Press must have access to presidential candidates
The American people must be able to keep an eye on those who would be their leader
When journalists complain about lack of access to people and documents, it’s easy to write it off as special pleading, the Fourth Estate looking out for its own interests and prerogatives.
In fact, the access is to fulfill the press’ role as the eyes and ears of the people.
Sunday, we got an important refresher course in why that matters.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton got sick at a 9/11 observance in New York City on Sunday morning. She was whisked away by the Secret Service. But for awhile the press — and the American people — didn’t know where she was and for a longer period didn’t know what had really transpired. That’s just not acceptable. In previous campaigns, both candidates by now were being accompanied by “protective pools,” small groups of reporters who travel inside the Secret Service bubble and monitor the candidates’ every move. In 2012, GOP standard bearer Mitt Romney was criticized for waiting until August to accept such a pool.
But neither Clinton nor Trump are being shadowed by protective pools. The result? The rampant confusion when a stumbling Clinton was helped into a a van and
taken to her daughter Chelsea’s New York apartment before heading to her Chappaqua home.
Tweeted Robert Gibbs, a former White House aide for President Obama, “I’m surprised it’s mid- September, just a little more than 8 weeks before Election Day, and neither candidate has a protective pool.”
The Washington Post’s Anne Gearan, chair of the current Clinton pool, told CNN that “Sunday’s events at the Sept. 11 memorial show the importance of having a group of reporters on standby, and close at hand, to cover the potential next president of the United States.”
Since the pool isn’t an official protective pool, Gearan and Co. were left behind — and clueless — when Clinton left the scene. Naturally, though, her departure was captured on Twitter.
The information gap was exacerbated by Team Clinton’s deceptive tactics. Later in the morning, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said the former secretary of State “felt overheated” and had gone to Chelsea’s place. Around noon, Clinton emerged to say that she was “feeling great” and that it was “a beautiful day in New York.”
It wasn’t until late afternoon that the truth became known: Clinton had pneumonia.
According to her doctor, Lisa Bardack, the illness had been discovered two days before when Clinton was being examined for her much-discussed coughing fits. “On Friday, during follow-up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia,” Bardack said. “She was put on antibiotics and advised to rest and modify her schedule.”
There are two real problems with this sequence. First, all the hours of radio silence about what was really going on allowed widespread speculation about Clinton’s health to flourish. For weeks the right has been raising questions about her health, but this was widely regarded as fringe, conspiracy-theory stuff. The Ground Zero stumble pushed it instantly into the mainstream. And the absence of real information only made matters worse.
Second, why was the news about pneumonia withheld for so long? What was up with the pronouncement that Clinton simply had “felt overheated” and her what-me-worry, it’s-all-good appearance before the ride to Chappaqua? Again, Clinton’s aversion to transparency doesn’t do anyone else any good, but she often is its leading victim.
The incident also underscores the fact we need to know much more about the health of the two candidates. As David Scheiner, Obama’s former doctor and an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Medical School, wrote recently, “If elected, 70year-old Donald Trump would be the oldest person ever to enter the Oval Office, while Hillary Clinton, 68, would be a close second, behind Ronald Reagan. At these ages, stuff begins to happen.”
Dismissing the gushy, not to say ludicrous note — the billionaire “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” — from Trump’s physician, a gastroenterologist, Scheiner says “we know nothing about Trump’s health.”
He gives Clinton higher marks but says much more is needed. In the wake of Clinton’s woes, Trump vowed Monday that he would release health details this week. It’s time for both candidates to be more forthcoming.
While he’s giving up records, it’s so far past time for Trump to make public his tax returns as well. It’s a disgrace that he hasn’t done so.
And both candidates need to give the go-ahead for those protective pools right away, so fiascoes like the one Sunday can be averted and the American people can keep an eye on those who would be president.