Can't trust Hillary
This is, of course, going to be the main theme of the Trump campaign.
The perception is not merely the creation of current political campaigns. The
significant lack of trust of HRC would exist if there was no Donald or Bernie
campaign. Why is that?
The answer might be that she is truly not trustworthy, but
what is the evidence?
HRC refers to a 25-year right wing conspiracy to discredit
her. She may have the date wrong by a couple of years. She was viewed with
suspicion during the 1992 presidential campaign but her real problems with the
right wing began after Clinton took the White House in 1993.
The main theme in those early years were that she was
inappropriately using her position as first lady to influence executive policy.
The big item was her leadership of a health care reform task force that met in
private and excluded many in the industry, and also the nomination of civil
rights advocate Lani Guinier for assistant attorney general. Both brought loud condemnations
from the right. There was also Travelgate where she was believed to be the
reason seven long-term employees of the White House travel office were
terminated. Investigations into this determined she basically was operating
from an inaccurate understanding of the role of this office.
Then, of course, the Whitewater investigation raised
questions about favor trading when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. The
fact that HRC was a law partner in the firm that handled the legal affairs of
the Whitewater partnership and that the Clintons were investors raised conflict
of interest questions despite the fact that they lost money in the venture.
Although investigations led to criminal charges and convictions in this matter,
none led to improprieties by the Clintons.
Vincent Foster was believed to have been a close friend and
confidant of HRC. His suicide was interpreted by the right wing as a murder
committed by the Clintons. While the theory was totally debunked by law
enforcement agencies, it remains an “unanswered question” in HRC’s past.
Of course, much has been made of HRC’s decisions to stay in
her marriage with her husband despite well-established instances of his
infidelity. If this had been a
conservative couple, there would have been paeans to her determination to make
the marriage work. But this has not been the case and, instead, is another
reason to distrust HRC.
It is well to remember what the Citizens United case was
about. The right wing group had created a movie based on the above history that
they wanted to run during the 2008 presidential campaign to destroy Clinton’s
campaign for president.
So HRC untrustworthiness is a well-established right wing
theme that has been repeated so often that it is widely accepted even among
those not on the right side of the ledger.
And this sets the stage for the Republican “investigation”
into Benghazi and the media frenzy about her e-mails. Despite the findings of eight Republican investigations into Benghazi, the National Rifle Association is
planning a series of television ads accusing HRC of dereliction of duty that
led to the death of the American ambassador. It is hard to characterize this as
anything less than a continuation of the right wing’s obsession with
discrediting HRC.
The e-mail issues are less clear. HRC violated State
Department policy about using private e-mail servers to communicate with her
staff. Her predecessors, Condoleezza
Rica and Colin Powell apparently also used private servers for this purpose but
not as extensively as HRC. Despite the violation of State Department policy, it
does not appear that HRC used the private server to communicate about any
matter that was at the time classified.
So what does this all amount to?
In her public life, Clinton has made mistakes, been less
than candid at times and repeatedly pissed off the right wing.
HRC’s Iraq vote and some of her support of her Wall Street
constituent interests as US Senator from New York are things that I disagree
with but they are not evidence of dishonesty.
But, in the end, HRC simply does not deserve the reputation
of untrustworthiness that the right wing has pinned on her. She is almost
certain to be elected out next president. Unfortunately, like Obama being
labelled a Muslim, born outside the US and an anti-white conspirator, HRC will
face the same kind of headwinds.
