Media angry over being kept in the dark about Clinton illness
Reporters covering the presidential campaign expressed anger on Twitter over being left out of the loop by the Clinton campaign about her illness.
Few of them, however, raised questions about the true state of the candidate's health or whether the pneumonia was a symptom of a more serious disease.
At 10:16 p.m., the campaign said that "Clinton will not be traveling to California tomorrow or Tuesday." Clinton was scheduled to raise cash in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, and her campaign had previewed that she would also deliver a speech on the economy Tuesday. Clinton's Wednesday trip to Las Vegas is, for now, still on her schedule.
Around midnight, however, fundraisers who were planning to attend Clinton's San Francisco event on Monday received an email saying the event is still on, but that Clinton would now appear via teleconference.
Frustration with the Clinton campaign’s handling of the incident boiled over among political journalists on Twitter.
Jonathan Martin, national correspondent for the New York Times, tweeted, “Hillary camp now reveals that her doctor diagnosed her pneumonia on Friday & put her on antibiotics. Only disclosed after this am's episode.”
“I don't understand why Clinton aides weren't telling reporters at 10:30am: ‘pneumonia,’” CNN media reporter Brian Stelter wrote.
“Of course they should have disclosed this. This isn't a cold,” added Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
There was also little complaint about the press pool being kept behind a rope line at the 9/11 memorial for 90 minutes after Clinton left, with the press having no idea where the candidate had gone.
So I would term their outrage, "selective."
Meanwhile, as predictable as the spring rains, the left rose to Clinton's defense, calling reports about the pneumonia "hysterical" and absolutely, positively nothing to worry about.
“#Hillary's health is fine. The hysteria in the media and the attacks about it from #Trump supporters are not,” Democratic PR consultant Hilary Rosen tweeted before Clinton’s pneumonia was disclosed.
“Is there really a tradition of candidates publicly disclosing illnesses like colds, flu's etc?” tweeted former White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. “Every candidate I have ever worked for has gotten sick on the trail and worked through it because you can't take days off in a close race.”
“[S]o which illnesses that are treated with antibiotics do you have to disclose? All?” former White House chief speechwriter Jon Favreau asked.
“From a medical point of view this is not a big deal, She needs to cancel some events or do them by Skype for a week,” observed former Vermont governor Howard Dean, a trained doctor.
“I think I coughed up a lung somewhere between Pennsylvania and Kentucky,” recalled former Clinton ‘08 staffer Mo Elleithee, who also lauded her stamina. “She kept a campaign schedule with pneumonia. When I have a normal cold, I curl up in the fetal position & want to stay in bed for a week.”
Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm tweeted: "To press lamenting @HillaryClinton's health/transparency: 'powering through' illness is what women do: Stoically, every. single. day."
Michael Tomasky, former US editor for The UK Guardian, had the headline of the day for the left: "Hillary Clinton Overheated. Don’t Hyperventilate."
All of this is variations on a theme: "Nothing to see here, move long." There are many questions about their health that any other candidate would be forced to answer if what happened to Hillary happened to them, including some inconsistencies in the pneumonia narrative. But by Wednesday, Hillary Clinton's collapse will be old news, not registering on the MSM radar.