The wingnut trifecta

[DonViejo]

Crazy GOP claims that Hillary Clinton is faking her illness slur the country's three most popular Democrats

BY JOAN WALSH

Right-wing claims that Hillary Clinton faked illness to avoid testifying about the Benghazi tragedy would be funny if they weren’t so ugly. It’s the wingnut trifecta, smearing our most popular past Democratic president, Bill Clinton, along with our current president, Barack Obama, and the current 2016 front-runner, all with one shot. Imagine birtherism crossed with the worst of the hateful anti-Clinton lies, like the “Vince Foster was murdered” claim. That’s Hillary-health trutherism.

But so far right-wingers claiming that Clinton somehow faked her concussion have gone virtually unchallenged on Fox News and right-wing sites like Newsbusters and the Daily Caller. Everyone from Charles Krauthammer to Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton have gotten into the act. Even after reports that Clinton also suffered a dangerous blood clot between her brain and skull, Bolton not only failed to apologize, he suggested that she was dodging Benghazi questions in order to protect her 2016 chances.

This is crazy. Obviously, the Benghazi-coverup stories began as a way to hurt Obama, by alleging that he wasn’t telling the truth about Libya because he didn’t want to reveal that al-Qaida was a factor in the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens, especially at the height of election season. After the election, the claims continued, and they mainly focused on the Sunday-show statements of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. They managed to torpedo Rice’s chances to succeed Clinton as secretary of state.

Now they’re going after Clinton herself, and no doubt some of it is designed to hurt her 2016 chances, even though she herself insists she won’t run. It’s remarkable to me how few mainstream, respectable Republicans have come to Clinton’s defense. The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker did so today, in a column that declared “the attacks on Clinton during her illness, essentially attacks on her character, have been cruel and unfair.” But Parker is the rare Republican known for fairness and honesty (she was an early public critic of Sarah Palin, when others merely trashed the V.P. nominee anonymously).

-snip-

read more + video:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/the_wingnut_trifecta/

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. It's sort of ironic

considering that Republicans have spent a lot of time propping her up over President Obama for the past 4 years, first by *supporting* her over Obama during the 2008 primaries, then calling for President Obama to resign and allow Hillary to run in 2012, and also suggesting that it was Clinton, not Obama, who gave (or pressed for) the kill order for Bin Laden. Now, they're busy trying to trash her out of, I guess, a fear of her running in 2016? Of course, the Republicans have really only wanted Clinton to run for office so that they have an excuse to recycle all of the garbage from the Clinton years, which seems to be somewhat of a "security blanket" for them.

[tanyev]

2. They worked long and hard on that garbage.

They'd certainly love a second chance to trot it all out again.