Hillary Clinton was minding her own business and delivering a speech last Thursday when suddenly a shoe went whizzing by her head. Judging by her startled reaction, she had no idea it was coming — or did she?
That's the question Rush Limbaugh and other "shoe truthers," as Talking Points Memo branded them, are pondering in the wake of the bizarre incident. On his radio show Monday, Limbaugh said that though he'd yet to see footage of the event, it would be just like Clinton to fake such a story. As for her possible motive? To distract from Benghazi, of course.
"Maybe it's because in my subconscious I think it was staged or set up or whatever.
Look, folks, I know these people so well that I do not attach much genuineness to them at all, and I don't know why anybody would be throwing a shoe at Hillary unless maybe it's an attempt to make the Benghazi people look like nuts and lunatics and wackos. That's if it even had anything to do with that, which I don't know. But apparently it's not just me, folks." [Rush Limbaugh]
Limbaugh wasn't alone either. Fox News contributor Bernard Goldberg wondered in a blog post Monday if Clinton staged the story to "make her seem presidential."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Clinton has led every early poll of the 2016 Democratic primary by yawning margins and already has a well-heeled shadow campaign to support her likely presidential bid. Which is to say, she does not need a shoe-throwing hoax to lend her a presidential aura.
-
5 hilariously incriminating cartoons about the Epstein filesCartoons Artists take on an Epstein Thanksgiving, solving the puzzle, and more
-
Political cartoons for November 15Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include cowardly congressmen, a Macy's parade monster, and more
-
Massacre in the favela: Rio’s police take on the gangsIn the Spotlight The ‘defence operation’ killed 132 suspected gang members, but could spark ‘more hatred and revenge’
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
-
Catholic bishops rebuke Trump on immigrationSpeed Read ‘We feel compelled’ to ‘raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,’ the bishops said
-
House releases Epstein emails referencing TrumpSpeed Read The emails suggest Trump knew more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of underage women than he has claimed
-
Newsom slams Trump’s climate denial at COP30speed read Trump, who has called climate change a ‘hoax,’ declined to send any officials to this week’s summit
-
UK, Colombia halt intel to US over boat attacksSpeed Read Both countries have suspended intelligence sharing with the US over the bombing of civilian boats suspected of drug smuggling
-
Trump pardons 2020 fake electors, other GOP alliesSpeed Read The president pardoned Rudy Giuliani and more who tried to overturn his 2020 election loss
-
Supreme Court to decide on mail-in ballot limitsSpeed Read The court will determine whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day
