[BLOGS.WSJ] The past three days have been tough ones for Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as
America's Blond Eminenceand at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another John Quincy Adams...
. They also may have produced the best we’ve seen from Donald Trump.
After it was reported that Mrs. Clinton had criticized "half" of Trump supporters as "the basket of deplorables," Mr. Trump did not lash out with the sort of fiery
...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob...
name-calling to which voters have become accustomed from him. Instead, he tweeted that "Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people" and that "While Hillary said horrible things about my supporters, and while many of her supporters will never vote for me, I still respect them all."
Typically, Mr. Trump’s words and actions reflect his go-for-the-jugular mentality. But in recent days he has shown what is for him remarkable restraint. After Hillary Clinton left a Sept. 11 commemoration ceremony in Lower Manhattan early on Sunday, a bystander’s video showing her needing assistance to get into her vehicle went viral. Her campaign did not speak about what had happened for more than an hour and initially said only that she had become overheated and dehydrated. Later, it disclosed that Mrs. Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. It would have been easy for Mr. Trump to lash out, raising the conspiracy theories about Mrs. Clinton’s health that had taken on new life this summer.
Instead, Mr. Trump has taken the high road. Asked about Mrs. Clinton’s health Monday morning, Mr. Trump said, "I hope she gets well, and gets back on the trail, and we’ll be seeing her at the debate."