Being someone else

Today’s one of those days when I’m glad not to be a presidential candidate.

Honestly, is there any other activity where it’s virtually impossible to be right, be appropriate and be honest, all at the same time?

I ask because of what happened to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Bearing in mind that her opponent, Donald Trump, has repeatedly questioned her health, and his surrogates, mostly former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have scrutinized issues like Clinton’s recent coughing spells and so forth.

In case you misplaced your scorecard, Clinton (and Trump) attended the 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero yesterday, but left after about 90 minutes due to what her staff called being “overheated.”  Then video surfaced online that showed Clinton very unsteady on her feet and being helped (“carried” might be the more appropriate word) into a van, in which she was taken to daughter Chelsea’s Manhattan apartment.  She then emerged some time later, told the collected media she was feeling better and what a beautiful day it was.

THEN it broke that she had been diagnosed with something much worse than the seasonal allergies that afflict many of us in my part of the country.  She has pneumonia, it was determined on Friday.  Nevertheless, she pushed ahead with a full schedule, but after all of this came to light, she wisely cancelled a campaign/fundraising trip to California.

Now she’s getting it from both sides.  Trump and his seconds are bashing her, but mostly for comments she made about the “deplorables” among Trump’s support base, and media and media critics alike are expressing shock for how poorly a legitimate health issue was handled.

As I said, damned if you do…..

I suppose the only other person I’d rather not be right now is Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops, who has to figure out how his program has absolutely cratered since the middle of LAST season.  His team is 0-2 after a whipping at Florida on Saturday.  Yes, Stoops and his staff have assembled multiple consecutive strong recruiting classes, and now the facilities are being upgraded at UK in a big way.  But none of that will matter if the players don’t execute and win more frequently from here on.  I’ve had brief social contact with Stoops (his children and those of one of his key assistants attend the school that two of my grandkids used to attend) and he seems a genuinely good guy who is trying to do the right thing.  Hope he gets the chance to see things through.

I’m not going to attempt to take a position on the whole kneeling-for-the-National-Anthem issue that appears to be the primary subject of discussion in professional football.  Worthwhile positions on both sides.  And we’re talking about it, but not about the issues that appear to have triggered all of this attention.  I’ll just say this:  if those who have means would do more to help improve the situation, instead of stopping short by simply calling attention to it, we might have a better scenario to discuss.