She didn’t want to say she was sick.
Hillary Clinton, that is, who recently has suffered coughing fits followed Sunday by a near collapse during New York’s 9/11 memorial ceremony. She left the ceremony early, claiming over-heatedness, and appeared to weave, lose her footing and pitch forward as she approached her car, as captured on a mobile phone video.
Later in the day, Clinton’s campaign announced that the Democratic candidate has pneumonia.
Most by now are familiar with the fallout — speculation about her health, concerns about her “transparency” in not reporting her illness sooner — all amid the furor over Clinton’s weird comment at a fundraiser about half of Donald Trump’s followers belonging in a “basket of deplorables.”
Say what?
Other than being one of the strangest combination of words ever uttered, where did Clinton come up with such verbiage? Here’s the partial quote in question: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”
Since when does she like to use such words, which don’t sound at all like Clinton? She’s too studied and cautious to randomly toss out a phrase that, in addition to being offensive and inevitably problematic, has a somewhat poetic edge. A tisket, a tasket, are those deplorables in your basket?