Is it fair – or Christian – to attack someone over their health?
There are many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton. You can be a passionate Democrat, desirous of there to be a woman in the Oval Office, and even a believer in the Clinton legacy, but there's still something about Hillary that's just hard to love.
A reminder of this came last week when she agreed to share a plane with the press pack. Making her way to the back, she tried to greet the reporters. But she appeared to be dripping with sarcasm and, frankly, bitterness, when she said: "I'm so happy to have you all with me – I've been just waiting for this moment."
The "moment" ended up being a cold one, and coldness is what many of her critics accuse her of. For all the carefully choreographed photo opportunities, when she points and smiles at the crowd after a speech, as if singling out an individual, she can come across as aloof, a touch ruthless in her ambition, a little out of touch.
These are valid personal criticisms of the presidential candidate. Character does indeed matter in politics. Linked to character but even more important is judgement, and Clinton can also be criticised for that: she is a fully paid up member of the Washington establishment who – unlike Barack Obama – backed the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.
She is a foreign policy hawk, a strong defender of Israel, even under its current right-wing leadership. Palestinians are not hopeful at all of any kind of breakthrough under a Hillary Clinton presidency.
Domestically, conservative Christians can be forgiven for raising eyebrows at what her campaign describes as as "the most progressive platform in party history". On abortion, she has drastically liberalised the party's position. Crucially, the platform calls for a wide expansion of abortion access, including the overturning of two key amendments in US law: the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal money from directly funding abortions, and the Helms Amendment, which bans federal dollars from funding abortions abroad.
There are, in other words, a range of reasons to be sceptical of the Clinton candidacy.
But what Christians should be phobic of are judgements relating to her health.
A few coughing fits and fainting at a 9/11 memorial are not any basis on which to judge a 68-year-old who has been for months fighting in the most brutal campaign in American history.
As the former Foreign Secretary William Hague writes in today's Telegraph: "There are people attacking her staying power now who, if asked to undertake one fortnight of how she did that job, would have to be taken straight to hospital. The Hillary Clinton I got to know was a living, breathing advertisement for unrelenting stamina."
Right-wing bloggers may whisper darkly about 'post-concussion syndrome' or similar, but there is no evidence that she is suffering from anything more than pneumonia.
Even if she were, is that a good enough reason to dismiss her from high office? Ronald Reagan's son revealed that his father's Alzheimer's began in office. And John F Kennedy was known as a "walking pharmacy" while suffering from Addison's disease and other ailments while president. Could it be that sexism is at play in the case of Clinton?
Meanwhile, let's hope that ageism too is not creeping into the American political discourse. For up until very recently, the US was immune to the sort of attitude that meant in Britain, some of the best politicians have been dismissed on the grounds of their advanced years. In 2001, supporters of Iain Duncan Smith put it about that Kenneth Clarke was "too old" to be Tory leader, at 61. Yet many were left wondering why he was not running to be leader 15 years later, when, not realising he was being filmed by Sky News, he entertainingly dismissed the candidates in this year's contest. Menzies Campbell, though less appealing than Clarke, suffered the same red-herring judgement when he became Liberal Democrat leader in 2006 at the age of 66.
At the same time, an over-emphasis on youth has led to a paucity of experienced leadership candidates here. David Cameron, who quit politics yesterday at the age of 49, has been accused of never having had a "proper job" outside Westminster, and his former rival leaders Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg both, like Cameron, cut their teeth advising other politicians.
In the Middle East, Africa and until recently the US, being older has been considered synonymous with being wiser.
If the worst comes to the worst and Hillary Clinton has to pull out of the race at this late stage, it can be hoped that she is replaced with Joe Biden, who at 73, unlike Clinton, is older than Donald Trump (70). He is warmer, a natural, and more liberal on foreign policy.
There are many reasons to regret the choice of candidates in this race, and there are many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton from a Christian, even progressive, Democratic perspective.
But for Christians at least, health is surely not one of them.
