Thursday, August 04, 2016

On Hillary

I don’t like defending Hillary Clinton. At best she was my third or fourth choice from among the original slew of candidates. However, that was about politics, not honesty.

I watch TV, browse the Internet, and read the news so it’s easy to believe that she has made a career of skating along the edges of ethical behavior. I have to admit that I have sometimes found her attitude grating. She projects a sense of entitlement that I find uncomfortable. However, I can't be proud that my attitudes formed in no small part due to constant exposure to the headlines, memes, and repetition. If you say a lie often enough, it really does come true.

So, pulling gathering together all of the resources at my disposal, I went on a Google expedition to uncover the “crimes” of Hillary Clinton.

My final determination: There was no there, there. I found accounts of her business dealings, Whitewater and cattle futures and such. However, each of these episodes came across more like bad episodes of ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ than high crime. That she would find herself mired in several get-rich-quick schemes may suggest a certain lack of character but it doesn’t even begin approach the depths of evil with which she is so often discussed.

But what about Benghazi? Benghazi proved that she isn’t Rambo. What should she have done? Has anyone questioned how many more Americans might have died had a guns-blazing, face-saving, futile gesture been authorized?

That the email story continues to thrive is also nonsense. She acknowledged having a private server. What more must she do? If it violated a policy – something that should have been easy for a competent Congress to determine—then wouldn’t there already be a specified sanction. Instead they (the Congress) spent millions on hearings and investigation all for the sake of political theater. I also believe that the security concerns are political nonsense. Anybody, including the Pentagon, can be targeted by hackers. It’s possible, although it would not excuse any violation, that Clinton’s security bettered the State Department’s system. Don’t forget that the State Department’s system did allow mail to go back and forth from a private server. Back to the point, Clinton was Secretary of State, everything was potentially sensitive and carried the possibility of future classification. That she had the server, that she used it for work-related mail is all established fact. Unless, she’s being accused of deliberate espionage, that’s really all there is. Combing through the 80,000 emails in hopes of finding something embarrassing has no value beyond political intimidation.

Still, I’m not saying there aren’t enough questions about Clinton’s judgements, actions, or attitudes that it would be unreasonable to think (hope) that a better alternative might be found down-ballot What I am saying is that she isn’t the anti-Christ, or even a less extreme variation of Trump.

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