Hillary Clinton's Reagan AIDS Revisionism Is SHOCKING, INSULTING & Utterly INEXPLICABLE

[Segami]

In an interview conducted at Nancy Reagan’s funeral today, Hillary Clinton recounted a version of history that didn’t happen, lauding the former first lady’s “low key advocacy” for the cause of HIV/AIDS awareness. “Low key” is one way of putting it. In fact, the Reagan White House is infamous for its lengthy, deadly silence on the epidemic. Clinton’s remarks came after an extended explanation of Nancy Reagan’s efforts to expand stem cell research after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimers. Then, in a bizarre turn, Clinton began talking about AIDS in the 1980s, a topic anyone looking to remain civil and complimentary would go far out of their way to avoid at the funeral of Nancy Reagan:

“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular, Mrs. Reagan, we started national conversation when before no one would talk about it, no one wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that really appreciated, with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say ‘Hey, we have to do something about this too.’”

It’s almost tempting to interpret this as withering, devastating sarcasm—the Reagans “started a national conversation about AIDS” in the same sense that George W. Bush “started a national conversation” about Iraq.

In reality, the Reagans were infamously, disastrously silent on AIDS—as President, Ronald Reagan spoke more about UFOs than HIV, and didn’t even say the word in a public address until 1987, by which point it had killed tens of thousands of Americans. The virus was quite literally a joke inside the Reagan White House. Whatever “advocacy” of Nancy’s Clinton is dreaming up here must’ve been low-key to the point of non-existence—just last year it was reported that she ignored her Hollywood friend Rock Hudson’s pleas for help as he himself died from AIDS. It’s hard for one ugly episode to stand out among so many ugly aspects of the Reagan administration, but Nancy and Ronald’s deliberate silence on one of the defining public health crises of the era is surely near the top of any list. What Clinton is saying isn’t just untrue, but erases the deadly legacy of the Reagan era.

Peter Staley, an HIV/AIDS activist and founder of Treat Action Group, who was diagnosed with AIDS-related complex in 1985, told Gawker, “Thank God I’m not a single issue voter, or she would have lost my vote with this insulting and farcical view of early AIDS history.”


cont'

http://gawker.com/hillary-clintons-reagan-aids-revisionism-is-shocking-i-1764346878

[dana_b]

1. And if she did "misspeak", then what did she really mean to say

about Nancy Reagan and AIDS?

[rhett o rick]

5. If you read her statement closely, hidden in the rhetoric, she really says nothing. Something like

"because of the Reagans esp Nancy, WE started a conversation about the subject". No mention of what the Reagans did or didn't do.

[dana_b]

12. good point

It can be described as a neutral point. Like "You changed your haircut!" . With an excited tone, it can be seen as a compliment but it's not actually anything but a statement.

[Baitball Blogger]

14. What she meant to say was, because the Reagans did dipshit nothing, people who were most affected by

the crisis had to start their own advocacy groups. They were the ones who started the dialogue.

Do not remember the Clintons taking front row on this one.

[Segami]

7. A word flub is one thing....

but Hillary was delivering a very false mini-eulogy.

Was she pandering?

[rhett o rick]

15. I recognize a rhetorical question when I see it.

[HeartoftheMidwest]

16. I'm guessing that she sincerely meant what she said,......

....which begs the question, which America was Hillary living in??
The America of privilege and insularity? Certainly not the America the rest of us lived in.

[elljay]

29. Not the one in which so many men I knew died

And not the America in which you would walk down the streets of San Francisco and see dozens on men in their 20s through 40s struggling with canes to move their shrunken bodies, covered with patches of Kaposi's Sarcoma. Nancy and Ron can go rot in hell as far as I'm concerned for what they DIDN'T do because gay lives did not matter.

[PatrickforO]

27. Exactly! And WHY pander to Reagan fans since they will never vote for her?

I just don't get that. I think Clinton is getting flustered, about to implode. Lose a few more primaries and her campaign will start coming unraveled.

[choie]

2. She even lies at a funeral.

Anything to garner votes. No integrity whatsoever.

[HooptieWagon]

3. And this is a surprise?

The previous 30 years of lies wasn't a clue?

[haikugal]

4. She's beyond the pale...

[morningfog]

6. This was her honest belief of the Reagans.

Can't trust her.

[EndElectoral]

8. Wonder how this is going over with the LGBT crowd

[Boomer]

38. I'll tell you how it's going over with me, one member of the LGBT crowd

I'm absolutely DISGUSTED by her.

Up until now I've toed the party line, gritting my teeth, confirming that I would vote for if she beats Sanders to the nomination. Tonight, right now, I'd rather eat nails than vote for her.

[Vattel]

9. What is the explanation? I really don't know.

[AllTooEasy]

22. A very unfortunate xplanation here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1470291

[passiveporcupine]

34. She misspoke

Kind of like landing under fire.

[Cheese Sandwich]

10. This would be a good time for Hillary to apologize.

[highprincipleswork]

11. It's really tough to twist & turn to find your constituency, & a needless ploy to pick up Reaganites

[Segami]

46. Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff....

smells like........pandering!

[Lizzie Poppet]

13. Ready...fire....aim!

And some people think this is presidential material?

[Hissyspit]

17. It's not inexplicable.

There are a number of possible explanations, I'm just not sure which is the correct one. Post #11 is a plausible one.

[8 track mind]

18. you have got to be shitting me....n/t

[zentrum]

19. She's trying to

….muddy the waters from the time, not that long ago, when she was against marriage equality. She's angling for more of the LGBT vote.

Must have some internal polling that tells her to start courting that community.

So she's changing the conversation from her bad history to this "good" history——"See? I've been for the LGBT community forever, and ever and ever."

[Amimnoch]

20. Painful and disheartening the disconnect.

[Geronimoe]

21. Even her revised history is disgusting

People were dying of a virus. It would only be a difficult conversation, if you entertain that gays should not helped.

39 people have died of HIV/AIDS.

[JohnnyRingo]

23. Wait til Rush Limbaugh gets a wind of this!!

I'm kidding... nobody cares about this bogus scandal except for some perpetually outraged Bernie supporters who thrive on one overreaction after the next.

By Sunday this too will be forgotten when they realize it has no traction and replaced by the next big thing that cause Sanders' people to have another total breakdown. I'm sure I'll be eviscerated by the usual crowd, but they can look Monday to see if anyone's talking about this.

[roguevalley]

24. it won't be. people died.

HRC is pathetic

[JohnnyRingo]

42. Now you're saying Clinton caused AIDS deaths?

First Vince Foster and now this. She's approaching Bond villain status here.

I read it three times and I fail to see the damning evidence that will hurt her one bit, and I'm not some rabid Hillarybot. It's easy to see that this is just another feeble attempt to tarnish her image. The bottom line is that the Clintons neither denied the importance of the AIDS epidemic nor acted to impede a cure. Two more moves and the OP could have connected Kevin Bacon in this so called "scandal".

[mikehiggins]

32. I was walking to work one day listening to WBAI and someone was talking about

the Gay Plague, as it used to be called, and nobody gave a shit because it was only affecting homosexuals.

Reagan and Co. would not even discuss it. Why bother when it was only killing gays? They weren't going to vote RayGun anyway.

What Hillary Clinton said was a lie. Not a misstatement, not some disingenuous form of triangulation.

It was an outright, deliberate lie told with knowledge and forethought covering up the neglect and bias that led to the deaths of thousands and thousands of Americans.

Is that word clear and easily understood? She is lying.

Bogus? Is there anything that matters, any issue at all, that Clinton fans can't dismiss as political?

Yes, I was alive then and yes, I lost friends to a disease that nobody in power even wanted to acknowledge existed. The Reagans turned a blind eye to people in need, and Hillary just lied about that.

What does it take to wake some people up?

[JohnnyRingo]

44. Are you saying the Clintons did what the Reagans did?

It's almost as though the Bernie people here are trying to connect the Clintons to the Reagan administration's lack of response. If someone were born after 2000 they might believe that, but anyone older, including yourself, knows the Clintons ushered in the era of awareness.

I read the post three times looking for the scandal, and I fail to see one. I'm not some kind of Hillarybot that closes my eyes and plugs my ears, but this is a non-story. No one will care except those so entrenched in Bernie's camp that they seek any thread of shame that pops up on the internet then stream tears of outrage and disgust.

This "scandal", like the ones DUers freaked out over last week and the week before, will be gone in two days.

[Iggo]

25. WOW!

What?

WOW!

That's.A.Lie.

[HeartoftheMidwest]

26. Dan Savage has something to say:

"Hillary Clinton needs to walk this back immediately or she risks losing the votes of millions of queer Americans who survived the plague years. We watched our friends and lovers die by the tens of thousands while Nancy and Ronnie sat silently in the White House. More than 20,000 Americans died before Ronald Reagan could bring himself to say the word "AIDS" in public—because it was a "gay plague" and Nancy and Ronald Reagan didn't give a flying fuck about sick and dying faggots. I'm literally shaking as I try to write this. There are no words for the pain Clinton's remarks have dredged up. I'm supposed to be writing a column—it's way overdue—but all I can think about are all of my dead friends and lovers, lovely guys who might still be with us if Nancy and Ronald Reagan had started a national conversation about HIV/AIDS. Or done something about it. Millions of men and women all around the world were condemned to death as a direct result of the hateful silence of the Reagan White House. Millions more will die.


You want to say something nice about Dead Nancy Fucking Dead Reagan on the TV? Compliment her taste in china. Don't go on television and lie about her and her husband's homophobic, hateful, appalling, murderous record on HIV/AIDS. Just don't."

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/03/11/23698621/hillary-clinton-the-reagans-particularly-nancy-helped-start-a-national-conversation-about-hiv-and-aids

[bulloney]

28. Crap like this is why Reagan has such a lofty legacy.

Everywhere you go you hear people fawning over Reagan for reasons that are 180 degrees from reality:

1. Myth: Reagan was a fiscal conservative.
Fact: During the Reagan presidency, the national debt tripled, there were no balanced budgets, we had record budget deficits, 11 tax increases, we went from world's largest creditor nation to largest debtor nation.

2. Myth: Reagan put America to work.
Fact: On a per-annual basis, Jimmy Carter created more jobs than Reagan. Carter is regarded as a failure by conservatives.

3. Myth: Reagan stood for smaller government.
Fact: He may have talked smaller government, but the federal government grew by 9% during his presidency.

4. Myth: Reagan renewed America's military strength.
Fact: In 1982, Hezbollah launched a terrorist attack on the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, resulting in over 240 deaths. Afterward, Reagan order the troops to get out of Beirut. Can you imagine the political and media dialogue would have been if the same thing happened under Obama? First, they would have lambasted him for the incident occurring, then another round of attacks for "cutting and running."

5. Myth: Reagan was an exemplary family values conservative.
Fact: Reagan is our only divorced president. Nancy was knocked up on their wedding day. When governor of California, Reagan signed legislation into law that liberalized access to abortions.

I'll never understand why anyone - especially conservatives - fawn over that goof and his presidency.

And what in the hell is Hillary trying to prove by prolonging myths about Reagan?

[Ccarmona]

31. And Nancy was a Home Wrecker

She personally broke up Reagan's first marriage to Jane Wyman so she could latch on to him and mold him into the man she wanted him to be.

[passiveporcupine]

39. While conservatives might think abortion does not fit with family values

Many liberals think otherwise. Part of family values is family planning so you can take care of the children you already have, or be ready for children when you want and can properly care for them. Abortion does not mean lack of family values.

[mountain grammy]

30. They weren't exactly silent

there were the jokes and the condemnation. Guess Hillary remembers it differently than I do.

[George II]

33. This type of OP and theme is going to backfire, big time.

[DhhD]

37. The Reagan's refused to allow discussion on AIDS. Correct, it will back fire on Clinton.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/02/28/c-everett-koop-the-surgeon-general-who-put-science-before-personal-ideology/
snip
I didn’t know that he was also the guy who was left out of almost all initial discussion of AIDS by the Reagan Administration because they didn’t want to hear his rational, public health approach to the encroaching epidemic.
snip
more at link

[SheenaR]

43. Its a quote of a headline

The behavior of your candidate is going to backfire

[BeanMusical]

45. +1

[George II]

35. It's NOT revisionism, why did you stop reading the "news" with that comment? Have you seen....

....what she said after that single comment?

[DhhD]

40. So Clinton supports the Reagan's on abortion that has not been revised?

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/02/28/c-everett-koop-the-surgeon-general-who-put-science-before-personal-ideology/
snip
I didn’t know to that, despite his anti-abortion stance, his final act in office was to say he could find no legitimate scientific research to support the idea that abortion causes lasting psychological harm to women.
snip
more at link

[George II]

41. Isn't the subject her comment on Reagan's AIDS record? What does Reagan's SG have to do...

...with this subject? Are you going to go back to the 1980s to dig up fake dirt on Clinton? Quite honestly, I don't understand the relevance of your comment on this subject.

We can't do the same about Sanders on this site, doing that would result in an instant hide.

Have a great evening!

[farleftlib]

36. She does this with her own record too

Nothing is too low for this woman. People were dying in droves and the Reagans did nothing. Hillary has no problem washing her hands of unnecessary death on a large scale. She does this because she has to, her own record is abominable. Now she did it for Nancy Reagan too.