I'm gay. I'm irked by what Hillary said. But drop the condescension.

[ashtonelijah]

This is in response to insinuations by some here that I, as a gay Hillary supporter, must now see the error of my gays and switch to Bernie. Or else I'm basically a Log Cabin Republican Aunt Tom. B.S. So to those who think this way, I say this.

Yes, I'm highly annoyed that she made an ignorant comment about AIDS. Yes, I want her to apologize a dozen more times. I want her to be forced into a Jeremiah Wright style moment where she has to explain to the country the truth about the Reagans and the AIDS crisis.

But if you think one moment of ignorance in relation to gay history, albeit one that really irks me, is going to make me switch candidates when I overwhelmingly support the majority of the things she says and her policy decisions (and particularly her overwhelmingly good record on gay rights), then you're being quite condescending, and dare I say, more than a little homophobic.

I disagree with her on TPP and marijuana legalization. If you think that I am so singularly defined by my sexuality they one misstep on gay history (not even a policy position) is going to make me switch candidates, then you really don't get gay people any better than she gets the history of Reagan and HIV. That does not make me a Log Cabin Republican.

She needs to apologize. And now, so do any of you who think this is a good time to start brosplaining to me how I should vote. Because let's face it, a good number of you who are now feigning outrage today, ostensibly on my behalf, probably weren't much better informed than her on the Reagan/AIDS issue until today.

[Firebrand Gary]

1. Bingo!

[NurseJackie]

2. She did apologize.

[EndElectoral]

6. As she has for her IWR vote as well.

[Hissyspit]

35. After about a decade.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/whats-missing-from-hillary-clintons-iraq-war-apology/372427/

[Scootaloo]

51. I'm sure the people of Iraq feel much better for it, too

[Human101948]

76. Thank you, Secretary Clinton!

[EndElectoral]

3. Just curious how you'd have felt if Sanders said this...and I don't care who you vote for.

Frankly, I'm shocked how ignorant she was on this topic. It was kind of big at the time.

[ashtonelijah]

5. I'd feel irked and like it showed that he was out of touch with gay history...

You know, sort of like how I feel about this right now.

Sort of like how I felt when he made the comment about whites not knowing what it's like to be poor and live in a ghetto.

[EndElectoral]

8. So equating Sanders concern for AA struggles with Clinton's compliments to Reagan on AIDS?

[ashtonelijah]

25. Sanders implied that being poor and living in the ghetto is a "black thing"

And dismissed the millions of poor whites in this country. It was offensive.

[Punkingal]

40. The fact is he never dismisses poor whites, or poor people of any color.

[EffieBlack]

47. Bernie's perfect, so he never makes a mistake-and anyone who says he does is part of the conspiracy

Got it?

[Number23]

58. And as far as I know, not only did Sanders NOT apologize, his supporters acted like his comments

were being deliberately misconstrued and that nothing he said was wrong.

Hillary's comments were ignorant, hurtful and just flat out wrong. She has apologized and people have the right to choose whether or not they will accept that.

Sanders' comments were ignorant, hurtful and flat out wrong. He never apologized, his "explanation" didn't do a damn thing but make the entire situation worse and people acted like those of us that were offended were the ones with the problem. And it's absolutely fascinating to see the difference in how their behavior is treated here. Not in any way even REMOTELY surprising, but fascinating nonetheless.

[TheFarseer]

80. Well shoot

Bernie just doesn't understand anything. I'm surprised that dumbass can tie his shoes.

[PeaceNikki]

4. The way the Reagans handled the AIDS crisis is one of the most shameful periods in our history.

I'm shocked and embarrassed that she wasn't keenly aware of that. However, I'm glad she apologized without making excuses.

[winter is coming]

7. It wasn't ignorance. It was a lie.

She was an adult in the 80s, and interested in politics. There's no way she could have not known how obstructionist the Reagan Administration was. Basically, either she's lying or she has some serious memory/cognitive issues. Neither possibility makes her look like a promising candidate.

[Go Vols]

23. exactly

I can remember it all quite well as I am sure she can too.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

41. Why would she lie about something so easily disproven? Reagan gave a speech about AIDS

in 1987 at an anFAR event. The media made a big deal about it. "Isn't it wonderful that Reagan mentioned the word AIDS?" The Reagans were also friends with Rock Hudson and had him over when he had AIDS (although at the time, Hudson was denying he had AIDS). Reagan could do no wrong with most of the media. It wasn't until later that the main stream media finally got on Reagan's case about his inaction. If you weren't paying attention at the time, you could get sucked in. I remember back then that a lot of things were being hidden and "whispered about" until later. In San Francisco and New York it was much more known what was going on, unlike in the Midwest.

[winter is coming]

69. Why did she lie about arriving under sniper fire in Bosnia?

It was news when Reagan finally said the word "AIDS" precisely because he'd avoided doing it for so many years. For this to be an honest mistake on Hillary's part, she would have to have been ignorant at the time (unlikely, for someone interested in politics) and remained ignorant in all the years since then and have somehow acquired the false impression that the Reagans "started a national conversation" about AIDS. Who would have told her that?

[yardwork]

9. Well said. This lesbian agrees.

[fun n serious]

10. k&R nt

[BernieforPres2016]

11. brosplaining huh?

"feigning outrage today, ostensibly on my behalf"

A little full of yourself?

[yardwork]

12. I'm standing right next to him. The OP is well stated.

[EffieBlack]

48. Me, too

[cwydro]

78. Me too.

Good op.

I am also gay.

[Warren DeMontague]

60. They give each other bronus bropoints for every brotime they bro-use of the "bro" suffix

Its like brofrequent broflyer bromiles

[delrem]

71. It's standard BrockPAC fare.

Sometimes when I've had too much of something awful and I know it won't end I get hit by an almost vicious sense of humor. In this case I imagine myself a fly on the wall of Karl Rove's office listening in on the conversation.

KR: so yah, they haven't a clue how to run a campaign themselves so they hired one of ours, David Brock, to run their internet reachout operations. Heh! (sidelong glances, smiles, smirks and nods)

other: not really! Brock? Not our guy Brock? I don't believe it!

KR: yes, David Brock! hahaha!
So Brock, he reminds them about how swiftboating worked so well to undo Kerry, y'know? And they go "right, right! It did the trick!" And then Brock convinces them to swiftboat their own progressive/left-liberal base! And they agree to go along with Brock's plan!! They agree to let Brock orchestrate it, hire the people and do it!

other: c'mon, that can't be true! Good joke, tho'!

KR: But it's true! Look at it! (points to any post from a HRC supporter on DU, KOS, or anywhere - to articles from pundits like Capehart, etc...) It's true!

KR and other: howls of laughter. Just howling laughter while repeating the punchline "they agreed to swiftboat their own base!"

other: (cackling) so, how do they plan to follow up on that?!?

KR: with loyalty oaths!!! No shit! With loyalty oaths! Demanding that Dems vote "for the nominee" who swiftboated their asses for the past year! Yes! Yes! That's the whole of their plan!

KR and other: howling with laughter...

[djean111]

13. While I don't know, of course, exactly how you feel, I would like to point out that

every day, here at DU, I am admonished in some way that as a woman, I should be voting for Hillary. Because woman.
I have been informed that I have mommy issues, that I must be afraid of powerful women, and even that there is a special place in hell for me. That I am disrespecting my mother. My vote for Hillary was assumed to be in the bag - her bag - from the start.

Nope. because of issues and deeds and past performance and trouble with the truth.
But yeah, bites to be told you are supporting the wrong candidate, as if the issues that affect us all do not count.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

43. I think it depends on your age. If you're near Hillarie's age & grew up when feminism first started

and women had to really fight, you would feel feel guiltier about not supporting a woman. A woman in her 20's - to 40's cannot understand how a feminist woman in her mid-50's to 70's might feel this way. If you grew up seeing abortion being illegal vs. always having lived with abortion being legal, you cannot understand. In the 50's - 60's women were expected to become housewives or secretaries, nurses, teachers for the most part.

[djean111]

46. I will be 70 next week. I don't feel guilty about anything at all. I do understand.

I endured a lot of utter crap, being one of the first female programmers in a male-oriented profession. When I turned in my notice at State Farm, because I landed a job as a programmer trainee (went through an interview with questions like Do you take birth control? We don't want to train you and then you get pregnant!) - a senior manager came up to my desk and told me if I was a real woman, I would just be a clerk until I got pregnant and then stay home with my baby. No, I was a real woman who aced all the aptitude tests and wanted to try programming. So - I did. Put up with a lot of sexist crap, for many years, but was eventually just fine. Oh, and I worked for some awesome women, and some really asshole women. You won't find me EVER supporting someone just because they are a woman.

That was not what it was all about. Equal opportunity, not preference.

And I wouldn't count on Hillary to not backpedal on women's interests and rights, if it meant getting elected. IMO she has no core principles. Everything driven by ambition and polls and focus groups.

I would, of course, feel guilty if I supported someone who stood for war and fracking and the TPP and increased H-1B visas and sent children back to die to prove a point, to name a few things I dislike intensely, just because that person is a woman. That is not what feminism is about.

I sincerely don't understand why I would feel guilty about not supporting a person who, in my opinion, stands for things that hurt everyone - women, children, men - everyone.

And attempting to pigeonhole people's support by gender and age is, in my opinion, and in my experience, ludicrous and insulting and condescending. yeah, I am almost 70, white, female, and I supported Hillary in 2008. And then - I did my due diligence. I looked stuff up. Again, I would feel guilty if I supported her now. I would be betraying my family's future.

[k8conant]

57. I will be 67 in June. I became a computer programmer in 1983

and agree with what you say and believe.

I sometimes wonder why I don't get told I should have supported Carly Fiorina for President.


I did like Shirley Chisholm in 1972.

When I turned 35 in 1984, I couldn't run for president because I was in the US Civil Service. I toyed with the idea of running a non-campaign with newspaper ads saying I was NOT a candidate but if elected I wouldn't live in the White House but open it up as a home for the homeless and I wouldn't tell people where I was living to save the expense of Secret Service coverage. I also wanted to hire back all the PATCO workers who were fired by Reagan.

[djean111]

65. Got my first programming job in 1969. Wild Wild West. Everybody thought I was crazy and did not

know my place. I could, if I had a reason to, write a sit-com using the actual sexist crap I went through - because in today's world, that stuff would be considered so unbelievable that people would laugh, thinking I was exaggerating. Also, as an aside, one of the most satisfying things I have done in life is to write something funny, know exactly where people would laugh, and then see it happen just like I planned it. My next life - writer.

Really typical exchange -
Me to manager - Hey, I am the Senior Programmer. (and the only woman in the department).
Why do you send me up to the third floor to get the keys to a fleet car when anybody in this department needs a
car? Why don't they get their own keys, or send the secretary?

Manager - Because the guys in the fleet department think you have nice legs. They requested that you get the keys.

Many many years of that kind of thing.

Anyway - I applaud and admire your political ambitions and what you wanted to accomplish. Too bad that in today's world, it sounds like crazy talk.

[840high]

64. I'm 77 and don't feel guilty.

[stillwaiting]

14. I am gay and I strongly disagree with your opinion on HRC.

She has been far from a champion or leader on gay rights issues over her life. This is in SHARP contrast to Bernie's unbelievably brave stances on gay issues throughout his life.

[yardwork]

28. Bernie's states rights stance on gay rights?

I wouldn't call that brave.

None of our politicians were brave around gay rights.

[Bluenorthwest]

36. I would.

You characterize his stance with all the accuracy with which Hilary characterized Reagan actions on AIDS. That tactic is worn out and frayed.

[seattleite]

81. +1 Also gay. Feel the same way.

[basselope]

15. To be fair.. she has MANY missteps on gay rights.

I don't understand gay people supporting Hillary in the same way I don't understand gay people supporting Republicans.

But, to be fair, I don't understand ANYONE supporting Hillary in the same way I don't understand ANYONE supporting Republicans.

[IdaBriggs]

16. I was informed at the time because it was in Time Magazine.

It wasn't a secret.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/02/aids-from-the-archives-for-30-years-time-covers-the-epidemic/

[Trajan]

17. You are irked ...

Join the club ...

[SheilaT]

18. No one is suggesting you must change your support.

But you do need to be very aware of Hillary's actual history. How she was very slow at coming around to gay rights. How she was even slower to support gay marriage. And if she honestly seems to think Nancy and Ronnie were out front of the AIDS crisis, she's either delusional, was somehow in a coma from 1981-1987, or thinks she can lie about it and no one else will remember how things actually went down.

The underlying problem with her is that she is truly and old-style politician, the kind who came to maturity long before the internet, when fact-checking was much harder than it is now. And when actual copies of videos or audio things live forever.

And an apology doesn't get to the heart of her problem: why she either remembers things completely opposite of what happened, or how she thinks she can get away with such nonsense.

For what it's worth, I'm not at all outraged on your behalf, just why as a gay person you're so willing to stick with someone who took so long to be someone who cared at all about someone like you.

[beaglelover]

22. Obama also took some time to come around on gay issues and many gays voted for him twice.

A candidate can't be perfect in every way. Hillary's strengths far outweigh her weaknesses.

[EffieBlack]

49. I'm sure the OP is quite aware of Hillary's history and doesn't need to be educated by you

[SheilaT]

54. I honestly doubt it.

I'm going to guess the OP is simply too young too understand all the ramifications of her slow acceptance of the gay community.

I could be wrong. The OP might be as old as I am (67) and just doesn't think such things are important, but that makes me seriously question his (or her) understanding of all kinds of things.

[Spacedog1973]

74. Just another low information

Voter, eh? Stay classy

[EffieBlack]

90. He must be one of those clueless millennials too immature to understand how the real world works

and, as a result, can't have their perspective taken seriously.

Wait a minute - that can't be right, can it?

Here's a more likely explanation: Maybe he just sees things differently than you do, which doesn't make him immature or clueless - it just means he sees things differently than you do. It happens. It's interesting that you don't seem to understand that, given the vast wisdom you believe your age has conferred upon you.

[beaglelover]

19. Excellent post. I agree 100%.

[riversedge]

20. I am sorry you are being supjected to such thoughtless, rude

comments by member on DU. It is wrong.

Not making excuses---but IMHO she was thinking of their work on Alzheimer's. We also make mistakes. But thank you for your comments.

[winter is coming]

21. The Reagans didn't "start a national conversation" on Alzheimer's, either.

It's true they supported stem cell research at a time when few Republicans did, but Republicans didn't comprise the whole of the universe.

[Arazi]

50. No she wasn't. That makes no sense in context with her statements

Alzheimers was never stigmatized

“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s,” Mrs. Clinton, who was attending Mrs. Reagan’s funeral in Simi Valley, Calif., told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan – in particular, Mrs. Reagan – we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it. Nobody wanted to be involved

[Chitown Kev]

24. K & R

Gay, a non-Hillary voter, but some of the comments here are horrible.

[Number23]

61. And the woman has apologized for her ignorant, thoughtless comments. The same folks screaming for

her head now are the same folks that shrugged when Sanders said that white folks don't know what it's like to live in the ghetto or what it's like to be poor. Hell, they did worse than shrugged. They actually said that the black folks and clued in whites that objected to the comments were -- as usual -- RACE BAITING.

And has Sanders apologized for what he said yet? Those insulted by Hillary's language have every right to be and they also have every right to decide whether or not they want to accept her apology. But Black folks didn't even get a apology and in fact, got 500 threads and 100 cringe inducingly stupid posts with pictures of ghettos from the most clueless people here desperately trying to 'splain that what Sanders said was not only okay it was actually, CORRECT.

[Metric System]

26. The fact that Hillary is the first Presidential candidate to have an openly gay campaign manager

shows a) how much progress we've made and b) that she's committed to equality.

[Bluenorthwest]

27. I'm gay and I spent my 80's youth protesting Reagan's negligence toward AIDS and I think you are

taking an uncalled for tone based on your own assumptions. Give it a rest, it is you that is attempting to condescend without standing and without any evidence of your own personal experience.

Vote for her if you want, but you don't seem to agree with her on anything and you seem to understand how crappy her statement was today even if you are not very aware of the history. So vote for her, but why the fuck are you trying to tell other people who and what they are and what they should and should not say?

[Metric System]

29. Just this evening on DU I was compared to a a Log Cabin Republican.

[MrWendel]

53. Sounds like...

when I was compared to an uncle tom.

[BeyondGeography]

30. Pretty good until that last sentence

[Hissyspit]

31. It's indicative of who she has become.

It's part of why she lost my support, and why I supported Obama instead back in 2008.

It's not "brosplaining" or "feigning outrage" to wonder how people don't see that it's not just "one misstep."

And, yes, I do remember the outrage over the Reagans and the AIDS crisis.

[Arugula Latte]

32. I'm not feigning anything.

I'm genuinely pissed off that Hillary constantly sucks up to and enables the right wing.

[still_one]

33. You have a lot of style and class for this OP.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. It means that when LGBT confronted then rallied for Bill in 92 Hillary did not understand why.....

they thought Reagan was great and all was peachy keen in the world...

[joshcryer]

37. I disavow those insinuations.

Sorry you had to hear them here.

[ibegurpard]

38. Oh spare me

I lost my best friend to AIDS. If she doesn't care enough about AIDS OR Alzheimers to have the background knowledge necessary to avoid a gaffe like this she should have just stuck to praising Nancy ' s fashion sense. She was looking for a serious issue to praise Nancy Reagan for to make HERSELF look good and shot off her ignorant mouth without knowing what she was talking about.
Her great record on gay issues? Like when her campaign was trying to explain to me this summer the Clintons' support for DOMA was for our own good to protect us from a constitutional amendment? Like the email where she freaked our about State explicitly referring to same sex parents because of what Fox News would say? She's full of shit and you want to believe in her so bad you're buying it. Vote how you want but don't peddle her bullshit and try to tell us it's anything else.

[Avalux]

39. How old are you? Do you understand what was going on with AIDS?

If you don't know, look into it. Look into how the Reagan Administration handled the epidemic and the misinformation that was swirling around. I was personally involved in caring for AIDS patients back then, and I will never forget how horrible the climate was - these terminally ill people got zero compassion and were treated like freaks. There was no "national conversation", it was all ridicule and fear.

What Hillary said today is highly offensive but it doesn't surprise me. She has a knack for missing the mark when it comes to compassion.

I'm not going to tell you how to vote, but I will ask you to follow your conscience and do the right thing.

[ashtonelijah]

84. Oh, look. More condescension from anti-Hillary folks. Now I don't know my own history.

So sick of this b.s.

[liberal_at_heart]

42. That's fine but I'm tired of hearing from Hillary supporters that we have to support

Hillary because of abortion and LGBTQ issues. She talked last week about being open to limiting third term abortions and now she dishonors those who fought to get Reagan to recognize AIDS. Bernie is just as if not stronger on these issues. So, if you want to vote for Hillary that is fine. I would never tell you otherwise. But I likewise don't want to be told I have to vote for Hillary because of the abortion and LGBTQ issues.

[cherokeeprogressive]

44. I don't give a damn who you vote for. I'm not offended "for you".

I'm offended by HER revisionist history, and how her supporters are already attempting to revise the history she made this afternoon. Yes, it's history. It happened; so it's history.

Maybe YOU can believe a person can "misspeak" (HER word) an entire paragraph. I don't. She said exactly what she wanted to say, THEN found out it was offensive when her staffers told her it was.

You can vote for whomever. I don't care. Don't tell me not to be offended. I'm straight, and I'm fucking offended by the situation as much as who it involved.

[Bread and Circus]

45. Ya had me until you called Bernie supporters homophobic

So tired of the labels

[Arazi]

52. You don't get to decide how any other person gets to feel about this

gay or straight. Talk about condescending!

Many of us had people die during those years. You don't get to decide how we react here or how we feel about her comments

[Kalidurga]

55. I am not offended for you. I am offended for me.

I am offended for my family. I am offended that my uncle died when he didn't have to. Ignoring AIDS meant ignoring that the blood banks were getting blood with the AIDS virus in it. I find that highly offensive and I don't know how many died from the blood supply having the virus in it. I do know this though, my family did not shy away from saying my uncle had AIDS despite the stigma. And I would feel sorry for anyone who taunted my uncle for having a gay disease. He had AIDS the disease doesn't care if you are gay, straight, male, female, or an 11 year old boy.

[tkmorris]

56. Did you watch anyone with AIDS die?

Especially during the Reagan admin or just after? I did, and I believe that Reagan himself bears a good deal of responsibility for those deaths.

You can vote for whoever you want. You are perfectly free to do so. And *I* am perfectly free to think that you are making a huge mistake in so doing. You think Hillary's comments are acceptable enough to at least allow you still vote for her. *I* think Hillary's comments illustrate perfectly how much disregard and disdain she has for the gay community, and pretty much anyone else who doesn't have enormous clout, an enormous bank account, or is named Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I have every right to express that opinion, and every right to be disgusted by those who want to paper over her comments. If that bothers you, well, sorry. But not very.

[Warren DeMontague]

59. Couldnt make it through without ringing the "bro---" bell, eh? How about some OLDsplaining, then?

As in, some of us actually REMEMBER Ron and Nancy in the White House.

She should have known better, just like she should have with henry kissinger. Since she's smart and allegedly politically astute, i have to imagine she knew exactly what she was doing in both situations- namely, playing to a middle which (this may even be the worst part) only exists in the minds of her overpaid beltway windbag advisers, while delivering a not so subtle "fuck you" to progressives such as ourselves.

[melman]

62. Hey

I'll promise not to 'brosplain' to you if could maybe not pretend like you know what people are or are not informed on.

[delrem]

63. Nobody is being condescending except you,

trying to make it about "BernieBros" "Brosplaining", etc etc etc in the BrockPAC way we all know so well.
Trying to make it about everything except the politician who uttered the clueless remark.
She apologized. So good. As a talking point it's about over.

Makes a person wonder, tho', how a politician who has been there, so deeply involved for all those years, could be so ignorant.

[m-lekktor]

66. Are you "irked" that some of your fellow Hillary supporters tried to spin this as no big deal

and got nasty and insulted those of us who were upset? I am gay as well and though I have no interest who you or others choose to support I don't need to be STRAIGHTsplained (i hate this SPLAIN shit btw) to how this is no big deal from your fellow Hillary buddies! I don't care if you vote for Hillary or are a log cabin republican quite frankly.

[TeeYiYi]

67. Oh, the irony! ...

...re: "...drop the condescension."

TYY

[jillan]

68. Vote for whomever you want. It's your right and yours alone. You should never have to justify it.

People tell me all the time I should vote for Hillary because I am an older woman.

I tell them I support Bernie. End of discussion. Unless they ask me why, then I am proud to tell them the many, many reasons I support Bernie.

But nobody is ever going to tell me who to vote for....
and the same goes for you.
If someone says anything different let it go in one ear and out the other.

You are obviously not a one issue voter, and if you like her stand on other issues you do not owe anyone an explanation.

It's your vote.

[Aerows]

70. I'm gay.

You do not speak for me.

[My Good Babushka]

72. She didn't misspeak

it was a signal that she's pivoting to the right. She said it to appeal to republicans.

[Betty Karlson]

73. You may vote however you want. But understand this:

the dishonesty and cluelessness of Clinton's statement informs us not just of her level of commitment to the gay community (very low) but it informs us of the character that intends to uphold (or not) the campaign promises she makes.

You sexuality doesn't define you. Fine. But tell me what defines you to support a candidate who is dishonest, clueless, unelectable in the GE, unreliable, doesn't give a d*mn about gay lives, and may switch position at the drop of a hat - the hat in question being almost invariable a top-hat, since it's mostly the RICH who have access to her?

[Laughing Mirror]

75. What overwhelmingly good record on LGBT rights?

Surely you are kidding.

[Tom Rinaldo]

77. I don't think she lied. I do think she "misspoke", but...

it still is pretty revealing in a negative way. Hillary Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas between 1983 and 1992.

It was impossible to have cared about the AIDS epidemic at the time and not be furious with Reagan. His refusal to address the health crisis killing thousands of Americas was a topic of national discussion. For those who either were gay or cared about gay people in their life it was absolutely infuriating. And it was impossible to forget. At the absolute least this shows me that AIDS wasn't something Hillary Clinton spent much time focusing on back when the epidemic was spreading and decimating the gay community. I'm straight and only knew a few gay men personally at the time and I sure as hell knew that NOTHING was coming out of the Reagan Administration to address it. You don't get something like that totally confused if you were angry about it at the time.

[Lil Missy]

79. You can never please the Purist's. And,

I think people give what is said on DU too much significance. DU is not the real world.

[AgadorSparticus]

82. Thank you for this post. I am tired of the 24/7 Hillary bashing.

I know what she said is absolutely, unequivocally wrong and she apologized for it. But for many on DU, I don't think it is about the issue at hand. It is about destroying her. They smelled blood and went into a frenzy.

[Zorra]

83. You are saying that she spoke complete bullshit about something she didn't even know about.

Do you really want a President who fabricates complete lies for political purposes?

It's goes beyond utterly thoughtless ignorance of LGBT issues and history.

She spoke total bullshit about something she clearly knows nothing about.

'Clinton called to mind “how difficult it was to talk about HIV/AIDS”

in the 80's"...“And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan–in particular Mrs. Reagan–we started a national conversation when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it."

http://www.towleroad.com/2016/03/hillary-clinton-praises-reagan-record/

Newly Unearthed Tapes Reveal Reagan Administration's Shocking Response To HIV/AIDS
"When AIDS Was Funny" shows how the White House treated the epidemic like a joke in the 1980s.

In honor of World AIDS Day, Vanity Fair debuted "When AIDS Was Funny," a new documentary short by filmmaker Scott Calonico that shows how the administration shrugged off the spread of HIV in the mid-1980s.

Featured in the movie are never-before-heard audio tapes from three separate press conferences in 1982, 1983 and 1984 in which White House Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes can be heard laughing and even cracking homophobic jokes at reporters' questions about the crisis.

"If we come up with any research that sheds some light on whether gays should cruise or not cruise, we'll make it available to you," Speakes, who died in 2014, is heard saying to a reporter in 1983.

When asked about President Ronald Reagan's take on the crisis in 1984, Speakes responded, "I haven't heard him express concern." When the reporter pressed further, he added, "I must confess I haven't asked him about it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ronald-reagan-aids-crisis_us_565e002ae4b08e945fecef1d

[ashtonelijah]

85. The only people making up utter bullshit here are folks like you.

Nt

[Meldread]

86. I support your post 100%. Welcome to DU.

As a gay man, it also disgusts me to see so many using this as a political opportunity.

What Hillary said was stupid and ignorant. I am certain that if she could go back in time she would say something completely different. There was literally zero political benefit in her saying that, and it just reflects her bias and ignorance as a heterosexual woman.

This, of course, is a bias shared by the majority of people on DU. Which is why we can easily determine our true allies from those who are faux allies by how they react to something like this. Those who are true allies quickly moved to condemn the statement and set the record straight. They then demanded that she publicly apologize for what she said. Those who are faux allies saw it as an opportunity to continue to drive a case against Hillary. They sought to exploit the situation, in hopes of swaying us to their side. Instead, all they do is offend through their OWN ignorance and stupidity, in the same way Hillary's ignorance and stupidity has offended us.

[Number23]

88. Amazing post. Very interesting points.

Thanks for that.

[stevenleser]

87. I was furious at Hillary for this too. I have penned many articles attacking Reagan for his

horrific behavior during the crucial early parts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

It really irks me that she screwed this up so badly. But she apologized and showed that she understood that she made a big mistake.

Still irritated but not nearly enough to change my support.

[Persondem]

89. well said K & r nt