Bill Clinton admitted to hospital.

[Downhome]

I'm sitting here watching FoxNews and they are reporting that former President Bill Clinton has been admitted to a hospital for heart bypass surgery after a blockage was discovered. No press releases went out over this, so it came out of nowhere very suddenly.

 

Sincerely,

...Downhome...

[kkktookmybabyaway]

It's a shame what the Democrats will do to take away momentum from the GOP Convention...

[Rob E Dangerously]

Why does Bill have to be such an attention whore? He just did it to get in the news.

 

damnit KKK

[kkktookmybabyaway]

Why I bet the Kerry campaign, Bill and Terry McAwful were planning this bypass surgery scheme for MONTHS...

[Rob E Dangerously]

Maybe Bill was on the Adkins diet and he went a bit far?

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America]

I blame the negative energy from the RNC.

[Guest SideFXs]

I think the guilt of paying lower taxes, because of President Bush's economic policies benefiting the wealthiest Americans, just overwhelmed him.

[Guest MikeSC]

Just to keep it real, the procedure he's undergoing, thankfully, is rather routine for men his age. It's not a major risk --- but I do wish him well.

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week]

I bet I know what happened.

 

(dream sequence fade in)

 

It was the opening night of the Democratic convention. President Clinton had finished his address and was leaving the building with a Secret Service escort when, somewhere behind the building, agents went down one after another. Clinton was in a panic until a voice spoke out of the shadows.

 

"You spoke out against the wrong Republican tonight. Do you know what I have here?" said a sinister voice with a southern accent. A sinister southern accent, even. Then, after a longish pause, this person suddently shouted "WHAT?"

 

"What is it?" asked Bill, somewhat shaking.

 

A hand appeared from the darkness and removed, from an unseen body, two print-outs of paper.

 

"I'll find something here. Look at this, it's two pages, front and back. I have more curses and voodoo spells here than the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress!"

 

"What?" asked Bill.

 

"Oh nevermind," said the voice. "I wish we lived in a time when I'd challenge you to a duel.... WHAT? ..... In the meantime, you'll have heart trouble in early September."

 

"Wait, what?" said Bill.

 

"Hope you enjoy the operating table. WHAT?"

 

(end dream sequence)

 

And that's what really happened.

[Styles]

Bypass surgery is pretty common but as with most surgery especially the heart there's always risk. I wish President Clinton nothing but a successful surgery and an easy recovery.

[Guest CronoT]

It's a shame what the Democrats will do to take away momentum from the GOP Convention...

Based on your reasoning, KKK, Dick Cheney would now have to have life threatening heart attack and nearly die to get more press for the GOP.

[kkktookmybabyaway]

He may have gotten 20 or so deferrments during Vietnam, but I'm sure Cheney would gladly have heart attack #56 if it meant four more years of Bush.

 

But seriously, for as much as I don't like the man, 58 is way too young for a former president to die. I hope he gets through this.

 

I now open the floor up to the hippie/pinko/commie insults that will surely be hurled at me now...

[sfaJack]

Commie.

 

 

Seriously, I hope for a speedy recovery for Clinton, even though I agree with him on almost nothing.

[Guest MikeSC]

He may have gotten 20 or so deferrments during Vietnam, but I'm sure Cheney would gladly have heart attack #56 if it meant four more years of Bush.

 

But seriously, for as much as I don't like the man, 58 is way too young for a former president to die. I hope he gets through this.

 

I now open the floor up to the hippie/pinko/commie insults that will surely be hurled at me now...

BTW, AP seems irked that Bush didn't stop the crowd from booing Clinton when he wished him well.

-=Mike

[Slayer]

Joke response: He's really feeling our pain now

 

 

Serious response: Get well, Bill

[2GOLD]

He may have gotten 20 or so deferrments during Vietnam, but I'm sure Cheney would gladly have heart attack #56 if it meant four more years of Bush.

 

But seriously, for as much as I don't like the man, 58 is way too young for a former president to die. I hope he gets through this.

 

I now open the floor up to the hippie/pinko/commie insults that will surely be hurled at me now...

BTW, AP seems irked that Bush didn't stop the crowd from booing Clinton when he wished him well.

-=Mike

 

Right, because the wise thing to do would be for Bush to yell, "HEY! SHUT UP! THE MAN IS ILL YOU SICK FREAKS!"

 

Now, if they started chanting "DIE BILL DIE" and he did nothing, then I'd say reason for the AP to complain.

 

And I'm just glad no one has made a Kill Bill crossover joke here. Hope the guy pulls through, he makes me laugh and he's one of the better public speakers of our times.

[Guest BDC]

It's entirely possible that he may not have known last night. It wasn't a matter of nat'l security, or even really a priority for him to know in prep during his speech.

 

I wish the best to Bill, the DNC doesn't deserve to lose it's biggest hitter, no matter what I think of the guy.

[Gary Floyd]

Never a huge fan, but I hope he has a speedy recovery.

 

I'll bet Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly are real happy right now.

[NoCalMike]

Wait a second, the crowd booed when Bush wished Clinton well through his heart surgery....wtf? Was he speaking in Philly?

[Vern Gagne]

The Fox Doctor said Clinton's situation maybe a little more serious since he'll need surgery. Nothing life threatening, but different than the routine bypass.

[Guest MikeSC]

Never a huge fan, but I hope he has a speedy recovery.

 

I'll bet Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly are real happy right now.

I'll guarantee you, without even a moment of thought, that none of them want anything but a recovery for him.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeSC]

Wait a second, the crowd booed when Bush wished Clinton well through his heart surgery....wtf? Was he speaking in Philly?

ACTUALLY, according to eyewitnesses, the AP reporter invented the story. The crowd booed when Bush mentioned Kerry's record. Clinton didn't get a boo at all.

 

My source: Why, this.

-=Mike

[Highland]

It wouldn't have made any sense for anyone to jeer in response to wishing him a speedy recovery.

[Guest MikeSC]

It wouldn't have made any sense for anyone to jeer in response to wishing him a speedy recovery.

Makes even less sense for the AP to report it as such --- well, provided one doesn't buy into a long-standing and well-documented theory and all.

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week]

Eh, Wellstone proved that guys like Rush aren't beyond showing sympathy for someone they've spent years bashing, but only if it gives them a chance to score a political point.

[Styles]

I was wondering about that AP story, since I SAW the clip on Fox News, and unless they edit the crowd like WWE (highly unlikely) Bush made the announcement and gave his best wishes and the crowd responded with a polite applause.

[NoCalMike]

I doubt Rush or O'Reily would wish any harm upon him, but I could EASILY see Ann Coulter ham it up for the camera while behind the scene having the "oh well" attitude.

[Guest Cerebus]

Here is a little more about the AP thing:

 

When the AP story about a Republican crowd booing President Bush's well-wishes for Bill Clinton first broke at 2:12 p.m., the story carried the byline of Tom Hays. After coming under fire, the AP pulled the story down. The original link now brings you to a dead page.

 

After a brief interlude, the AP reposted the story, minus the claims that the crowd had booed Clinton's heart scare. The revised story is here. It carries the time stamp of 2:31 p.m. and, curiously, no byline. It also carried no mention of the story's previous version, nor any mark that the new version is indeed a revision. (For those looking for it, there was one tell-tale sign in the AP's URL: The URL for the first version ended in "bush_clinton_1", while the URL for the second version ends "bush_clinton_2".)

 

So the AP: (1) Puts out a story with falsified reporting; (2) Pulls the story; (3) Removes the faulty reporting; (4) Makes no note of its mistake; and then (5) Pulls the byline of the reporter who made the error. If you were going to impute bad faith to the folks at AP--and at this point that's not unreasonable to do--you might suspect that they have pulled Tom Hays's byline to protect him.

 

...

 

So what's going on here? Was Hays in Wisconsin reporting, or in New York? What role did Ron Fournier, Frank Eltman, David Hammer, and Marc Humbert have in this story? There are five reporters on the hook for this misreporting, surely one of them will want to clear their name.

[kkktookmybabyaway]

I'm a bit doubtful about the "booing Clinton" AP story, since I heard Bush's sound bite on the radio and there were nothing but cheers.

 

Of course I was listening to an evil CLEAR CHANNEL station, so they probably edited the crowd noise to make the Prez look good...

[Jobber of the Week]

I think it's more like "Someone at the AP misinterpreted the response and sent it over the wire." I highly suspect they got advance copy of Bush's comments and expected that would happen, then forgot to edit it away.

 

The story got pulled as it should have. Hm. Life goes on.