So Hillary Clinton suffered a bout of pneumonia on the campaign trail.
This happens.
As has been pointed out, Jimmy Carter got so sick during his own run for the Presidency, during a schedule of almost non-stop handshaking, hustling to keep schedules, long speeches, airplane travel, and kissing those virus incubators known as babies, that at one point he had to clear the books and take a few days off. It is indeed a wonder that more Presidential candidates are not nonstop nose-dropping bronchially-hacking red-eyed portraits of misery, non-stop.
But let us assume for the sake that the a-ha conspiracy theories of Donald Trump’s apologists are correct, and that Hillary Clinton is showing her age, a little bit; that she has some medical woes that she is not telling us.
Let me tell you what I think about that.
According to some medical experts, Abraham Lincoln was, literally, a dying man. We know for a fact that he was a depressive, that he suffered migraines that laid him up for days at a time. If what some suspect about his medical condition is true, then John Wilkes Booth merely accelerated the inevitable. He might have been dead in a couple of years at most.
And yet, was he, or was he not, the man we needed, at that particular historical moment?
John F. Kennedy was ill from a chronic and degenerative condition, Addison’s disease. The reason he didn’t duck when Oswald’s first bullet struck him, was that he was rigidly upright thanks to a back brace. You could actually argue, because of that, that his condition was a contributing factor in his death.
Richard M. Nixon suffered a number of serious health scares in his time in the White House and, though I don’t approve of what he actually did with his power, even his harshest critics would have trouble claiming that his physical problems prevented from being a policy wonk, a driven detail man.
Franklin Roosevelt was, literally, an invalid.
When you vote for the President of the United States, you are not buying an athlete. You don’t want him, or her, to be able to get in the ring with Vladimir Putin and, literally, beat him up, like some kind of gladiator. You want him, or her, to show his strength while sitting down, to show his, or her, iron will with the stroke of a pen, to demonstrate vitality with ideas, not sinews.
And so we arrive at this.
Let us pretend, for the sake of argument, that between now and election day, two things happened.
Let us pretend that, first, Hillary Clinton broke a hip. Let us pretend that for medical-doubletalk reasons it could not be healed or replaced, and that as a result she would have to spend her still-hypothetical Presidency in a wheelchair. Let us further pretend that at the same time Donald Trump finagled himself a dose of the super-soldier syndrome that in Marvel Comics lore turned scrawny but scrappy Steve Rogers into that paragon of physical excellence Captain America, and that his rallies from this point to election day included demonstrations of his ability to better all Olympic records while fighting crime. Let us assume that he could jump straight up and enter buildings from their third-floor windows, and that at one point he defeated a heavily-armed North Korean assassination squad of twenty men by beating the living crap out of them. Okay? Let us assume that. Make him a goddamned superhero, okay?
In such an event, Hillary Clinton would still be more fit for the Presidency than this jackass who doesn’t read books, who thinks he knows more than the Generals, whose business model is not paying his bills, who has defrauded many thousands with enterprises like his bullshit University, who is currently being investigated for bribery and rape and a host of other crimes, and whose strategy is stone ignorance.
I will take a wobbly Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump after a bite from a radioactive spider.
Period.
In all important ways, Trump is as infirm as a paper cup in a gale.
Comment By: Brian E. Paulson
September 12th, 2016 at 10:17 am
I think that the presidential candidates should have both complete physical AND mental health exams.
Comment By: Siobhra Aradia
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Hillary is not sick. One of her horcruxes was destroyed.
Comment By: Charissa Ruechel
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Don’t worry, Volde-Trump still has 6 more that he has well protected.
Comment By: Michael Rapoport
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Well, this campaign is sure starting to look like a Civil War. And one of the protagonists in the story is in fact an arrogant billionaire.
Comment By: Rory Metcalf
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
But I’d vote for Tony Stark over Trump in a heartbeat.
Comment By: Michael Rapoport
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
So would I. At least Stark is smart.
Comment By: Rory Metcalf
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
I bet he even reads.
Comment By: Joe Nazzaro
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Frankly, I would like to see Trump bitten by a radioactive spider just on general principle.
Comment By: Donovan S. Brain
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Any kind of spider would do.
Comment By: Alex Washoe
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
I think the word you’re looking for in Trump’s case is “super-villain”. Lose that stupid toupee and he’s already a good match for Lex Luthor. Except of course, Luthor is is really smart and believes in science.
Comment By: Angelia Sparrow
September 12th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
(And is tragically in love with Superman) sorry/not sorry. Ignore the old Smallville fangirl.
Comment By: Serge Broom
September 12th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Comment By: Gregg Chamberlain
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
at what point does the election campaign have to get to before it becomes obvious that Trump has burned not only all his voter support bridges but dang near all of the planks in the platform on which he stands?
Comment By: Christie Meierz
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Misogyny at play. Women have to be absolutely perfect, or they’re not good enough.
Comment By: Dave Meyer
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
To some extent. But the health card has been played before against male candidates. There were questions about John McCain’s health. Eyebrows were raised when Bob Dole fell off a campaign platform. Reagan’s health was also a concern when he ran for reelection. At least the age card is out of play this time, as the candidates are within 2 years of each other.
Comment By: Jonathan Baker
September 12th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
Bob Dole also has a non-working right arm, a result of injuries sustained during WW2. At 93, he is still a vocal participant in politics and other public affairs.
Comment By: Catherine Birzer
September 12th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
While I disagree with Bob Dole on many issues and have never voted for him, I would never suggest his arm disqualifies him from public service, any more than Congresswoman Duckworth’s missing legs or FDR’s polio disqualify/ied them.
Comment By: Margaret Swindale
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Super T? Nope. As far as I’m concerned only a 73 year old Jack Palance gets away with one arm push ups on national television. I’d sooner have Hillary with an oxygen tank, doping on the blood of millenials to sustain her, having to crawl on her belly to the oval office every. single. day. On her worst day, she’s smarter, tougher and better qualified!
Comment By: Khalil Ford
September 12th, 2016 at 8:19 pm
Love that
Comment By: Kimberly Doscher
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Trump on the serum would turn out more like Red Skull.
Comment By: David Vineyard
September 12th, 2016 at 12:19 pm
Hillary sick is twice the man Trump is.
Comment By: Wallace Ryan
September 12th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
If Hillary had a spike driven through her head, she’d still be far more capable than Mr. Tiny Hands Trump.
Comment By: Paul Anderson
September 12th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
We’ve had a President in a wheel chair. I’d prefer him to the last four presidents rolled together and injected with superserum.
Comment By: Christie Meierz
September 12th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
FDR did, however, go to great lengths to keep the extent of his disability a secret.
Almost everyone gets sick once in a while. Clinton pushed herself too hard — as many women do when they’re sick — and paid for it. Doesn’t mean a hill of beans in the long run, or the short run for that matter, but the people crowing that it makes her unfit? Well, you can’t fix stupid.
Comment By: Shaenon K. Garrity
September 12th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
Christie Meierz How dare FDR conceal the severity of his polio? WHAT ELSE IS HE HIDING? (Hilarious “dead FDR” GIF)
Comment By: Steve Timberlake
September 12th, 2016 at 2:18 pm
Can I root for the radioactive spider, particularly if it has results other than those in the comics?
Comment By: Stanton Fink
September 12th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
An alveola filled with rancid pus would still make for an infinitely more competent president than Orange Skull, I mean Donald Trump.
Comment By: Steve Timberlake
September 12th, 2016 at 4:18 pm
Charlie Pierce of Esquire Politics calls him The Vulgar Talking Yam.
Comment By: Stanton Fink
September 12th, 2016 at 4:18 pm
That’s also the reason why root vegetable farmers throughout the country have hired lawyers and assassins to sic on Mr Pierce, too.
Comment By: Michael J Wise
September 12th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Because then you’d have President Red Scull. Some of us were listening to Dr. Erskine’s explanation. 🙂
Comment By: buzz
September 12th, 2016 at 10:18 pm
Eisenhower had a heart attack while in office.
LBJohnson had gall bladder surgery.
Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Comment By: Pawyigh Lee Montgomery
September 13th, 2016 at 3:19 am
What’s truly scary is that this argument sounds intelligent 🙁
Comment By: Paul Anderson
September 14th, 2016 at 10:17 pm
But it’s so much easier to be virtuous if you make up your facts,
Comment By: Amelia Froloff Mitchell
September 14th, 2016 at 10:18 pm
Bahahahaha.
Comment By: David Vineyard
September 14th, 2016 at 10:18 pm
Think I know who. Had to finally block him.
Comment By: Susan Moore
September 15th, 2016 at 3:17 am
Would be hard to believe that someone could be so blindly and willfully ignorant as to misunderstand what you so plainly and eloquently said. But i Believe it. I was accused of being a poorly educated Trump supporter for pointing out that some people do not stand and salute the flag for religious reasons. I was replying to a poster who had vilified Kaepernik as a traitor f and wondered whether she considered them traitors too. A semi-ironic nudge. Some folks just read the words they need for ammunition to shoot you down to their level of self-righteous ignorance.