“I’m Not Holding My Breath”: Will Republicans Apologize For Accusing Hillary Clinton Of Faking Concussion
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital to undergo treatment for a blood clot, a potentially serious condition stemming from a concussion she suffered earlier this month. Aides say that Clinton, 65, is currently being treated with blood thinners, and that further action may be required to prevent the clot from worsening. In a worst-case scenario, the clot, if located in the head, could cause a brain hemorrhage.
The concussion forced Clinton to cancel weeks’ worth of engagements, including scheduled testimony before Congress on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Republicans have been highly critical of President Obama’s response to Benghazi, with many suggesting that the administration tried to cover up the incident. Clinton’s illness prompted several conservative commentators and prominent members of the GOP to speculate that she was faking her concussion to avoid testifying. John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described Clinton’s condition as a “diplomatic illness.” Ousted Rep. Allen West (Fla.) said, “I’m not a doctor, but it seems as though — that the secretary of state has come down with a case of Benghazi flu.” Charles Krauthammer, the influential conservative columnist, told Sean Hannity of Fox News that Clinton had likely come down with “acute Benghazi allergy,” which led Hannity to respond, “Let’s see the medical report on that.” Other conservative news outlets also demanded a medical report.
Now that Clinton’s condition has taken a more worrisome turn, will these Republicans offer their apologies? “I’m not holding my breath,” says PBS’s Jeff Greenfield. The fake Clinton concussion will probably join a long list of conservative conspiracy theories that, despite overwhelming evidence to contrary, continue to thrive in certain corners of the GOP (see: Obama was born in Kenya, the polls are skewed, et al.). Indeed, it’s just as likely that the fake Clinton concussion will morph into the fake Clinton blood clot.
By: Ryu Spaeth, The Week, December 31, 2012
“Chain Of Command”: Hillary Clinton Takes Responsibility For Libyan Tragedy, Republicans Explode
For weeks, Republicans have been trying to turn the 9/11 attack on the American embassy in Benghazi into a scandal. They’ve claimed the president refused to acknowledge that the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others was terrorism, though he called it an “act of terror” the day after the tragedy. They’ve accused the White House of rejecting calls for more security that came from the embassy in Tripoli.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stepped into the fray to clarify the situation.
“I take responsibility,” she told CNN. “I’m in charge of the State Department’s 60,000-plus people all over the world (at) 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn’t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They’re the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision.”
This clear statement of chain of command has activated Republicans’ Clinton hysteria to a level that hasn’t been seen in years. They’ve said she was falling on her sword and taking a grenade for the president, who defeated her in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, who often blurs the line between blogger and campaign spokesperson, responded offensively. She tweeted, “First Bill humiliates her and now Obama does.. Hillary no feminist, more like doormat.”
When Obama advisor David Axelrod tweeted, “Sick. Mitt mouthpiece jumps shark,” Rubin responded: “So is Obama going to hide behind her skirt Tuesday night? Why would the president let Hillary end her career in disgrace?”
Apparently taking responsibility for something that is actually your responsibility is a “disgrace” to Republicans.
Evidence suggests that the Bush administration ignored several warnings leading up the 9/11 attacks and the only administration official who ever took responsibility and apologized for not preventing them was Richard Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration.
Rudy Giuliani said that Republicans “should be exploiting” this tragedy to make a case against President Obama. Now that this plan is failing, they’ve returned to the same old sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, October 16, 2012
Frank Luntz Always Makes Newt Gingrich Cry
At an Iowa campaign stop Friday morning, Newt Gingrich got all choked upremembering his late mother. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise: The event was emceed by GOP opinion-researcher-cum-stand-up-comedian Frank Luntz, and tearjerking is his M.O.
The event, at a downtown Des Moines coffeehouse, was styled as a focus group of moms, so Luntz asked Gingrich to recall his own mother, who died in 2003.
Gingrich recounted his mother’s final days in a long-term care facility, where she battled bipolar disorder, depression and physical ailments. It was that experience, he said, that prompted his interest in long-term care and Alzheimer’s disease. As he spoke, a baby in the audience wailed, suggestively perhaps, in the background.
“My whole emphasis on brain science comes indirectly from dealing –” Gingrich paused, winced and waved a hand, pleading, “you’ve got me all emotional!”, then continued — “dealing with the real problems of real people in my family. And so it’s not a theory. It’s, in fact, my mother.”
Parallels were instantly being drawn to the campaign-trail tears of Hillary Clinton, whose 2008 welling-up was thought to humanize her to voters, and Ed Muskie, whose emotionalism in 1972 helped kill his campaign. But it’s worth remembering that Gingrich has hardly been the picture of stoicism up to this point.
At a Thanksgiving forum in Des Moines in November, also moderated by Luntz, Gingrich was one of several candidates who broke down in tears. That time, the trigger was thinking about a friend’s baby who was born with a heart defect. Also shedding tears at that event were Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain; Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul managed not to crack.
“I feel like Dr. Phil!” Luntz joked at that earlier event, and it’s clear his manipulative lines of questioning — probing the candidates for the emotional pressure-points of family and faith — were responsible for the orgy of tears.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, Gingrich doesn’t suffer from a too-tough public persona. If anything, it’s the opposite — he’s seen as a loose cannon. The momentary front-runner, now fallen to a lowly fifth in Iowa polling, isn’t tanking because voters worry he’s too buttoned-up. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The candidate who could most use a tearful moment to soften his image as overly controlled and cerebral isn’t Gingrich. It’s Mitt Romney.
By: Molly Ball, The Atlantic, December 30, 2011
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