Now here's an actual man-bites-dogwhistle story! On Fox-n-Friends Monday, Donald Trump actually managed not to mock Hillary Clinton's pneumonia, mostly. New York magazine's Eric Levits described the phone interview as a "shocking display of human decency":

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.@realDonaldTrump on Hillary's health: I hope she gets well, gets back on the trail & we'll see her at the debate pic.twitter.com/1k8vXigpBv

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 12, 2016

"I just hope she gets well, and gets back on the trail, and we'll be seeing her at the debate," said Trump, which sounds like a bit of a change from weeks of "she doesn't have the strength or stamina to take on ISIS, take their oil, bomb the shit out of them, and build a wall" crap he's been playing off.

Of course, that was prefaced by the usual Trumpian suggestion that maybe the reality is far, far worse:

I see what I see. The coughing fit was a week ago, so I assume that was pneumonia also, I would think it would have been, so something's going on.

Like maybe she's dying! Or maybe Trump has things exactly backwards, something he might have discovered if he had access to the sorts of high-level research a blogger in Boise, Idaho, has, like the interwebs site of the New York Times, which on Sunday cited Clinton's doctor explaining the cough was the result of allergies, and the pneumonia was diagnosed during a followup examination. You have to wonder, since that information was even on Twitter. Does Donald Trump know how to read? We assume he does, since he rants on Twitter, but it's still worth asking whether he does read anything -- we see what we see.

Levits notes that Trump then went on to describe Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark Friday as "the biggest mistake of the political season," which is pretty hilarious coming from a guy who daily says stuff that would end anyone else's candidacy. But that's the point, now isn't it? Hillary Clinton isn't Donald Trump, so she does not get a pass on saying something unkind but also true about other human beings. That is Donald Trump's job, thank you very much, except for the "true" part.

Still, says Levits, credit where it's due: "Trump handled this interview with basic political competence." We do hope Mr. Levit will see his own doctor to check on whether his tongue can be extracted from his cheek, since he continues:

Maybe the shortsighted, impulse-driven, name-calling side of the GOP nominee’s campaign is over. Maybe he’s finally ready to discipline himself, exploit the media’s eagerness to normalize him, and chart a steady course from here to November.

Or, ya know, maybe not.

We'll give Trump until late afternoon. If he hasn't mentioned that "many people are already asking" whether Hillary has been replaced by a healthier-looking body double, we'll be very disappointed. Also, ever the optimists, we have to agree with this point made on Twitter -- there's at least some good to come out of all this nonsense:

You know what we bet would make Hillary's stamina come roaring back? The chance to get a good long look at Donald Trump's taxes. If he really cared, he'd release those. We bet they'd make fascinating bedside reading.

[New York]