Back in 2007, I decided to support Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton for many reason, the most important of which was I didn't think Hillary was a good enough politician to get elected president. Now, 8 years later I'm starting to have my doubts about Hillary again.
I'm not going to rehash all the details of the Hillary email controversy here, but the more I learn about the details, the worse it looks for Hillary. Using her private email address to conduct official government business? Unwise and a little bit fishy, but nothing that could keep her from becoming President. What's that? Her email account was hosted on her own private server? On her own property? Ummmm - uhhhhhh, that's really not good. Well, if she's smart, she could still do some effective damage control. She could let some 3rd party review all the emails and release only those related to official State Department business; perhaps some respected veteran Republican congressperson or governor with who cares about his/her legacy enough that he/she would not even think of releasing any personal emails. I'm sure McCain would love to be involved in something like that. He'd be so eager to find damaging emails about Benghazi, I'm sure he'd ignore that email about Bill's latest threesome. It's important that Hillary let a Republican take a look at the emails to prove she has nothing to hide. What?!? She's already deleted the emails? OK, but Hillary's attorney is telling us that all of Hillary's emails had been reviewed before they were deleted from her server and all the work-related emails were sent to the State Department. Well, that might be OK. Who did those reviews? Her own fucking attorneys did those reviews?!? Really?!? You're kidding, right? No, really, you're kidding? Seriously? No, c'mon - you have got to be fucking kidding!
Look, I don't want to hear any of my liberal friends defending Hillary. I'm you are going to defend Hillary, you'd better be ready to defend Chris Christie for doing his own George Washing Bridge investigation. You'd better to be ready defend Dick Cheney for never disclosing any details of the Energy Task Force he convened in 2001. You had better be ready to defend Richard Nixon's 18 minutes of missing tapes.
There's simply no defense of any of this. All liberals should want the government to be transparent, and Hillary was about as intentionally non-transparent as she could be about these emails. And look, this isn't going to stop me from voting for Hillary if she runs against any Republican, but it really makes me question her judgement, and makes me seriously consider whether she's be the best Democratic nominee for 2016.
The polls certainly suggest that she's still the best option, but the polls can't predict how she'll perform in a long campaign. If 2008 is any indication, she really doesn't know what she's doing. She seemed politically tone-deaf in that campaign. I mean - seriously - Mark Penn?
I know that Mark Penn worked for Bill Clinton too, but there is a huge difference between Bill and Hillary politically. The main difference is that Bill is a great liar while Hillary is a terrible liar. That's because Bill has had so much more practice. When Hillary lies she does it out of political necessity. Bill Clinton lies because he's Bill Clinton.
Now, don't get me wrong, I loved having Bill as president, and would happily elect him to a third term if I could. Politics isn't a game for Boy Scouts, and you need some serious "Slick Willie" skills to get by in this game. When Republicans were playing hardball, I was always happy to have Bill Clinton on my side.
But let's face it "likable enough" Hillary Clinton doesn't has anywhere near Bill's charisma, so If she's going to succeed in a national campaign, she's going to need to be smart. Based on what I've seen in 2008 and the last month, I'm not really sure that she is.
Rich
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