NYT blows the lid off Fred’s throat congestion
posted at 6:57 pm on October 24, 2007 by Allahpundit
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This is what happens to coverage when the campaign lasts 18 months.
On the other hand, what is the deal with the coughing?
Take his response to a question about the size of the military, which went something like this: “Military experts need to tell us (harumph) the exact numbers (harumph) that they think we need (harumph).”
That’s when he paused to offer his explanation.
“When you got a four-year-old and a one-year-old at home, there’s almost always something going around (harumph),” he said, drawing appreciative laughter from the audience. “It’s on its way here right now, I think (harumph).”…
But in an interview in Iowa with The Times’s national political correspondent, Adam Nagourney [in early October], Mr. Thompson, with his wife, Jeri, at his side, offered a somewhat different explanation. He had been coughing throughout a morning event just before and during the interview his wife quietly slipped him a glass of water.
Mr. Thompson explained that he had drunk coffee with milk in the morning, which his doctors told him had caused throat congestion.
They’ve actually got an audio clip at the link. Exit question one: Is this the Times’s way of obliquely injecting Fred’s health into the debate? Reads more like a slow-news-day desperation bid for easy content to me but I know the media-bashers and conspiracists among our commenters will be quick to steer me right. Exit question two: Are they sure he’s coughing and not just saying “uh”?
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Scumbag lobbyist should get a cough drop.
HA, I beat csd to the punch!!
omnipotent on October 24, 2007 at 7:00 PM
Seriously though, this is a “gentle reminder” that Fred!s cancer is a ticking time bomb.
The MSM is obviously Fearing the Fred!
omnipotent on October 24, 2007 at 7:02 PM
Fred’s has admitted that his health is an issue for the campaign. That is why he told us all about it before he ran. I agree with him. If his health can be an issue, then we need to know who the VP will be before the nomination because it’s possible that Fred may not finish out his term.
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 7:04 PM
Boy is he right. Every time I’m around my grandkids I can count on either getting a little sniffly thing myself…or if I’m immune, I bring it to work and pass it along.
Article seems like just a trifling criticism, trying to build a meme. Fred sounds fine to me.
RushBaby on October 24, 2007 at 7:04 PM
If his health can be an issue, then we need to know who the VP will be before the nomination because it’s possible that Fred may not finish out his term.
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 7:04 PM
Hey, no prob. Nixon had phlebitis, Reagan had polyps, Clinton had swollen glands, etc.
PatrickS on October 24, 2007 at 7:08 PM
Don’t I know it. Kids are cute little germ factories.
Slublog on October 24, 2007 at 7:14 PM
That was not the only organ that was swollen. If we would have known about that swelling, he might not have been re-elected.
jihadwatcher on October 24, 2007 at 7:18 PM
OT, here is the Bush Cuba Speech video: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071024-6.wm.v.html
jp on October 24, 2007 at 7:20 PM
I am hoping the VP is Michael Steele or J.C. Watts of Oklahoma.
ColtsFan on October 24, 2007 at 7:20 PM
I agree that I wish he was a more eloquent speaker. But at this point, I’d have to say he’s the best we’ve got to get the base excited to vote FOR someone.
There’s no need to say ‘um’. Just pause silently and collect your thoughts. Pauses make you seem like a statesman. ‘Um’ makes you seem unsure. It is a small thing. . . but it makes a difference in whether or not you appear ‘poised’.
I’m for Fred now because I feel like I have to be. I think he’s the best of the bunch. Maybe he’ll put Hunter on as the VP and put California in play. I hope he gets healthy and stays healthy though.
Long gone are the days when America will elect a president in a wheelchair.
ThackerAgency on October 24, 2007 at 7:23 PM
ColtsFan on October 24, 2007 at 7:20 PM
JC Watts has always impressed me. I think that would be a coup.
ThackerAgency on October 24, 2007 at 7:24 PM
the coughing seems like a bad habit to me, I’m sure its also connected to his cigar smoking. And other health issues which makes him look 24 years older than Mitt Romney when he’s only 4 years older.
jp on October 24, 2007 at 7:25 PM
Cigar smokers typically don’t inhale. And Mitt drinks baby blood daily to stay unusually young looking.
No surprise the “style over substance” set would make a news item out of this.
And I suppose I have to explain that yes- the baby blood thing was a joke.
Hollowpoint on October 24, 2007 at 7:49 PM
Even with his record of giving legal advice to terrorists, channeling campaign cash to his son, lobbying for dictators and against victims of asbestos poisoning?
Wow. We better hope he doesn’t get nominated because the American people don’t take kindly to attorneys who help terrorists and the like. A Fred nomination is a win for Hillary because compared to him, she looks like a patriot.
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 7:50 PM
The juices from cigar smoke do run down the back of your throat.
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 7:51 PM
News?
Here’s http://www.cnn.com/ and what they think the TOP story is tonight. Instead of the Cali wildfires displacing over a million people, CNN decided it’s more important to cover what MAY happen in about a hundred years if the glaciers continue to possibly melt.
Ugh. Sickens me.
Its Tommy on October 24, 2007 at 7:55 PM
I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old, and I feel fine, my throat is clear, and my articulation is impeccable. I think the nervous clearing of the throat by Fred is just his tell tale heart reminding him that he is merely feeding meaningless platitudes to the Fredheads and groupies to defraud them of their campaign cash so that he can funnel these ill gotten gains to his family and friend. Just like Christopher Walken said in True Romance: “There are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away, a guy has seventeen pantomimes, a woman’s got twenty, but a guy’s got seventeen.”
My Sicilian lie detector detects about 11 or 12 of those 17 pantomimes everytime Fred talks — his incessant clearing of the throat is number 6, the repeated “uhhs” are number 14.
tommylotto on October 24, 2007 at 7:56 PM
Huh??? I’ve smoked cigars for years- you smoke them, not chew them.
Hollowpoint on October 24, 2007 at 7:57 PM
I laughed
tommylotto on October 24, 2007 at 7:59 PM
He did all that radio before he announced. He was fine. He is on the campaign trail, talking and talking, and the kids. Yup, a little hoarse. So what?
CrimsonFisted on October 24, 2007 at 8:08 PM
Cigar smoke mixes with saliva and that saliva runs down the back of your throat.
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 8:08 PM
NYT questions Fred’s health. The public, and Wall Street, are questioning NYT owner Pinch Sulzberger’s mental acuity.
What’s fair is fair!
pocomoco on October 24, 2007 at 8:21 PM
When can we expect the NYT to question Cankles health?
Specifically, her swollen head.
fogw on October 24, 2007 at 8:26 PM
I have noticed that Fred hasn’t exactly looked full of vim and vigor for a few months now. Perhaps it is the lighting or some other reason, but the man looks like he is literally wasting away.
Kermit on October 24, 2007 at 8:31 PM
Not to be to picky:
I think Clinton actually had (has?) a swollen glans….
darkpixel on October 24, 2007 at 8:33 PM
Fear the, hrrrrff, Fred!
Mojave Mark on October 24, 2007 at 8:34 PM
I was shooting for subtle there…..
PatrickS on October 24, 2007 at 8:48 PM
Off Topic….
Here’s a nice story.
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 9:01 PM
Didn’t they go after Dole in 96 the same way? He released his medical records. Clinton didn’t, and for good reason. He had more health problems than the wounded WWII vet. ED, sadly, not one of them.
ticticboom on October 24, 2007 at 9:08 PM
Reagan never coughed!
Keljeck on October 24, 2007 at 9:36 PM
and John Kennedy had all manner of things and FDR was a cripple.
MB4 on October 24, 2007 at 9:58 PM
The screen cap of “What’s a dollar?” looks just like the Reverend Kane.
“God is in his holy temple”
csdeven on October 24, 2007 at 10:01 PM
He probably was thinking of Jeri playing doctor with him.
Focus Fred Focus!
Bradky on October 24, 2007 at 10:14 PM
AP,
The Times has a history of delving into candidates voice issues.
See here.
And here.
John on October 25, 2007 at 1:57 AM
Bowing to the inevitable, csd?
Keeping my fingers crossed for Duncan Hunter as his running mate.
Texas Nick 77 on October 25, 2007 at 5:16 AM
Good one, mate!
Texas Nick 77 on October 25, 2007 at 5:17 AM
I believe you mean “glans”
ej_pez on October 25, 2007 at 9:04 AM
Oops, sorry darkpixel.
Funny anyway, PatrickS.
ej_pez on October 25, 2007 at 9:06 AM
Wow, didn’t realize he was only 4 years older than Mitt.
CP on October 25, 2007 at 9:22 AM
JC Watts would be great as a VP candidate, though there would be a strategic trade off: amazing individual at the expense of having little impact on the electoral college (if we are only considering his home state of Oklahoma). It says something about the quality of the man that I’d probably take that trade. While obviously Steele and Watts are black, what I like about them is they can flat-out articulate a conservative message and be inspiring at the same time. THAT can get the base excited.
Graybark on October 25, 2007 at 9:45 AM
I have a friend here in Thailand that is one year, one month, and one day older than me. He looks more like tewnty years older. Smokes (down to the filter, and from wakeup to bedtime), drinks rotgut rum & coke, eats very little, and excersizes nil.
I don’t smoke (never have, except for second hand polution), eat what I want, dive (frequently strenuously), play ten pins (as they call bowling in these parts), and keep the yard under control.
Must be his politics. He’s a liberal. Waiting for the government to do give him “free” health care.
Texas Nick 77 on October 25, 2007 at 9:51 AM
Either one would be great for the ticket.
Hey candidates…. Anyone listening?
Texas Nick 77 on October 25, 2007 at 9:53 AM
Didn’t they also blow the lid of Fred’s employment of a jihadist as his campaign director?
Or was that someone else?
Loundry on October 25, 2007 at 9:53 AM
I wonder if “What’s a dollar?” and his family are salivating at the prospect of funneling that $8 million into their pockets?
I have a serious question for the people who have sent Fred money……
What will you think if Fred drops out, converts your contributions into a PAC and then hires his family to administer it?
csdeven on October 25, 2007 at 12:06 PM
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