Even though the news media have more or less declared an omerta concerning the failing health of the aging Hillary Clinton, her undisclosed chronic illness continues to make the news.

Over the weekend, she experienced two spells of coughing that were recorded for all to see. The first is a nearly four-minute episode of hacking that reminded you of your late Uncle Charlie, you know, the one who smoked like a freight train:

She tries to laugh this off as ‘being allergic to Donald Trump’ but the joke falls flat because of her dicey health history and her recent admission that she couldn’t remember what she did during extensive periods of time as Secretary of State because of her alcoholic blackouts concussion.

The second episode is a lot more interesting from a conspiracy theory point of view. This took place at the press gaggle on Clinton’s airplane:

If you skip the hacking up of lung biscuits and go to about 1:00 you’ll see that even though Clinton is holding a bottle of water in her hand, a disembodied hand passes her a glass of a clear liquid. Water? Vodka? Medical treatment? Who knows.

Is this a sign that one of the many possible diseases that are infesting Hillary Clinton now have the upper hand?

What we do know sit that there is an amazing double standard at play on the health and age of candidates this election cycle. When Ronald Reagan ran for president he was the same age as Hillary Clinton and the media had a field day questioning whether a 69-year-old man was up to the rigors of the presidency. Mind you, this is a man who was an athlete in his college days and led a very active life. Hillary, on the other hand, was a doughy couch potato when younger and has led a sedentary lifestyle for decades. When McCain ran for office, this was only 8 years ago though it does seem like decades, he was only three years older than Hillary and the media could not end its speculation over if his age and health in some way disqualified him for the presidency:

I agree, Hillary's health and age are out of bounds pic.twitter.com/PADbSLH1Bw — (((Political Math))) (@politicalmath) September 6, 2016

Jack Murtha, naturally a Hillary Clinton backer in 2008, who is now slow-roasting the the Ninth Circle if there is any justice in the hereafter, clearly stated that McCain was too old.

Former Trumpian BFF, Mika Brzezinski, thinks the subject should be off limits

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC: What you see is what you get with these candidates. We have a lot to get to this morning. I will just start with what Trump is leading with, trying to make it look like Hillary Clinton is sick or something because she coughed. I want to know where Tim Kaine was when he was clapping behind her for two minutes. If I had a coughing fit what would you [Joe] do? You would probably take over and help out. Tim Kaine, what are you doing? You’d probably take over and help me out. Tim Kaine, step up, take the mic. Get her a drink of water. JOE SCARBOROUGH: [Tim Kaine] is a little awkward. And we have all of the conspiracy theories. Somebody was asking me, ohh, is this proof– BRZEZINSKI: It happens. You help out. SCARBOROUGH: It’s a tough schedule. It’s a really rough schedule and some times you cough and do stuff like that. BRZEZINSKI: I don’t really want to — She doesn’t, that’s just B.S. … It’s silly. I’m not — I don’t — I don’t want to show it. SCARBOROUGH: I thought you wanted to. I wasn’t even going to bring it up. BRZEZINSKI: This goes on for two minutes, and Tim Kaine just sits there. Grab the mic! She’s awesome. Not sick.

It might very well be true that very, very few people will wake up on election day and vote for Trump because they think Hillary is at death’s door. I don’t know. If I knew Trump was fatally ill, I’d certainly vote for him. But to say that a candidate’s health is not of news value is to say that the health of a president lacks news value. At least, in the case of the candidate, we know if we are voting for Joe Biden or Sarah Palin. If we take this to its logical conclusion then a candidate’s business dealings should be of no interest, either, because a solid majority of Americans will vote the candidate of their party no matter how much money Vladimir Putin sends to their foundation or bank account.