Fox News host Greta Van Susteren unleashed a scathing criticism against an L.A. Times columnist who accused Carly Fiorina of “exploiting” her breast cancer survival for political gain, telling the writer in a blog post he was way off base – “humorless” even, she wrote.
First, the at-issue column: The left-leaning Michael Hiltzik wrote Fiorina, “who was making much out of her own battle with breast cancer (‘After chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn’t really that scary anymore,’ she quipped), displayed the usual contempt that privileged insurance owners have for the uninsureds. Fiorina received her health coverage through her husband’s AT&T retirement plan, but for everyone else she advocated allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, which would be a book to the insurers and a disaster for buyers.”
He then took to Twitter to write: “#Carly: she deliberately exploited her own illness for her political campaign,” Mediaite found.
Van Susteren didn’t care for the accusation, and took to her own blog to say so.
She first pointed to Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s own ads about her mother’s illness, and questioned why Hiltzik wasn’t outraged over that piece of politicking.
“We know all about all the candidates’ personal stories and how those personal stories – especially hardship – helped shape them. While I don’t wish hardship on anyone I do admit that I think hardship can help make our elected officials better at their jobs as they might have more empathy for Americans going through similar tough personal events.”
She then turned her attention directly to Hiltzik, and called him out for his attack on Fiorina.
“Maybe Hiltzik is humorless and somehow unable to appreciate a soft touch of humor about a personal crisis can sometimes help others going through similar hell,” she wrote, Mediaite found. “My guess? I bet Hiltzik would have had a different column had the declarant been his candidate. It wasn’t.”
