2016-09-14

It seems like just yesterday when I thought questioning Hillary Clinton’s health was the vilest, meanest, most cowardly and inexcusable political act imaginable. Actually, it was about a week ago!

Something Southern, something Jewish, maybe something personal known only to me, and possibly factors not even known by me, gathered inside me to deplore any exploitation of Hillary’s health. At high school football games, when a member of the other team got injured, our head cheerleader would get the name of the injured foe – let’s say it was Watson. We then rocked the stadium with our lusty cries of, “Yay, Watson! Shake it off!” We never felt like we’d scored a clean win when the opposing team’s star player was taken out early in the game. We wanted to beat them at the top of their game.

And until my amazingly quick turn-around on this issue, I felt even more strongly about using an adversary’s illness to win an election. Especially this election. I know it sounds coarse and banal to characterize this election as “Communism versus Freedom,” but why duck it? It’s close enough. The rubber band stretches, but it doesn’t break. The air across America crackles with battle cries of free medical care, free college, the re-sculpting of incomes to make them more equal. They don’t quote learned passages from Marx and Engels and heavy talk about “thesis” and “antithesis” clashing and merging into synthesis. Nobody knows they’re preaching Marxist dialectic. It all just goes by its street nickname of “free stuff.” But boil away the acrid fluids and you’re left with the bone of 100 percent Marx – 50 percent Karl and 50 percent Groucho!

After one of my hand-wringing rants against questioning Hillary’s physical fitness to serve, one of my political betters said, “This isn’t North Carolina high school football. This is total war to see if the last eight years of American government will be applauded or denounced. We’re fighting for an America our grandfathers loved and our grandchildren may never believe existed. Get off it!”

And I got off it. And as we’ve so often heard, converts to Catholicism are frequently “more Catholic than the pope”! I did such a precise 180 that I was promptly consumed by a whole new layer of fury against Hillary that wasn’t there before. How dare someone with the number of warning signs enveloping Hillary conceal, cover up, prevaricate and lie in an attempt to gather the power of the presidency, while fully aware of the hellish consequences such monumental selfishness invites!

What percentage of Hillary’s illness iceberg is above water? We don’t know. We know about her “medical episode” causing her to be carried into her van by Secret Service agents during 9/11 observances. We know about her dreadful concussion, her empty stares, her frozen moments, her coughing marathons, her unsteady climbing of stairs, her obvious fatigue and her occasionally visible difficulty walking. Less known is the number of doctors who, though never having examined Hillary personally, recognize in routine observation what they call “disqualifying” pathologies. And who is that sturdy man hanging in close to Hillary on TV who seems to have a hypodermic needle at the ready to inject in case “the need arises”? He’s the man who whispered “Keep on talking!” to Hillary during a political appearance complicated by a medical episode. Many thought he was part of her Secret Service detail, but that was disproved.

Most of the above has been offered, debunked and then re-embunked.

If Hillary has any difficulty with this admittedly unsubstantiated, speculative rumor-mongering, she could put an end to such distraction with a wave of her “full-disclosure” wand. I’d love to be assured that someone with such a good chance to win the election is in the appropriately excellent health!

Have you noticed how details that derail Republican candidates die a harmless death when it comes to Hillary? Remember when Mitt Romney was forced to issue lame and ineffective apologies after someone at a private fundraiser recorded him pointing out that 47 percent of Americans were on some kind of government relief? Buzz spread after Hillary and Donald Trump appeared at the commander in chief forum in Philadelphia. It was alleged Hillary had worn a secret “earpiece” so she could get “coaching and prompting” while on the stage. I dismissed the accusation as anti-Hillary politicking. It was denied by the Clinton campaign. It was confirmed by a New York Police Department source.

And never heard from again!

As this is being written, Hillary is busy apologizing for calling “half” of Trump supporters “deplorable” racists, homophobes, xenophobes and the like. What a race! Trump exudes what America craves. Hillary exudes what America deplores. But she’s got the media, the faculty, outsized portions of the clergy and the minorities – racial, ethnic and sexual – all in her corner.

Are you, too, in Hillary’s “basket of deplorables”? Tell the world with WND’s latest bumper sticker

In 2012, when Hillary was running against Obama in the Democratic primaries, she came up with a brilliant question, namely, “Who would you most like to have answer the phone when it rings at 3 a.m. with word of a national crisis?” Later, as President Obama’s secretary of state, that phone call came through. It was about deadly danger in Benghazi. It was answered by voicemail.

Sorry, Hillary, you’ve had your call. Let’s hope the next one to get such a call is at least awake!

Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact media@wnd.com.

Receive Barry Farber's commentaries in your email

BONUS: By signing up for Barry Farber's alerts, you will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email.

Name*

First

Last

Email*

Where we will email your daily updates

Postal code*

A valid zip code or postal code is required

Click the button below to sign up for Barry Farber's commentaries by email, and keep up to date with special offers from WND. You may change your email preferences at any time.

Show more