She was so out-of-touch with reality, it was baffling.
UPDATE: Clinton tweeted the following apology just hours
after making her comment. The original story appears below Clinton's tweet.
PREVIOUSLY: Hillary Clinton seems to need some
reminding about what happened in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
The Democratic presidential candidate made polarizing,
inaccurate -- not to mention offensive -- comments on Friday about the role
that the Reagans, specifically Nancy Reagan, played in combatting the AIDS
epidemic in the 1980s.
Speaking to MSNBC during the televised funeral for Reagan, who
died on Sunday at the age of 94 from congestive heart failure, Clinton
claimed that Nancy and her husband "started a national conversation"
about the AIDS epidemic when "nobody would talk about it."
She said:
"It may be hard for your viewers to remember how
difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s. And
because of both President and Mrs. Reagan -- in particular Mrs. Reagan -- we
started a national conversation. When before nobody would talk about it, nobody
wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that I really
appreciate with her very effective, low key advocacy but it penetrated the
public conscious and people began to say, 'Hey, we have to do something about
this too.'"
Yet, as Teen Vogue wrote this week, Reagan actually turned her back on thousands of people,
many of whom identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), as
they died from the virus during her time as first lady.
Similarly, The Guardian reported last year that the former
first lady withheld help from close friend Rock Hudson when he reached out to the
White House while dying of complications related to AIDS in1985.
The Associated Press also points to a 2011 PBS documentary in which historian
Adilla Black credited (with a caveat) Nancy Reagan's friendship with Hudson and
attorney Roy Cohn, who also died from complications related to the disease, for
inspiring her to "encourage her husband to seek more funding for AIDS
research."
"I think she deserves credit for opening up the AIDS
money," Black told PBS. "But I could never say that without saying
they never would have waited this long if it was redheaded sixth graders."
"In the history of the AIDS epidemic, President
Reagan's legacy is one of silence," said Michael Cover, former associate executive director for
public affairs at Whitman-Walker Clinic, in 2003. "It is the silence of
tens of thousands who died alone and unacknowledged, stigmatized by our
government under his administration."
Even Chad Griffin, the President of The Human Rights Campaign,
which endorsed Clinton for president earlier this year,
spoke out on Twitter against her comments:
So, Hillary, let's stick to the facts and avoid
romanticizing the memory of the Reagan's role in fighting against HIV/AIDS,
shall we?
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