Discussion for article #247279
If you meant to say âsunrise,â but accidentally said âsunset,â thatâs an example of âmisspoke.â
An entire paragraph-long narrative of Nancy and Ronald Reagan heroically breaking the silence over AIDS and championing the cause of fighting AIDS is not an example of âoops, I misspoke,â itâs a disgusting bit of historical revisionism and/or an example of shocking ignorance of actual historical events â memories that are still very fresh among many of us who lived through this terrible time, lost friends, and watched the ugly dehumanization and demonization of AIDS patients by right wingers, including some prominent ones inside the Reagan administration, chortling at the spectacle of thousands of gay men dying â because of course they were âdeviantsâ who were being punished by God because they âhad it coming.â
Tens of thousands died of AIDS while Reagan staffers literally laughed off questions from reporters, asking the reporters if they had the âgay disease.â More than 25,000 had died before Reagan even brought himself to mention AIDS. Remember ActUp and the slogan âSilence=Death?â Apparently Hillary didnât.
Look, Iâm glad she promptly apologized (even if the âmisspokeâ excuse seems a bit ridiculousâŚwhich it is) but Iâm just gobsmacked that she could make an error of this magnitude with (dis)respect to the LGBT community.
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I have to agree. This was âmisspeakingâ on the level of her thanking Richard Scaife for his lifetime of supportâŚ
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Yeah the author of that article hangs his hat on the fact that "Factually, Clinton is correct, the Reagan was the first POTUS to publicly acknowledge AIDS. "
Uh, yeah â it was only identified by the CDC in 1981. By the time Reagan got around to finally making a speech about it, 5 or 6 years had passed and tens of thousands of Americans had died. Profiles in courageâŚnot so much.
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No oneâleast of all meâsaid it was a profile in courage.
That is a straw man, because it has nothing to do with the story I posted a link for.
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Well, sorry, but that sure seemed to me to be Hillaryâs point.
In any event, given the way events actually unfolded, and the Reagan administrationâs disgusting role in ignoring and in the case of senior staffers, even laughing at the growing epidemic, it was truly bizarre for Hillary to engage in this kind of whitewashing of the Reagansâ despicable lack of moral leadership. I can only conclude that she truly did not recall that entire sad episode in our nationâs history. Which I find, frankly pretty shocking from someone as broadly well-informed and astute as Hillary.
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She was trying to eulogize a woman she disliked, and she screwed it up.
Itâs not the end of the world, and ti isnâtâor shouldnât beâcampaign fodder.
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GobsmackedâŚthat was my reaction. Completely. Like I couldnât believe my ears.
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I agree with the first statement. And I think the dynamics of that made it harder for her to walk it back more forcefully â it would be incredibly awkward to be harshly criticizing the Reagans right after Nancyâs death. So that leads me to at least give her a bit of a break on the lameness of the âmisspokeâ explanation. It would be hard to explain much further without getting into the real ugliness of the Reagan administrationâs responses (and non-responses) to the crisis.
As far as a campaign issue, I doubt Bernie will raise it directly. But LGBT folks are entirely entitled to react to this incident any way they want, including in their voting choices.
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Clinton continued, âI also appreciate Donald Trump, Strom Thurmond and George Wallace opening up a dialogue on race and ethnicity.â
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Me, I looking forward to her eulogy at Kissinger´s funeral. Can´t wait to find out her take on his life.
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Oh come on Carlos? She immediately apologized and admitted her mistake. I am curious how you feel about Bernie supporters threatening to stay home and not vote and bombarding Elizabeth Warrenâs Facebook page calling her a traitor for not endorsing Bernie. I find that far more disturbing
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For heavens sake! The forces against this woman is growing to such cultural proportion, ladled with constant instant negativity.
HRC made a comment, if examined properly isnât that far from the truth - the facts are clear that Nancy Reagan has a cadre of hollywood gay friends, including Rock Hudson and she worked behind the scene to turn her husband around, as well as the machinery of federal government in obscure baby steps!
Are progressives unaware of the main stream mediaâs virulent attempts to âtar-and-featherâ HRC as they decimated Al Gore? This non-stop war on every minute misstep of HRC is sickening!
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Well, you should know by now Chammy that I don´t respect Sanders´ supporters who would stay home any more than I would HRC supporters who would stay home ( @Tena @Xyxox ). I also don´t know anyone who has criticized Elizabeth Warren for not endorsing Sanders. I don´t doubt that there are some, but for instance, MoveOn.org. and DemocracyforAmerica.com, both of which have endorsed Sanders, continue to send out letters from Elizabeth Warren regarding the SC (for example) which certainly doesn´t indicate any widespread backlash against her.
What bugs me about HRC´s eulogy is that is was calculated pandering. Look, I understand that one doesn´t speak ill of the dead, especially at her funeral. But to invent some AIDS fighting role for the Reagans is beyond the pale, and she knew exactly what she was doing, even if she didn´t anticipate the scale of the backlash.
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Come on!..exaggerate much? It wasnât inventedâŚgo back and dig into the past to see how far-off HRCâs compliment was.
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It was about as far off the mark as a purely fictional narrative at odds with reality could possibly be.
Said Clinton:
âIt may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular Mrs. Reagan, we started a national conversation. When before, nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that I really appreciate with her very effective low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience, and people began saying, âHey, we have to do something about this too.'â
Yeah, her âlow key advocacyâ was so effective she wouldnât even help her personal friend Rock Hudson get treatment when he was dying in 1985. It was that special âinvisibleâ advocacy that leaves friends to die because there was actually no advocacy at all.
The Nancy AIDS narrative of âlow key advocacyâ is pure invention.
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Nancy Reagan refused Rock Hudsonâs request for help at an overseas military hospital. She never spoke to him again. He died a year or so after. That is documented.
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Not exactlyâŚif youâre referring to the Buzzfeed article, thereâs another piece of the story in Vanity Fair, where itâs quite clear, Rock Hudson was in denial of his AID affliction - a product of that time and history.
In that article, Reagan made reference to Hudsonâs ailment as hepatitis and their final conversation before his death. Look, the point of this isnât to defend the Reaganâs slowness to the issue, rather itâs to say, HRC isnât that far-off the mark!
Additional Ref: Thereâs a PBS documentary detailing Nancy Reaganâs involvement in the AID era on Advocate.com
Okay with regards to Nancy Reaganâs and Rock Hudsonâs last conversation. But the Reagansâin no wayâever did anything behind the scenes or in the open for the fight against HIV/AIDS. Sorry, but I canât be convinced otherwise. I remember (almost too vividly) the early days. I was a teen when knowledge of the disease started circulating. I remember very well when Reagan first spoke of the disease ⌠after I graduated high school.
Nancy and Ronald Reagan did not start or help to start a national conversation. I distinctly remember reading about the disease and the various street protests in the major cities â people begging for federal assistance, not just with money but with information about the virus that the CDC had already identified. Ronald Reagan, at the behest of his friend and contributor Gary Bauer, ordered the CDC and Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to not discuss the virus or what they knew. Koop, himself, said so. Itâs in the records.
Iâm willing to believe HRC was ignorant/misinformed about Reagansâ involvement â but her version of it was far off the mark. I do not believe Clinton meant at all to open up these awful woundsâand believe me, this has done just thatâI donât think she knew the whole truth. Reagan and his wife had in-the-closet friends, but they werenât at all friends of the lgbt community. If anyone needs to be thanked, itâs people like Joan Rivers, Liza Minnelli and the great Elizabeth Taylor. I would add to that list Princess Diana â she did her part overseas. Before them, though, are the countless gay men who died young, in their prime, and the also countless doctors and nurses and our lesbian friends who were there for their patients, friends. The Reagans? No. I donât believe that detracts from Nancyâs advocacy for stem cell and alzheimers research. She was a good advocate for them. However, like so many conservatives, I wonder if she would have picked up the flame and carried it so greatly if alzheimers hadnât affected her so personally.
edited for spelling
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