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Of course Hillary Rodham Clintons health is a legitimate issue for the 2016 election.

So is Donald Trumps. So is Gary Johnsons. So is that of any presidential candidate.

Mrs. Clintons media allies (which is to say, the media, more or less) are circling the wagons on this issue, and it is curious.

The Washington Posts Chris Cillizza made an unpersuasive attempt to explain why it was legitimate to treat John McCains health as a campaign issue in 2008 but illegitimate to do the same with Herself in 2016. McCain, he points out, would have been 72 years old at the time of his election, the oldest person ever elected to the office; Herself will, if elected in November, be a sprightly...69 years of age. McCain bore the scars of Vietnam and Arizona: He was grievously wounded and tortured by the Vietnamese, and he suffers from a recurring melanoma, which necessitates occasional trips to the doctor to have a patch of dodgy skin removed. Skin cancer is no joke, but millions of Americans live with melanoma of the sort McCain has with very little effect on their lives other than inconvenience.

Mrs. Clinton, in spite of her probably fictitious attempt to join the military, was never a prisoner of war, nor does she, so far as any record made public shows, suffer from cancer or any other chronic condition.

Still, she is not exactly the picture of health. As Cillizza notes, she suffered a concussion as a result of an unfortunate tendency to fall down, purportedly stemming from an upset stomach. There is at least one thing that leaps to mind that causes both digestive revolt and falling on ones ass, and it is whispered that Mrs. Clinton drinks immoderately, though there is no evidence that this is in fact the case. She sometimes requires a helper step to get into the SUVs that whisk her hither and yon in her pursuit of the presidency.

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Mrs. Clinton is also remarkably forgetful: During a midsummer interview with FBI agents investigating her furtive and illegal e-mail practices, Mrs. Clinton used the words I cannot recall or similar formulations more than 40 times. Doctor Johnson once remarked that the prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully, and perhaps it is the case that the prospect of being brought up on federal charges related to the handling of classified material has the opposite effect, producing a kind of special-purpose dementia.

Mrs. Clinton of course inspires the conspiracy kooks, an effect that is very much amplified by the fact that her opponent in 2016 is a big-league conspiracy kook leading a team of minor-league conspiracy kooks. Louis Brandeis was absolutely correct about sunlights being the best disinfectant, but Mrs. Clinton is a creature of the shade. Given her history of rampant, craven, deep, broad, sustained, overarching, continuous, relentless dishonesty about practically every aspect of her personal and public lives, is it really so implausible that shed lie about her health? No. Shed lie about her health even if there were nothing to lie about, just to keep in practice.

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Of course reporters and her political opponents should dig into questions related to Mrs. Clintons health. We can be sure that her research staff was not in the least bit assuaged by that hugely entertaining letter from Donald Trumps personal physician, which stopped just short of declaring kryptonite the candidates only weakness.

Gary Johnson, like the man Hillary Clinton was not named for, has climbed Mount Everest (theres getting high, and then theres getting high) and is in remarkable condition for a 63-year-old man.

On the other hand, Winston Churchill drank Pol Roger like it was his job, lit up a hell of a lot more blunts on the average day than Gary Johnson does, and maintained a diet that would have horrified Michelle Obama, but he was one of the greatest leaders in modern history and lived to be 90 years old.

If the president of the United States of America were limited to his proper role chief executive of the federal bureaucracies and commander in chief in times of war then we might not worry too much about his health. Indeed, if ever we are able to reinvigorate this republic and return its public and private spheres to their proper roles and proportions, that will be one of the ways we know weve succeeded: Dont worry if President Smith dies in office; well just get another one.

Is Mrs. Clinton as sickly as some say? Or is she just a dotty old bat of the ordinary sort? We can be absolutely sure that we will not get the truth of it from Mrs. Clinton, and we can be reasonably sure that we will not get the truth of it from reporters and editors who have renounced all curiosity on the question.

Mrs. Clintons health is a legitimate issue, even if it offends the tender sensibilities of the Washington Post.

Kevin D. Williamson is National Reviews roving correspondent.

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Hillary Clintons Health Is a Legitimate Campaign Issue ...