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.
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