Accusing Hillary

by Tom Kando

 As long as this wretched campaign goes on, I have to keep participating in the debate and add my two-bits worth so as to impact the scale and hope to make a contribution to Clinton’s victory over Donald:

On Sept. 7, we saw Matt Lauer’s inept and unfair handling of the Clinton-Trump Commander-in-Chief Forum. He held Clinton’s feet to the fire, spending nearly half the time grilling her about her e-mails. On the other hand, he let Trump get away with major lies, including his denial of having supported the Iraq war.

The “Hillary-is-a-liar” has now become a cultural MEME with a life of its own, embraced by most of the media. It is out of control. It is hardly questioned any longer. When it is, as done for example by Paul Krugman on September 5, (see his “Hillary Clinton Gets Gored”), the questioner himself gets crucified.

But this knee-jerk prejudice is itself the biggest lie. As we showed a few weeks ago (Mirror, mirror on the Wall) Hillary Clinton is among the more truthful and honest politicians around.

Yet even the “liberal leaning” sources (MSNBC, CNN, the Washington Post) now include among their panelists people who engage in wild, loud, euphoric accusations and use of the label “Hillary-the-liar.” It’s no longer just the Fox News and Rush Limbaugh crowd. And those who still refuse to participate in the witch hunt are becoming increasingly timid, ceding the ground to the accusers, only giving cowardly and ineffectual replies like, “Well, Hillary is not the only liar, you know; Trump also lies...” 

An example: On July 31, Hillary was interviewed by Fox News’ Chris Wallace. She said that FBI Director James Comey had said that she had NOT lied to the FBI in its investigation of her e-mail scandal. The media then almost unanimously accused her of having lied about THAT. The Washington Post gave her “four Pinocchios.” ?!?!

Let’s take stock of the major issues: Among the barrage of accusations are the following items:

1. SPEECHES: Excessive fees for Wall Street speeches. There is no wrong-doing here whatsoever. The Clintons did not do anything illegal, out of the ordinary, or anything that other celebrities do not also do.

2. BENGHAZI: I sometimes ask one of Hillary’s detractors: “What exactly did she lie about?”

Reply: “Benghazi!”

Me: “What was the lie?”

Reply: “The whole damn thing.” or: “She failed to protect our ambassador there.”

Me: “That was not the original accusation. Look it up: She was accused of using the wrong “talking point” after the incident - saying that it was a spontaneous street riot and not an organized terrorist attack. She testified in Congress that there was confusion due to the ‘fog of war.’ How the heck do we know right away all the details? What difference does it make, anyway? The Americans are dead.” She didn’t lie about anything.

So then the Republicans changed their accusation to: “She didn’t protect the embassy.” Not only did Hillary Clinton do nothing wrong in re Benghazi, but congressman Kevin McCarthy even admitted that the GOP constructed the entire scandal in order to defeat her politically!

3. LIBYA: Clinton is also held responsible for the mess Libya is in, after the death of Gadhafi. A TV pundit (on MSNBC!) recently called it “Hillary Clinton’s failed state of Libya.” Yet the attack on Libya was a European initiative, with America supporting it lukewarmly. And of course, anyone can engage in Monday morning quarter backing. Initially, the Republicans were perfectly happy to support the attack on Gadhafi.

4. THE DAMNED E-MAILS: Let’s move from the non-existent Benghazi scandal to the non-existent e-mail scandal: FBI head James Comey concluded that Hillary Clinton had not committed any crime, but that she had acted unwisely. Clinton admitted the latter.

The big deal boils down to her having used her private server (as had some of her predecessors such as Colin Powell). They did this for NON-classified, private communication. They did what millions of other Americans do. Among the dozens of thousands of e-mails, half a dozen MAY have been classified - RETROACTIVELY! Hundreds of staff people at the State Department, dozens of legal advisers and experts never flagged her; they all unanimously supported her use of a private server. Bernie Sanders said it many months ago: We are sick and tired of hearing about those e-mails!

5. THE CLINTON FOUNDATION: Since mid-August of 2016, we hear about the “Clinton Foundation issue:” There is a”Pay to Play” accusation. That is, Clinton and her foundation are said to have been paid (bribed) by foreign and domestic entities for favors. The truth: The Clinton Foundation is an enormously beneficent organization that helps dozens of millions of AIDS patients and others. There is zero evidence of “pay to play.” No favors were exchanged for donations.

6. THE IRAQ WAR: Trump and Republicans now accuse Clinton of having supported this war. The truth is that BOTH Trump and Clinton were in support, as was of course the GOP, whose war this WAS. But the difference between the two is that Clinton has admitted that she made a mistake, changing her mind once it was clear to her that Bush-Cheney were lying about the weapons of mass destruction. Trump, on the other hand continues to lie to this very day, falsely claiming that he did not support the war.

7. DID SHE LIE ABOUT BEING A WOMAN? She is accused of being a woman: guilty as charged.

* * * * *

INVENTED LIES: Beyond these false accusations, Clinton’s detractors simply invent. A few examples:

“Chelsea Clinton earned $36 million with speeches at various foundations;”

“The Clintons stole the golden ashtrays from the White House when they moved out;”

“The Clinton’s net worth is now almost half a billion.”

“Hillary Clinton stole the primary election from Sanders” (e.g. in California) 

“Hillary is a neo-con.”

And if you run out of specific accusations, just switch to name calling: Call her a liar and a thief. 

There is a June article by Michael Arnovitz Thinking about Hillary which should be a must read for anyone who is even remotely part of the mass media: It demonstrates convincingly that throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has been subjected to the harshest and most unfounded accusations every time she ran for office or exerted herself to acquire power, only to be appreciated and valued once she was in office and hard at work in policy decisions.

Two things are abominably lacking in the current presidential campaign: (1) detailed attention paid to Hillary Clinton’s outstanding political agenda and qualifications, and (2) a thorough exposure of all the skeletons in Trump’s squalid closet, including his tax returns, his bankruptcies, his fleecing of gullible clients with his pseudo-university, his failure to pay his debtors, contractors and employees in Atlantic City and wherever else he conducted his nefarious businesses, his outsourcing thousands of jobs overseas, his promiscuous sexual past, and more...

© Tom Kando 2016
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