USUALLY, I’M A STICKLER FOR DETAILS: when I make a written argument, I tend to craft enough ittybitty points that I can’t be accused of missing the details. But with this editorial, I’m not even going to waste time looking up a date. (There’s some moxie for you!) Because we all know this: two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was caught on camera stumbling—collapsing would not be an inaccurate term—into a waiting limousine leaving a 9/11 event. 1
I first heard about it when I received an email from a rightwinged friend. Others followed. I won’t repeat the comments, but they went beyond exultation—I might describe them as ejaculatory.
“Come, come now,” you might say. “That’s tacky.”
And I might agree, but it does get my less-than-subtle point across.
Moxie? Hillary’s health? Huh?
The gist of these emails and the millions of equally exultant exclamations emanating from the rightwingnut blogosphere was something along the lines of, “See! I told you—she’s lying again!! She’s not fit to be President of the United States!!!”
Their glee was revolting: while I will smirk if any of the apparently endless accusations of unfair business/play against Donald Trump actually receives a wee bit ‘o media scrutiny and undoes the man, I have not had a single thought wishing him ill-health or a well-timed accident.
Alas, it turned out that the righties had been correct: Hillary had been lying about her health.
She had been diagnosed with pneumonia and dehydration. 2
Every rightwingnut blogger and talk-show host that creamed their jeans two weeks ago knows the truth about the pneumonia.
Nonetheless, she’d gotten out of bed, woozy and weak, and attended a ceremony commemorating the thousands of Americans murdered on September 11, 2001. Many of whom were her constituents, as she was the United States Senator for most New Yorkers that day.
In other words, she was there for them in 2016 as she had been there for them in 2001.
Through good health and bad.
And now we all know that that is so: because every rightwingnut blogger and talk-show host that creamed their jeans two weeks ago knows the truth about the pneumonia as well as you and I!
Cartoon by Bob Englehart for Cagle Cartoon.
By golly, she’s got gumption!
So help me here: I just celebrated my 65th birthday and, well, this ol’ grey beard ain’t what he used to be—nor is his memory. I don’t recall hearing any of those jean-creamers anything like, “I guess I have egg all over my face.” 3
Or an, “Oops! Guess I got that one wrong.”
And not one of my emailing buddies sent a second one saying, “I despise her politics, but she’s made out of the right kind of stuff.”
Hell’s Belles, even a simple,“By golly, she’s got gumption!” seemed appropriate. 4
Unfortunately, I know not to expect any acknowledgement that the former First Lady showed a lot of determination and courage and good ol’ fashioned American moxie. 5
And I certainly don’t expect any of those crass arsewhole rightwingnut bloggers to acknowledge being incorrect let alone admitting to being a crass arsewhole.
Alas, that’s the stuff that many of the folks on the other side of the chasm are made of . . .
Let ’em win and walk away
I started writing this piece last night after I received an email from my daughter. In it, she asked this question: “Dad, what do you do when you find yourself in a really stupid argument over something totally ridiculous, and even when you show them the facts, they still think you’re wrong?”
Basically, I told her to let them be right because they’re not interested in being correct. (That is, let them ‘win’ and then walk away.)
Serendipitously, I woke up this morning around four and as I was sipping my mug of coffee, I received today’s AlterNet newsletter. Lo and behold, there was an article titled “I Wrote That I Despised Hillary Clinton. Today, I Want to Publicly Take It Back” by “former Bernie Bro” Isaac Saul. Here is a relevant paragraph from Saul:
“Just months before 9/11, Hillary Clinton became a US senator in New York. She served for eight years in the city and was a key architect of the $21 billion federal aid bill that helped rebuild the city after her term started with the worst tragedy New York had ever seen.
Clinton has the support of so many 9/11 first responders and survivors because they remember her work for them as a senator.
But perhaps what she is most remembered for is fighting for the health bill that served first responders in the first 48 hours after the attack.
While Donald Trump bragged about his building now being the tallest in New York City, Clinton was fighting the Environmental Protection Agency to admit the air wasn’t safe to breathe.
That’s why Clinton has the support of so many 9/11 first responders and survivors: they remember her work as a senator of New York.
But guess what? Google ‘Clinton health bill 9/11’ and you’ll find nothing but results about her nearly fainting outside a 9/11 memorial service, one she attended while diagnosed with pneumonia.”
If you’re a Hillary-hater, you’ve got to read the rest.
But, of course, only if you’ve got gumption . . .
FEATURED IMAGE: The image at the top of this page is a brilliant caricature of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton by Katarzyna ‘Kate’ Oleska. The artist accurately and justly observes, “It’s hard to not notice that Hillary has been copying Sanders since she realised how powerful some of his statements are.” To me, it brings to mind another artist’s observation: Good artists copy—great artists steal.
FOOTNOTES:
1 I am also a compulsive over-writer and this is being posted as a first draft. Well, almost a first draft.
2 Unless, of course, Hillary’s physician is part of a vast leftwing conspiracy and is lying about Mrs Clinton’s diagnosis. (Yeah yeah yeah, that’s out there, too.)
3 “Ol’ grey beard” adapted from “ol’ grey mare.” Look it up.
4 “Gumption.” Look it up.
5 “Moxie.” Look it up.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
Hillary, you’ve got spunk. I hate spunk. -- Lou Grant
“Spunk!” I forgot it! Thanks!
Hillary got spunk AND zest appeal!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etyO7T6WGwU
Came here from a Google search and I’m trying to remember what (at least semi-well-known) novel had a passage describing a woman who had moxie and gumption. Also in this novel, a man was in a car accident. A child, hearing that the man “had an accident,” thought that the man had wet his pants.
Does anybody know what the hell I’m going on about?
STEVE
Thanks for the comment.
I am sorry but I cannot help you with the novel. Best of luck hunting it down. (I have tried to track down a couple of science fiction stories on the internet with no luck.)
I have associated gumption with certain actresses from the past (especially Jean Arthur). If you want to watch a more recent movie where the term is used in a similar manner, give a watch to The Holiday with Kate Winslett and Cameron Diaz.
Keep on keepin’ on!
NEAL