Looking back at the entirely common experience of growing up with a Jewish mother, I can appreciate the fact that she did it out of love. I wish I could say the same about how the American public has been treating the health prospects of the two leading candidates to become the country’s next leader.
When I was a kid, any day I came home with the sniffles, a cough or a voice that didn’t sound just right would set off days of constant checking by my worried mother. Was I feeling OK? Did I have a cold? Did I need to see the doctor?
Looking back at the entirely common experience of growing up with a Jewish mother, I can appreciate the fact that she did it out of love. I wish I could say the same about how the American public has been treating the health prospects of the two leading candidates to become the country’s next leader.
For those who didn’t know, Hillary Clinton abruptly left the Lower Manhattan 9/11 memorial service early and was apparently captured on a cell phone video stumbling into her waiting car. Headlines that she had “fainted” weren’t entirely accurate, but no one knew anything until soon thereafter — an incredulous Washington Post reporter named Chris Cillizza would hint that there was something sinister in the fact that the press didn’t know what was going on for a full 90 minutes — when the Clinton campaign attributed the departure to the Democratic candidate being “overheated.”
The ire of the press transformed Cillizza’s 90 minutes into “almost two hours” in a front-page report by Chris Brennan in the Monday issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Forward’s J.J. Goldberg, himself no fan of Republican nominee Donald Trump, would point out later in the day that the anxious public waited nearly a full day for the official explanation: Clinton was suffering from pneumonia, which was diagnosed the previous Friday, and was being treated with antibiotics.
Interestingly enough, the Trump campaign, which had publicly questioned Clinton’s stamina and health for weeks — aided by a coughing fit Clinton experienced at a campaign event two weekends ago — appeared subdued by the latest developments, wishing the Democrat well and promising to release the results of Trump’s recent physical.
But the issue for Goldberg and other journalists seemed to revolve around a supposed duty by Clinton to be fully transparent at all times about her physical well-being. She would be the second-oldest president to take the oath of office behind Ronald Reagan, Goldberg noted — Trump would be the oldest — and because Clinton had been hammered by Trump supporters over a concussion and blood clot she suffered years ago, she owed it to Democrats especially to not appear as if she was covering something up.
She should have disclosed the pneumonia when it was diagnosed, two days before she left the 9/11 memorial, Goldberg wrote.
Whether or not Clinton — or Trump for that matter — is healthy enough for the highest office in the land is something that is all the more likely to be raised at the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 because of what transpired this week. That would be true even if the Clinton campaign was completely candid about the pneumonia the minute she left her doctor’s office. And it’s a worthwhile issue to contemplate.
But it is not unconscionable that 90 minutes elapsed before the first Clinton campaign statement about the affair, nor is it outside the realm of reasonable that her campaign apparently chose to keep the pneumonia under wraps if the prognosis was good and the antibiotic treatment appeared to be working.
Could it instead be that in our hyper-politicized, social media-laden world, we see offensives where there are none, conspiracy theories where there are merely shadows?
Clinton is not as fragile as some of Trump’s most vociferous surrogates would have us believe, and Trump is not the anti-Semite that some of Clinton’s most ardent supporters claim. Whether either of them is qualified enough to be their party’s candidate is, quite frankly, a moot point.
The fact is they’re what we have, and quibbling about coughing or insinuating that age is a factor in the modern medical era will get us no closer to differentiating the candidates on actual substance — their policies, their views of the world, their chances for getting things done.
“I just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail, and we’ll be seeing her at the debate,” Trump said of Clinton during an appearance Monday on CNN.
Here’s to hoping that the debate explores the issues, because otherwise, I for one might heed my mother’s advice and drown my exhaustion in a bowl of chicken soup.
Joshua Runyan is the editor-in-chief of the Jewish Exponent. He can be reached at jrunyan@jewishexponent.com.
