HILLARY CLINTON R.I.P. — AN END DEVOUTLY TO BE DESIRED
HILLARY CLINTON R.I.P. — AN END DEVOUTLY TO BE DESIRED
Well now that the Democratic Convention is over, and Obama has been officially installed as the Democratic nominee, we can, at least for the nonce, say goodbye to Hillary Clinton (although I remain of the view that, regrettably, we have not seen the last of her on the presidential stage; if Obama loses this year, I would not be the least bit surprised to see Hillary making a vigorous effort to secure the nomination in 2012). While I am certainly not an Obama fan, I was delighted to see the pummeling that he visited upon Hillary.
I know that some — particularly Democrats unwilling to substitute facts for feelings — may argue that I have been unduly harsh with our former first lady. I beg to disagree — this woman is the neatest combination of dishonesty, incompetence, and malevolence that I have ever seen in one aspiring to any position of responsibility, let alone the highest office in the land. Indeed, she seems to have an inherent animus toward the truth, even when lying is neither necessary nor desirable. Of course, having lived a lie throughout her married life, it is almost second nature to her now. Lying about the state of her marriage is understandable - she had to hold onto that marriage if she were to ever have a shot at high office. That said, some of her other lies are less understandable; they reflect as much on her judgment and competence as they do on her character. And, if in fact she is finished (in terms of her run at the White House) then we have really dodged a lethal bullet (and, as noted, for that we owe Senator Obama a vote of thanks, although, as suggested in the title to a previous column, Senator Clinton’s demise is more a matter of suicide than any act of Obama’s — she just doesn’t have the goods!!!). And that has been the point of these columns — not to rehash her mendacity and meanness, but to put the lie to the notion that this a really smart woman, let alone the world’s smartest.
For a concluding note on her ineptitude — let’s take another look at how she ran her campaign for the presidency. The September issue of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine has a lengthy column by Joshua Green, illustrating how Hillary’s mismanagement of her campaign probably cost her her chance at the Presidency (again, Obama didn’t beat her; she beat herself). The article goes into great detail about the internecine warfare that went on inside the Clinton campaign, a war that Hillary, “the world’s smartest woman,” was unable to peacefully resolve. Her complete failure in this regard — as demonstrated in great detail in this article — makes it abundantly clear that her management style remains the same as that which she utilized in her handling of her health care proposal — a style, you will recall, that Bradford Delong, a staffer on her committee and a Cal Berkely economics professor, observed that was such that should make it abundantly clear that she should be kept far away from the White House. The Atlantic Monthly column entitled The Front-Runner’s Fall can be found at www.Atlantic.com; it refers to, and links to, a number of memos and reports written by Hillary’s people and illustrates the turf over which some of the war’s battles were fought
Hillary has not only accomplished nothing, she has screwed up every assignment for which she assumed responsibility. Moreover, it is clear, based on her record, that were her name not Clinton she would not have been given any such assignment in the first place. And this is the entire point of the last 3 columns — to put the lie to the myth of her vaunted intellect. Much has always been made of her integrity, her anger, her mendacity, but her alleged intellectual gifts have always been put forward by her acolytes and a complicit media as a reason for overlooking these more objectionable aspects of her make up. I believe that an accurate assessment of Hillary Clinton is long overdue. The bottom line is simply this - she has neither the temperament nor the talent, the character nor the competence to be put in charge of any significant project, let alone that of commander-in-chief of our magnificent country!!! She is not just fundamentally dishonest and unlikeable, she is incompetent!
This column was not written to pile on Hillary, nor because I dislike the woman — I do, and I do because I feel that she is not just a fraud but a really vicious and mean spirited fraud. No, it is in the nature of an expose. I hate dishonesty, and I find the Clintons, in general, and Hillary, in particular, the most mendacious people that I have ever encountered; he just tells lies — she lives them, and foists them upon us. Again, this column is not about her personality (angry and mean), her integrity (virtually non existent), or her essential dishonesty; it is about her terminal incompetence. From the D.C. Bar Exam to the mismanagement of her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has been a managerial trainwreck, leaving an unbroken trail of failure in her wake, bearing fatal witness to her essential incompetence. If you can’t manage a campaign, how can we expect you to manage a country. In addition, the Atlantic article should be the final demonstration that Hillary is something considerably less thanthe world’s smartest anything. In the Senate, a body distinguished for its collegiality more than its brilliance, Hillary may either get lost, or use her audacity and brazen it through, giving the untutored the impression that she is much more capable than she really is. Left to her own devices, however, with the result being fully exposed, she is, quite simply, a management (let alone leadership) disaster.
One final word on this miscreant. I believe that she will be working diligently behind the scenes to elect John McCain. She is not getting any younger, and I don’t believe she either wants to, or can afford to, wait until 2016. Why 2016? Because if Obama wins in 2008, barring a disastrous term in office, he will be the Democratic incumbent in 2012, making 2016 the first opportunity for Hillary to take another shot at it. So, I would bet the farm that she will be pulling for McCain, and, of course, characteristic of Hillary, will be doing so in such a manner as to leave no finger prints. And, in this worthy endeavor, she will have my full support.On to Obama!