Hillary Clinton Returns To Campaigning, Somehow Doesn't Topple Over Dead

In a miracle of modern medical science -- or what some are calling "antibiotics and three days of rest" -- Hillary Clinton Returned to The Campaign Trail (mandatory cliché brought to you by the Mandatory Cliché Council) Thursday after a bout of pneumonia, and to prove she's all better, gave two speeches and a press conference. But is it all an act?????   Was it her body double?????  

At her first appearance, at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, Clinton came onstage to James Brown's "I Feel Good," which of course was a far better musical choice than Donald Trump's constant use of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which really should be taken as a warning but isn't.

Clinton gave an upbeat speech, using her enforced time off as a bridge to serious campaign themes and admitting that when she was diagnosed with pneumonia, she tried to "power through" her illness because dammit, there's work to do, the election is less than two months away, darned if she was going to miss the 9/11 memorial Sunday, and yes, she should have listened to her doctor. She said she used the time off to reflect about the campaign, rest up, and spend some time with her doggies, awwww. Then she did a nice rhetorical shift away from her own time off to policy matters:

But I want you to think with me for a minute about how I certainly feel lucky when I’m under the weather I can afford to take a few days off. Millions of Americans can’t. They either go to work sick or they lose a paycheck, don’t they?

Lots of Americans still don’t even have insurance or they do but it’s too expensive for them to actually use. So they toss back some Tylenols. They chug orange juice. And they hope that the cough or the virus goes away on its own.

Lots of working parents can’t afford child care, which in many states costs as much as college tuition, so for millions of moms and dads if they get sick there’s no back-up. They’re on their own, aren’t they?

That’s the story for too many people still in America. When illness strikes or an accident happens, you feel you’re on your own.

If you lose your job or can’t afford college, you’re on your own.

If your aging parents start needing more help and you don’t know what to do, you’re on your own.

Life events like these are catastrophic for some families but mere bumps in the road for others.

Nicely done! Clinton went on to emphasize her roots, noting she'd started her career as a lawyer for the Children’s Defense Fund, and saying "I’m running for all mothers and fathers trying to stay healthy so they can be there for their kids, but perhaps most of all, I’m running for those kids."

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/donald-trump-calmly-promises-to-start-a-war-if-those-damn-iranians-flip-off-our-sailors-again"></a>[/wonkbar]Clinton also reminded her audience of what's at stake in the election, calling attention to Donald Trump's under-reported vow to go to war if Iranian speedboats make rude gestures to "our beautiful destroyers." She seems to think that would be a bad idea.

Following the speech, she gave a brief press availability, although of course rightwing sources were quick to point out that since she only took six questions, it was not a real press conference, no way -- heard that before? -- and what is she hiding? It was of great concern that Clinton didn't give a precise answer to when she informed Tim Kaine that she'd been diagnosed with pneumonia, because apparently the 25th Amendment now applies to presidential campaigns, too. Clinton repeated that she and Kaine had been in close communication, but obviously she is a devious liar who kept her nonexistent near-death experience secret even from her running mate.

In an interview with NPR published Friday, Kaine didn't specify when he was told about the pneumonia diagnosis, but said he'd had a similar experience with pneumonia in 1994 and had tried -- not very successfully -- to "power through" it as well. He noted that in the days before she was diagnosed, she'd been keeping to a very robust campaign schedule:

[N]obody who knows her doubts her work ethic. She works very, very hard. And after she had that diagnosis, she said I think I can power through this and then she found out after about 48 hours maybe it won't be quite so easy as I thought. And then she did let folks know what was going on [...]

This is a person who has a lot that she wants to get done. And she just decided, look, I think I can power through this. And you know what you find is you can't do it at a hundred percent. You have to scale back a little bit. But she's back out on the trail today in Greensboro with a number of events coming up in the next few days. And I know she's really, was really raring to get back out on the trail.

Wingnut translation: Tim Kaine is covering up for Hillary, too! Also, Hillary hasn't released her testosterone levels, either. Inpeach!

[ NYT / What the Folly? / Washington Examiner / NPR / Mother Jones ]