Although Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had to scale back her campaign to recover from pneumonia, CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed her about it by phone on Sunday night:
“ I thought that I could just keep going forward and power through it. And obviously that didn’t work out very well.”
The pneumonia was diagnosed Friday when Hillary saw her physician for a persistent cough. She continued with her schedule, making a point of attending Sunday’s 9/11 memorial. She added:
“Well, I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.”
She’d seen NY Senator Charles Schumer at the 9/11 memorial, who said that he had recently recovered from pneumonia but had not told anyone about it. Six members of her Brooklyn campaign office recently recovered from the illness in the last few weeks.
When the CNN reporter questioned her judgment in not revealing her diagnosis earlier, Clinton bristled:
“Oh my goodness, Anderson, compare everything you know about me with my opponent.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 53,000 Americans get pneumonia every year. Causes vary, and treatment is dependent on the cause. In Hillary’s case, she was told to rest for five days. The American Lung Association lists rest as part of the treatment for pneumonia.
Veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour, in a blistering CNN video, views the uproar over Hillary Clinton’s bout with this common contagious illness as sexist:
“Can’t a girl have a sick day or two?”
Amanpour then recalled several memorable incidents of presidential illness within the last century, including President George Bush Sr. vomiting on the Japanese Prime Minister:
“When it comes to overqualified women having to try 100 times harder than underqualified men to get a break, or even a level playing field — well, we know that story.”
Bill Clinton also spoke about his wife’s health history to commentator Charlie Rose:
“Rarely, on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing’s happened to her when she got severely dehydrated, and she’s worked like a demon, as you know, as secretary of state, as a senator, and in the years since.”
Bill Clinton knows well how hard she works. Even after he was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, Hillary continued her legal practice, earning full partnership in the Rose Law Firm the following year. During her eight years as Senator of New York, she sponsored or co-sponsored 1,893 bills.
It was that love for New York that motivated Hillary Clinton to attend a 9/11 memorial on Sunday, where her pneumonia caught up with her, causing a stumble into her campaign van as she left the event:
“I just was incredibly committed to being at the memorial — as a senator on 9/11, this is incredibly personal to me.”
Can the media just let her rest a few days? She’s been campaigning for over a year.
Featured image from YouTube video.
