In 2016, when President Hillary Clinton (oh I am sorry right-wing) when former candidate Hillary Clinton announced she had pneumonia, along with releasing her medical records, the Conservative smear machine sprang into action. We saw a flurry of Trump-ites, and Republican operatives tell us she had either suffered a stroke, her mental capacity was beyond repair or that basically, she was an old lady past her prime. Between squeezing my brain with talk of emails, breathless mental incapacity stories from Fox News and on-screen pictures of empty podiums awaiting the arrival of Donald Trump, the media took its’ shots at her too.
Over the weekend, the President of the United States was secreted off to a hospital with a vague and irrational explanation from his Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, “Anticipating a very busy 2020, the President is taking advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam at Walter Reed,”Grisham said in a statement. If someone can inform me of the last time an installment version of a presidential annual physical, by choice, was done I would love to know. Were we not informed a few years ago, that Mr. Trump was the healthiest President in history? Dr. Harold Bornstein, Trump's doctor since 1980, said he "can state unequivocally, [Trump]will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." Forget about his being overweight, taking a statin and a daily dose of aspirin for his heart, never mind.
Grisham railed against anyone speculating about her information regarding Mr. Trump’s health as “wholly irresponsible and dangerous.” How dare any of us question the truthfulness of the President or its’ White House staff. After all, the man who has been fact-checked as having told as many as 13,000 lies, is, according to former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, “in every instance that I dealt with him, he was truthful, he listened and he was great to work with … I never had any concerns on (sic) whether he could handle the job ever," she said.
So, the same Mr. Trump who claims to have one of the world’s great memories but could barely remember his campaign manager [Paul Manafort], the Ambassador he appointed to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, or whether he spoke to Michael Cohen about hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, his problem could not be stemming from mental incapacity; could it?
First off, let me confess I believe this is just another distraction trick from the President. With Ambassador Sondland testifying as a “first hand” witness in a few days Mr. Trump needs something, short of dropping his pants in the middle of Fifth Avenue, to draw your attention away from his traitorous behavior. I agree with Stephanie Grisham when she says it is ‘wholly’ irresponsible and dangerous to speculate, without facts, about the health of the country’s leaders. It is also sexist to speculate about the health of a woman leader who admitted to a health problem, pneumonia, and carrying it to the extreme of mental disability. Stay well Mr. President, you can get plenty of exercise in the prison yard.
Vote in 2020 for Change.