My hat – if I ever wear one – is off to Michael Goodwin of the New York Post, for his excellent column, which enumerates the Clinton scandals, lies and hypocrisies so clearly that only the most unconditional Hillary-lovers (and,incredibly, though the polls show they are dwindling, there are still a good many) will find a way to not see them.
You can click here for Mr. Goodwin\’s entire Hillary-feast. But, for the moment, here is just a taste:
More than 17 months before Election Day, Clinton scandals are piling up faster than robberies during a police strike. There is a media feeding frenzy over her shady dealings and the sheer volume of unsavory revelations is approaching a critical mass. The pace of disclosures probably can\’t continue, but already she\’s looking less and less inevitable.
Yesterday brought a new batch of bombshells. The Washington Post reported that, in addition to $5 million she earned from her latest book, Clinton earned $11.7 million by delivering 51 speeches since January 2014. The paper reported that she was paid an astonishing $625,000 for two speeches – in one day!
Stack those facts up against her recent remark that the only answer to income inequality is to “topple” the 1 percent of wealthy Americans, and it\’s obvious that she\’s long past the point of simple hypocrisy.
She\’s a caricature from PanderLand and has no challenger for the crown as the least authentic politician on the planet.
And so it goes in ClintonGate, a multi-angled, mushrooming series of outrageous conduct coming to light. Some 30,000 emails are deleted, official American business gets mixed up with international rogues and shady oligarchs and the Clintons emerge with vast wealth for precious little work.
Meanwhile, she who seeks the restoration of the Clinton presidency can\’t take a stand on the big challenges America faces, including the pending Asian trade deal. She dodges the press like the plague, obviously believing she can get by on lifeless, scripted events and answer a few token questions only when press frustration boils over.
She did that yesterday, taking five minutes to answer five questions after a month of radio silence. She said about as close to nothing as humanly possible.
Already behaving like the old bosses from Tammany Hall, she\’s starting to sound like them, too. It was George Washington Plunkitt who colorfully defended “honest graft” and said of his riches, “I seen my opportunities and I took \’em.”
Then again, there is a distinction. The Tammany crowd was known to skim a bit off the top. The Clintons take the whole cake.
With the possible exception of john edwards, no one I can think of in my lifetime as corrupt and dishonest as Hillary Clinton, has been this seriously considered as a major-party presidential candidate.
And even with edwards, at least there was a level of accomplishment: he was a successful lawyer. A sleazebag lawyer, but a successful one nonetheless.
What has Hillary Clinton ever accomplished….other than, comparatively speaking, making Richard Nixon look transparent and above-board?
I probably should marvel at how completely Ms. Clinton “owns” a segment of the population – one which cannot and will not find a thing that is wrong with her, no matter how many scandals are uncovered or how many media venues (now including usually Clinton-friendly ones like the New York Times and Washington Post) confirm them. But I don\’t. At this point I just accept it as a fact of life.
What I do marvel at is the number of Democrat operatives who are clinging to her potential candidacy like an abused child clings to his/her abusive mother…and for the same reason: fear that, horrible as she is, without her there\’s nothing.
Another thing: how many times, right up to the present, have we read how strong the Democrat Party is and how weak Republicans are…i.e. they\’re nothing but a bunch of old, clueless White racists and evangelicals, who are dying out and taking the party with them.
I\’ll bet a lot of the unconditional Hillary lovers agree with that sentiment (or, at any rate, hope it is true).
My message to them is…don\’t bet on it. Not with Hillary Clinton as your candidate. Ms. Clinton might very well be the single greatest motivator for Independents and Democrats to consider voting Republican that there is.
Or, put another way, the more Republicans make it clear they hope she is the Democrat candidate, the more worried Democrats should be. And that number seems to be growing every day.
