Clinton’s Medical Mistrust Her record of deception calls for an independent review of her health.
By now you know that Hillary Clinton has pneumonia, though the Democratic nominee and her staff seem to have spent two days hoping no one would find out. Yet the public is entitled to evaluate the health of a potential President, and the lack of candor is corroding whatever trust Americans still put in her. Mrs. Clinton has a moment to come clean, and she should allow independent physicians to inspect her medical records.
On Sunday morning Mrs. Clinton abruptly slipped out of a 9/11 memorial in New York. Her campaign said nothing for more than an hour, though some in the press reported she departed for medical reasons. Mrs. Clinton turned up at the Manhattan apartment of her daughter, Chelsea. The campaign said she had become “overheated” at the service but was recovering. “I’m feeling great. It’s a beautiful day in New York,” Mrs. Clinton said outside Chelsea’s pad later in the morning, posing for a photo with a young girl on the street.
But a video of Mrs. Clinton’s exit from the 9/11 service emerged: Aides and Secret Service agents lifted her into a van after her legs seized up and buckled. Sunday evening the campaign announced that the Democrat had been diagnosed with pneumonia—on Friday. Mrs. Clinton’s physician, Lisa Bardack, released a statement that didn’t clarify the type or severity of the pneumonia, which was discovered during a visit for a “prolonged cough.”
Oh, and that cough? Mrs. Clinton and her allies for a month derided anyone who wondered about it as “deranged.” As Mrs. Clinton said in a recent interview: “I think on the one hand it is part of the wacky strategy—just say all these crazy things and maybe you can get some people to believe you.” Her press secretary told reporters who dared write about her coughing to “get a life,” and her Praetorian Guard in the press corps ran headlines like: “Can we just stop talking about Hillary Clinton’s health now?”
Rumors about Mrs. Clinton’s vitality have floated around the darker precincts of the internet, not least Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but that isn’t why the public is skeptical. One reason is that the Clintons for two decades have told the truth only when caught lying, and sometimes not even then: sexual misadventures, email servers, fiascoes in Libya, dictators donating to the family foundation and more. Is it far-fetched that the pair would obfuscate and stonewall about medical conditions?
Mrs. Clinton has already offered up her health as a campaign issue. She recently told FBI investigators that she could not remember some briefings on classified information because she was recovering from a concussion in 2012. The incident resulted in a blood clot in Mrs. Clinton’s head that would eventually dissolve, according to a two-page letter released last year by Dr. Bardack. Mrs. Clinton stayed on blood thinners as a precaution.
That medical event is reason enough for Mrs. Clinton to release her neurological records, but there are others. The former secretary of state suffered blood clots in 1998 and 2009, about which the public knows little. At age 68 she’s among the oldest presidential nominees. People are living longer, but the actuarial reality is that medical risks compound in the late 60s and early 70s.
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