THE PARAGRAPHS OF THE DAY

Today\’s paragraphs come to us from Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post – who, I assure you, is strongly supportive of Hillary Clinton.

Her latest column is in the form of a letter to Ms. Clinton.  Here are its first two paragraphs:

Your e-mail problem has mushroomed from a self-inflicted nuisance to a self-inflicted wound. The reason is simple: At every decision point, you and your staff have made the wrong choice about how to proceed, erring on the side of secrecy and self-righteousness.

The damage can\’t be entirely undone. But some of it can be mitigated by doing what doesn\’t come naturally to you: admitting some error and accepting that not all the criticism has been fueled by partisan attackers in league with media enablers.

Secretive.  Self-righteous.  Unwilling to admit being wrong.  Accepting that some criticism is legitimate. 

Every one of those charges is – correctly – leveled at Hillary Clinton by Ms. Marcus.  And let\’s remember, again, that she is a friend. 

Marcus ends her commentary by saying this:

So, my advice: Stop making light. Stop litigating. Stop the high-handed dismissing. Stop the prickliness with the media; we\’re not going away. Stop the non-apology apologies (you didn\’t do anything wrong, but you wouldn’t do it over again).

You don’t need to grovel or confess to grievous errors. Just dial down the combativeness – as hard as this is for you – and ramp up the reasonableness: You understand people have questions. If classified information was not adequately protected, you\’d like to know that and figure out what lessons can be learned.

This problem isn\’t going away. The trick, right now, is simply not making it worse. 

To Ruth Marcus:  you win Paragraphs Of The Day honors, because that is excellent political advice.  But – this, by your reckoning, would be the bad news – you are wasting your time giving it, because you have offered it to someone incapable of taking advice.

The reason Hillary Clinton is in this situation is that she has spent 30 years so protected by media – including you most of the time, Ms. Marcus – that she seems to have lost the capacity to recognize her political mistakes, learn from them, and grow. 

Which, for the record, is just fine with me. 

See, I do not want Hillary Clinton to become more politically savvy and therefore increase her chances to win the White House next year.  Because unlike you, Ms. Marcus, I see her as remarkably unaccomplished for all the time she has been in positions of power and authority, with a history of incompetence to boot – which, to me, makes Hillary Clinton eminently unsuitable for the presidency.

For that reason, I must admit I am glad your excellent political advice is falling on deaf ears.