Dishonest Hillary

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.