How bogus is this latest Fox News scare mongering about Hillary Clinton’s health? Republican Newt Gingrich smacked it down as “junk medicine.”
In case you missed it, TV personality Dr. Drew Pinsky offered up a scathing review of Hillary Clinton’s medical records. However, he stressed that he was more concerned about her medical care than her health:
PINSKY: It’s not so much that her health is a grave concern, it’s that the care she’s getting could make it a concern.
However, Pinsky did bring up the fact that after her concussion a few years ago, Clinton wore special glasses and suggested that was proof of brain damage.
PINSKY: When she hit her head, she had to wear these prism glasses …that is brain damage. …Clearly, it hasn’t affected her cognition but tell us a little more about that.
But ABC News told us more about that in January, 2013, when it reported that the glasses were for issues with her vision that “are usually temporary and eventually resolve with time.” Clinton’s personal physician stated in her recently-released medical records that her follow-up testing “revealed complete resolution of the effects of the concussion.”
But that was too much detail for the Curvy Couch cohosts of Fox & Friends. They ignored the “Clearly, it hasn’t affected her cognition” part in order to hype the “brain damage” part of Pinsky’s comments. From the Media Matters transcript:
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): And what he said on the radio yesterday […] is that the fact that when we saw Hillary Clinton wearing those prism glasses, a sign of brain damage—
[…]
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): And if you want to—or remember, when she was wearing those glasses, remember when she made those famous line to Senator Ron Johnson, “What difference at this point does it make,” that’s when she had those glasses on.
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Oh, right.
Unfortunately for these three, Republican Newt Gingrich, who wanted to be Donald Trump's vice president, knocked the meme down in a subsequent discussion (transcript via Media Matters):
GINGRICH: I’m always dubious, with all due respect to television doctors, when you have a doctor who has never seen the patient, begin to give you a complicated, fancy sounding analysis based on what? I mean, I would be very cautious and I would recommend to doctors for professional reasons to be very cautious deciding you’re gonna start analyzing people. Because next you’re going to get a left-wing psychiatrist explaining Donald Trump in negative terms.
[…]
I think we ought to recognize that’s kind of junk medicine, that’s not the real deal.
Sorry, guys. Better luck next time!
Watch the fail below, from the August 18 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters. Also included are Pinsky's comments, via YouTube.
What — “Dr” Keith Ablowme wasn’t available?
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I agree with David that it’s a truly strange day when Newt Gingrich is the only one in the room making sense.