunked before Monday morning. Again and again, Hannity has summoned a “Fox News Medical A-Team” to probe the claim that Hillary Clinton has serious medical issues, covered up by a press that won’t demand her medical records.
Hannity’s crusade has given the theories of a looming Clinton health crisis their highest-profile airing. A year ago, when Republicans hoped that one of several younger candidates would win their nomination, jokes about Clinton’s age and health were rampant. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the Democratic nomination fight looked like “an episode of ‘Golden Girls.'” The Washington Free Beacon ran jokey investigations of a photo that showed Clinton holding the back of a chair, asking whether she was using a walker. (She was not.)
Excuse me. Since when it is polite to make fun of senior citizens? Do ageists seriously think that their discussion is appropriate? The “investigation” into Hillary Clinton’s health is absurd. Sean Hannity is absurd and he needs to find something else to do.
Some of these conservatives really don’t seem to have any limits. This new focus must be the last ditch effort to make up for the fact that the fools in the GOP have hi-jacked their party and are leading it to ruination.
This is bi-partisan. Look back at McCain (36% of D’s thought he was too old and it was discussed by CNN, Politico, USNews, NPR and perhaps even hinted at by BHO’s “lost his bearing” quip) and even farther back to Reagan. It’s not a new tactic, at all, just coming from a different direction this time. Goes around and comes around. Not defending it – I find both major party candidates defective, and hate that no matter what, we’ll be ruled by a wealthy, entitled Ivy Leaguer better off in stripes, but age isn’t a distinguishing issue. The sooner we clear off the Boomers, the better.
@NorthofNokesville
I see you are fitting right into the ageist mode—“clear on the boomers.”
As a boomer, I find that offensive.
Maybe we will all croak, die off, or fade away and you non-boomers will all be happy.
However, I wouldn’t count on it any time soon.
@MoonHowler
It’s not ageist (give me the dwindling pre-Boomers any day), it may be generationist with regard to mindset, and at this scale, we’re necessarily dealing with over-generalizations. At any rate, the overall Boomer program has failed: “mortgage the future with debt so some can have their benefit-rich, tax-moderate cake and eat it, too”: protected pensions and defined benefits (union or corporate.. this is a bi-partisan mentality); remind people “we ended the war” while pursuing a near-constant program of overt and covert conflict and occupation. HRC is more or less the class president of the Boomers, and DT and his Trumpkins are the class clowns.
To be fair, I will give the Boomers credit for some advances in civil liberties (largely via SCOTUS, reasonably good outcomes albeit leaving wreckage of the 14th amendment), and in getting rid of some generalized environmental harm that more localized regulation and tort law couldn’t handle (air pollution).
FWIW, I think the Boomers jumped the shark when Dennis Hopper, RIP, started helping Ameriprise Financial pitch retirement products during an NFL game. “Dreams Don’t Retire.” Genius!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eS6isp7Uao
This, from the genius of Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Hoosiers, etc. From the man whose verbal confrontation with Christopher Walken in True Romance showed what ownership of a star-studded film meant – and whose “advertisement” of Pabst Blue Ribbon in Blue Velvet is immortal.
I don’t want the Boomers to disappear (with some exceptions, perhaps). I would prefer they enjoy THEIR retirement, not mine.
They all dislike Hillary so much you would think the fact that she might be imminently infirmed and her VP would have to step up would be a good thing. Entertainment. He just wants ratings.
And everyone knows old woman are a lot more spry than old men.
@Watching
No one seemed to mind Margaret Thatcher.
Hannity is in love with Trump, to the point where other conservatives are starting to question his objectivity. Trying to paint Clinton as having health issues is a Trump-style playground response of “Oh yeah, so do you” to all the questions of Trump’s mental stability.
Besides, we’ve had presidents that can barely walk before, and they seemed to do OK. And like Watching said, if anything did happen to Clinton, we could do a lot worse than President Kaine. (like electing Trump. That would be a lot worse.)
@Dump Trump
Didn’t Andrea Tantaros get “fired” for supporting Trump too much? Maybe this is another indication that the females on Fox News are not treated the same as the males.
@Dump Trump
Hannity is despicable! Hannity and objectivity – in the same sentence?
He is sucking up to Trump in a sick manner.
Bucking for a job as press secretary for Trump, maybe?
Does anyone even listen to hannity anymore? I thought he had been discredited enough on other topics that intelligent and knowledgeable people would shy away from him.
This might be a bad place to ask that question. I think all those Foxies listen to him, especially men. I don’t think thinking people listen to him any more than they listen to Rush, other than for pure entertainment.
Perhaps I am wrong, however. No one *I* know listens to him.
@MoonHowler
His ratings have been surging, against a generally bad backdrop for Fox. I don’t watch cable or network news for information (or even at all), and the Fox yellers don’t provide much consumption value (nor do the yellers stage left). Give me BBC news and RT for commentary any day.
What is RT? I am probably just being obtuse.
I watch Morning Joe and Rachel Maddow. Both very different types of shows. The former has a good cross section of political thought. I watch Rachel because she is polite, even to people with whom she disagrees. (i.e. Rick Santorum)
@MoonHowler
Russian television network. Some very, very blunt commentary, particularly on US economic / trade policy. Seriously, if you need a break from the standard fare, it’s a treat (acquired taste, and never even 50% agreed with).
Trump is sinking like a stone and now there’s a story in the New York Times that his campaign manager took a cash payment from Putin’s former Ukrainian puppet. Hannity and FOX are getting desperate.
@Robin Hood
Not so sure RH. Trump’s a longshot, agree, but he’s volatile, and so are conditions. There’s a range of possible outcomes that is pretty broad and mostly downside from DT, but not all. And the real negs haven’t started yet.
On Hannity, it’s an interesting question. Would you rather have someone in office you supported who is very likely to embarrass you? Or would you rather have the “I told you so” angle and an unpopular HRC available for endless content… all the Bill Clinton backstory, etc. And HRC, if lucky, will get 55% turnout (I suspect lower given generally high negatives for both), and if she is very very lucky 55% of the vote (the Iowa Electronic Markets have her odds going up but her total vote share is stickier) – which means, at best, 70% of the population did not vote for you. D’s Senate takeover seems probable, so the field of “things to yell about” will increase dramatically.
Opposition is a curious thing, and I daresay Republicans are politically better at it than governing, and conservatives are ideologically better equipped for it than for exercising power.
I think that we haven’t heard the last of the third parties. I mean the Libertarians, the greens and this new guy out of Utah. They could throw everything out of whack.
@Robin Hood
Then there is the picture of Ivanka in Israel with Putin’s supposed girl friend.
Apparently America’s “most trusted” doctor, Dr Drew, has questions about Hillary’s health and treatment also.
http://www.infowars.com/dr-drew-gravely-concerned-about-hillary-clintons-health/
If Dr. Drew is the most trusted doctor, please explain who he is?
@Kelly_3406
Dr Drew is a medical doctor and TV personality. I think he has his own show. Notice that I put “most trusted” in quotes.
I had never heard of him.
@Kelly_3406
Infowars? You get your news from InfoWars? The are the Cadillac of crazy conspiracy theories. I thought they had been completely discredited by everyone 15 years ago. But since you site them as an authority, let’s look at some of their recent stories:
1) Alex Jones chatted with Steve Pieczenik, who told the InfoWars broadcaster [Jones] that government agencies and the Muslim Brotherhood are blackmailing President Obama and Hillary Clinton over their secret gay pasts.
2) Alex Jones believes “the Establishment” may declare marital law to prevent Trump from winning the election.
3) How about this one from Joe Corsi who told Alex Jones that “this is the most critical time in world history and we’re on the verge of a major financial collapse and a World War III event” involving nuclear conflict. “The globalists will be happy — kill 5 or 6 billion people, they’re not going to miss them, that’s the problem,”
Yup, sounds like responsible journalism to me.
You know the old saying “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” Well, it should be “Don’t believe ANYTHING you read on InfoWars.”
I read infowars for entertainment, not the news. There was a project that I worked on a few years ago that turned up on infowars. Its twisting of the facts and its violation of the laws of physics were hilarious, so I have been unable to resist reading it.
However, the site usually quotes people accurately. I was astonished to see Dr Drew issuing a medical opinion on Hillary. The story has been picked up by many more sites since then.
Agree with Kelly that it is astonishing that any doc would issue a medical opinion by observing someone at a distance. Sounds like rank incompetence and grandstanding. Glad my doctors don’t operate that way.
To defend Dr. Drew just a teeny bit (as opposed to Hannity, whose comments are indefensible), the thrust of his comments seemed not so much to be about Mrs. Clinton’s medical condition, but were more directed to the quality of treatment she received for head trauma.
Of course the really big medical story is not Hillary’s condition, but the hilariously phony medical evaluation that Trump issued (and perhaps authored) about himself. It was from a dead doctor, bragged about Trump’s “score” on PSA values, claimed that Trump would be the healthiest President ever, etc. etc. Just when you think things can’t get any sillier.
I wouldn’t be so sure of counting Trump out. The quiet majority spoke during the primaries and I would expect them to speak again on election day.
IMO, at this point anyone is better than another Clinton as POTUS.
Do the math. State by state.
@Thomas Maybew
If the same “quiet” (I thought they were rather raucous and unpleasant, actually) “majority” (14 million?) speaks in the general election, Thomas, Trump will go down to a more resounding defeat than any presidential candidate in American history. He’ll have to come up with a few tens of millions more votes to make this competitive, I think.