The time has come for all Americans of voting age to ask themselves a crucial question: Do I really want a president who coughs?

The logical answer, of course, is no. Coughing is a sign of mental incapacity and imminent death - that's a well-established fact, according to the earlier part of this sentence.

Electing a president who coughs would be both foolish and irresponsible, and that's why I believe Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is clearly unfit to hold office.

She coughed recently. A lot. At a rally in Ohio she had a coughing fit that lasted several minutes, leading to a completely sane freakout among those who would like to see Clinton disqualified for coughing.

The speculation in the speculation-o-verse included highly specific analyses of Clinton's cough, such as "You have to wonder what's going on" and "It doesn't look good" and "It raises lots of questions."

Indeed.

Clinton claimed "allergies" were to blame for her cough-splosion, but only 50 million Americans suffer from allergies, so what are the odds of that being true?

Infowars, the most reliable news website for people who believe drones operated by the United Nations are bombarding their cats with cancer-causing radiation, blew the lid off the allergy claim:

"As numerous websites that track daily allergen levels confirmed, grass pollen was low, tree pollen was low and ragweed pollen was moderate."

A-HA! First off, "numerous websites" is a very reliable source. I use it all the time. And do you think the American people are going to believe a coughing fit was caused by only "moderate" ragweed pollen? As if.

A more logical explanation of the Democratic candidate's cough-apallooza came from noted-medical-expert and random-person-on-Twitter Freedomologist, who tweeted to me that Clinton "is very sick." Who better to evaluate the seriousness of a cough than a Freedomologist who has "truth advocate" in his Twitter bio? I mean, c'mon. A person who advocates for truth would never lie. That would be preposterous.

For a deeper examination of the Calamitous Clinton Cough Controversy, I tuned in to Fox News pundit Sean Hannity's radio show. He had fellow pulmonologist Newt Gingrich on and, after playing a lengthy montage of all the times Clinton has publicly coughed, the two got down to some serious investigative journalism.

Gingrich recalled former President Bill Clinton once telling him about coughing problems he had while in the White House. (President Clinton, as you may recall, died of coughing in 2001.)

Gingrich then returned to Hillary Clinton: "Her coughs are much deeper than his and last much longer, so I don't know what her problem is."

Deeper and longer lasting certainly can't be good news for the widow Clinton.

"I think we need to know if she's healthy," Hannity said, shortly after which (and I swear this is true) Gingrich himself started coughing.

"Now you sound like Hillary," Hannity said.

"No, I'm in good shape," Gingrich replied.

That prompted Hannity to reassure his listeners that Gingrich's cough was not as transparently life-threatening as Clinton's: "A three-second cough does not equate to a four-minute-and-20-second cough."

Hannity was wrong. Gingrich, as you might expect, died soon after the interview. RIP Newt.

Here are some other notable people who, according to the words I'm typing into a computer, have met coughing-related ends:

• U2 lead singer Bono died in 2006 after developing a dry cough on a visit to rural Africa. He was attempting to sing the lyric "Desert sky, dream beneath the desert sky" from the song "In God's Country" when a coughing fit did him in.

• Actress Meryl Streep died of a single, massive cough in 2011 while filming "The Iron Lady," a movie about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who also died of coughing.

• Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka coughed himself into the great beyond after inhaling too much cigar smoke in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1999.

• Both Cheech and Chong died in a bong-related coughing accident in 1987.

• The entire Partridge Family died of coughing during the filming of a final episode of their popular television show. That episode has never aired, and everyone involved in filming it has since died of coughing.

As you can see, Clinton's cough is nothing to joke about. America needs a president who will not suddenly and rapidly expel air from his or her lungs and then die.

I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution. At least that's what numerous websites say.

Ahem.

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