Hillary's health becomes a hot button issue in US presidential election

WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton's

health

, for long an obsession of right-wing conspiratorialists who she disdains, has become a legitimate Presidential campaign issue. The Democratic candidate was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. This was revealed only after she appeared to collapse at a 9/11 memorial service, tottering from what her doctors said was heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Secret Service agents held her up from buckling and dragged her into a waiting van that took her to her daughter Chelsea's apartment nearby for recuperation. She emerged a couple of hours later looking steady and composed, saying she felt great. Scheduled travel to the West Coast on Monday was scrubbed even as a great clamor broke in the political arena.

A cellphone video of the incident, propelled mostly by

Trump

supporters, has already become an Internet and political sensation, her wobble seen as symptomatic of a candidacy that has been under siege from the moment she announced she was running for the White House. On Monday, her rival Donald Trump graciously told a television program he hoped "she gets well and gets back on the trail," but there was no mistaking the sense of vindication in his camp over #HillarysHealth, as the Twitter hashtag put it. Trump and his flock have long claimed she is not in good health.

"I really just don't just know. I hope she gets well soon. I don't know what's going on," Trump said when asked about it on 'Fox and Friends' Monday morning. He also brought up her coughing fit last week, fueling more speculation by adding, "I assume that was pneumonia also. I would think it would have been. So something's going on."

Some three million people in the U.S contact pneumonia every year. But Hillary

Clinton

's illness will likely attract more attention than the rest put together. Her supporters argued that part of the reason for the uproar is the underlying gender dynamics that stereotyped women as being "weak." If a man had a bout of pneumonia, they argued, it would be no big deal.

Indeed, the Hillary camp fought back on Sunday, arguing that the fact she showed up at the 9/11 memorial service two days after the diagnosis and a day after several campaign appearances, TV interviews, and a long national security meeting with her advisors showed she is a strong woman.

"Hillary has pneumonia. There's a cure for that. Trump supporters are racist deplorable inbreds. There's no cure for that," read one waspish tweet from a Clinton supporter, as the hashtag #HillarysHealth began to trend. "Antibiotics can cure pneumonia but they can't cure misogyny, racism, xenophobia, ignorance or wanting to bang your daughter," read another.

But Trump diehards struck back, asking why if she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, did her campaign initially attribute it to heat, pointing out that temperatures in NYC on Sunday were only in the 80s fahrenheit.

Another supporter said that for someone who had pneumonia, Hillary should not have hugged a young girl, as revealed on TV footage when she emerged from her daughter's apartment building. Conspiracy theorists spun dark takes about why she was taken to her daughter's apartment instead of a hospital.

Wearing Hillary Clinton's description of them as "deplorables" like a badge of honor, many rightwing conservatives had a field day online, spinning various medical theories for her buckling. "Aspiration Pneumonia" is Leading Cause of Death in People With Parkinson's Disease, claimed "Deplorable Dr Hart," while a religious Trump supporter warned, "When you openly stand against God, He shall stand against you."

Some tabloids went so far as to speculate that the Democratic Party is "considering replacement" for Clinton, but Party honchos merely issued a statement wishing her a quick recovery.

Meanwhile the pro-Hillary brigade took on Trumpistas on social media. "HRC coulda had Pneumonia AIDS Cancer Leprosy lost both legs& 1 eye I'd STILL vote 4her over Racist Mango," tweeted one supporter. "Monday morning reminder that FDR couldn't stand upright and defeated Hitler," said another.