by Tom Kando
Once again, I want to express my feelings about the shabby treatment of Hillary Clinton. Not only by the Republican presidential candidates and their paymasters at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, but also by the majority of the media left and right, the public and the nation’s political machinery.
The nearly universal approach is to totally ignore her substantive policy positions, and to focus exclusively on two things: (1) alleged scandals, all fabricated pseudo-issues and (2) her personal and largely irrelevant characteristics.
I have written about this dirty business before. See my previous posts of December 15, 2014 - Obsessive-Compulsive Hillary-Hatred Disorder - and March 15, 2015 - The Persecution of Hillary Clinton.
When was the last time you read a discussion - critical or supportive - of one of Clinton’s substantive positions - be it a domestic economic issue or in foreign affairs? Have you read about her stance on tax reform to reduce inequality? On Wall Street regulation to reduce corruption? On energy or the environment? On education? On how to deal with ISIS, Syria, Iran or Putin? I suppose the media recently mentioned that she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Obama is pushing. But they only did this to highlight a juicy brewing disagreement between her and her former boss, not because of any interest in her reasons for opposing the proposed agreement.
Instead, the media are feasting on pseudo-scandals and every conceivable and irrelevant aspect of her appearance, demeanor and personal life.
1) Regarding the so-called Benghazi scandal, I have been saying for three years that it was all a bunch of bs. See my posts of October 20, 2012 - The Benghazi Pseudo-Issue - and May 7, 2014 - Benghazi Ad Nauseam.
On September 29, Congressman Kevin McCarthy told Fox’s rabid Sean Hannity in an interview that “everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's un-trustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen."
What a revelation! Anyone with half a brain could see from the get go that the “Benghazi scandal” was a contrived hoax. You had to be either a moron or fervently WANTING to believe what the republicans were telling you, same as the weapons of mass destruction charade thirteen years ago.
Now we know, thanks to McCarthy’s revelation, that the Benghazi accusations were a shameless exploitation for political gain of the tragic death of four Americans, including our ambassador.
Nevertheless, the House “Benghazi Committee” pushes on. On October 8, it began to connect “Benghazi” and the e-mail flap, another contrived attack on Hillary. For months now, Clinton has been accused of having used a private e-mail account/server when she should have used a presumably more secure government server. Big f...ing deal. She is accused of having sent “classifiable” information through that server. I use this word to show how absurd the accusation is: You see, some of the information she sent became classified LATER, so that makes her retroactively guilty. It’s as if you had driven a car in 1959 without wearing a seatbelt. Since seatbelts were mandatory by the 1970s, you should be punished for what you did in 1959.
2) An even larger number of articles about Clinton deals with irrelevant personal characteristics, ranging from her fat speaker’s fees to her perceived “untrustableness” (congressman Kevin McCarthy’s elegant word), from her pantsuits to her age, her allegedly cold personality, her physical condition, her Southern accent, her need to be more spontaneous, her family, her husband, the fact that she is a member of a “dynasty,” her acceptance of foreign donations, her disloyal staff. Some old dude said “Hillary lies.” When asked about what, he said, “about everything.” “And she has chipmunk cheeks,” he added. Not that! I ain’t voting for no president with chipmunk cheeks!
Most of the media are guilty of this - be they mainstream, right, or left, be it the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. A recent example: Judy Woodruff’s interview of Clinton on PBS: She asked her about one of her super pacs attacking Sanders and whether she approved of this. Clinton said that she didn’t know about it. So here again, there is an opportunity to bash her. Attacking your opponents is not even tolerated when it is done by Hillary. Granted, attacking Sanders isn’t smart, but instead of focusing on issues, even Woodruff showed more interest in gossip than policy.
There is a terrible trivialization of Clinton going on. At best, an article might characterize one of her positions as “hawkish” or “dovish,” using a quick dismissive label without specifics. It’s all juicy stuff, National Enquirer stuff. It shows total disrespect for the first American with a realistic chance at breaking the ultimate glass ceiling.
And there is also the constant drumbeat of how her campaign is allegedly flailing, stymied, mired in problems, ad nauseam, to the point of this perhaps becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. No wonder that Sanders, Biden (both good men), Trump, and whoever else decides to run, are nipping at her heels.
It is as if the mainstream media, said to be liberal or slightly left of center, are aiming for a Republican successor to Obama, which would hand over the last branch of government to the conservative plutocracy. To many men/people, that is less scary than having a woman, especially a pretty strong and savvy one, run the whole show, God forbid!
© Tom Kando 2015
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8 comments:
MEDIA JERKS. Tom Kando's blog. You can't get better than his writing.
Comments like this make my day!
Oh boo hoo - she is a self involved pathological liar (as one of her former bosses once described her) who consistently puts herself above everyone else with few accomplishments who would not be in the race except she is Bills spouse. Can't the left come up with someone more qualified? JimWebb even Joe Biden. Or have you fallen for her ploy - vote for me not because I would make a great president but because I am a woman?
Tom - can you give me one example where she has been "strong and savvy? I can give you a dozen examples where she has been incompetent and arrogant.
Unfortunately, as the data shows, people believe only what they want to believe.
Nice work on the Hillary issue.
Full disclosure: I must admit that Hillary is not my first choice.
My first choice is Bernie Sanders: he has charisma, passion, conviction, and a solid voting record. I am an idealist and he will probably not get elected.
My lack of support for Mrs. Clinton is not based upon her clothing, nor her looks.
I place value on her personality. She seems aloof, a little artificial, a bit cold. I am convinced that a leader must have genuine charisma. But I still won’t let her lack thereof, rule her out.
My main problems are with White water, her support of NAFTA, her decision to use the private server, her last-minute opposition to the TPP, etc. To me, she seems too opportunistic, like her decisions and actions are all Machiavellian and not passion- and conviction-based. As a side-note, I was shocked that she chose to stay married to Bill, even though I realize that that is a personal decision (Machiavellian/political expediency?)
That being said, I will try to give her my unbiased attention and evaluation during tomorrow’s debate.
To be clear, I want a woman to be president, but I want the right woman for the job. I was hoping Elizabeth Warren would go for it.
How about Bernie Sanders for president and Elizabeth Warren for VP?
Thank you for your article. You are definitely passionate about your support for Hillary.
I thank everyone for their comments. Anonymous doesn’t need to be dignified with a response. Lita is kind, and Scott speaks the simple truth.
As to Jonathan: his labels of “incompetent” and “arrogant” merely reiterate the undocumented clichés, but I’ll give you just one example of her many achievements, off the top of my head: Even way back as “first lady,” she already paved the way for national health insurance, even though her attempt failed at that time, due to the vast right-wing conspiracy.
As to Bruce: his list sums up precisely most of the accusations leveled at her over the years, and it is a compendium of specific political stances (e.g. NAFTA), alleged scandals (White water), personality traits (Machiavellian) and private matters (not divorcing Bill).
But here is the thing: I am absolutely convinced that one can come up with such a list about EVERY single individual, and that most of these things can be interpreted positively or negatively: NAFTA? Good or bad, depending on how it looked at the time, and who did the looking; Machiavellian? Perhaps following the precepts of The Prince is exactly what a good US President should do; sticking with Bill? Good for you, many might argue...
Regarding personality: she reminds me precisely of some of the teachers I had - the ones I sometimes feared a great deal, but the ones who were the best, the strongest, the most dedicated and the most effective, not the fuzziest ones.
It’s rather obvious that all the people with such diffused “misgivings” about her “character” are men. It’s called “feeling threatened."
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