Hillary’s health suddenly legitimized as campaign issue by fainting episode at 9/11 memorial service
All the sneering of the left and their media enablers over “conspiracy theories” about Hillary’s health can no longer contain the explosive issue of her physical fitness for office. At a moment the nation’s eyes were focused on her and her rival at the 9/11 ceremonies in New York City, she demonstrated a fragile constitution (and looked like death warmed over).
Fox News reports:
Hillary Clinton had a “medical episode” that required her to leave a 9/11 commemoration ceremony early on Sunday, a law enforcement source who witnessed the event told Fox News.
The Democratic presidential nominee appeared to faint on her way into her van and had to be helped by her security, the source said. She was “clearly having some type of medical episode.”
Watch the video below, as about ten seconds in, “a witness told Fox News that Clinton stumbled off the curb, her ‘knees buckled’ and she lost a shoe as she was helped into a van during her ‘unexpected early departure.’"
It took about an hour for the propagandists to arrive at a strategy for dismissing the importance of the medical episode in a person who has suffered serious brain damage.
After more than an hour of radio silence, Clinton's campaign issued a statement saying the former Secretary of State "felt overheated."
"Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremony for an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respects and greet some of the families of the fallen," Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said. "During the ceremony, she felt overheated so departed to go to her daughter's apartment, and is feeling much better."
I am Hillary’s age, and I have never fainted, much less in public. In fact, I know very few people who have fainted in public that I have heard about.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post grasps the significance of what just happened:
Hillary Clinton falling ill Sunday morning at a memorial service on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks will catapult questions about her health from the ranks of conservative conspiracy theory to perhaps the central debate in the presidential race over the coming days.
"Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremony for just an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respects and greet some of the families of the fallen," spokesman Nick Merrill said. "During the ceremony, she felt overheated, so departed to go to her daughter's apartment and is feeling much better."
What that statement leaves out is that a) it came 90 minutes after Clinton left the ceremony b) reporters — or even a reporter — were not allowed to follow her and c) the temperature in New York City at the time of Clinton's overheating was in the low 80s. (A heat wave over the eastern United States broke last night/this morning.)
She later left her daughter's apartment, saying she was "feeling great" and waving at the crowd, per the Associated Press.
Cillizza has a special standing to address this aspect of her health:
I wrote dismissively of that conspiracy theory in this space last week, noting that Clinton had been given an entirely clean bill of health by her doctors after an episode in which she fainted, suffered a concussion and then was found to have a blood clot in late 2012 and early 2013.
Coughing, I wrote, is simply not evidence enough of any sort of major illness that Clinton is assumed to be hiding. Neither, of course, is feeling "overheated." But those two things happening within six days of each other to a candidate who is 68 years old makes talk of Clinton's health no longer just the stuff of conspiracy theorists.
Let us pray for Hillary’s health. I’d certainly hate for her to step down from the ticket, though the battle between Kaine and Sanders to replace her could get amusing.