Hillary’s scars and secrets
You watch the Commander-in-Chief’s forum, and you see clearly that Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for office. But the race is too close for comfort. Why?
First, Hillary Clinton is a woman. It’s that simple. And it’s unfair. But it’s a fact.
Second, she and Bill have been on the front pages of national politics for a quarter-century. That’s a long time. You build up a lot of negatives, and you pile up a lot of haters.
But a lot of people who’ve been on that stage a long time have a happy-warrior aspect to them. Bill, for one. Joe Biden. The late Ted Kennedy. Not Hillary. When she smiles, it’s through gritted teeth. And you get that, given all the hits she’s taken.
And there’s something else here, something that doesn’t have to be here.
That something traces back to her suspicious nature, her penchant for secrecy and her ill-concealed hostility to the media.
I have learned one lesson from being around the media for fifty years (I started when I was seven): If you treat the media with suspicion and hostility, they will repay you with suspicion and hostility.
That’s why the media won’t let go of the email questions. They say, “There are still unanswered questions!” And “she can’t put away this issue!” (Of course not. You won’t let her.)
When Clinton makes herself available for questions, reporters pursue her more relentlessly on her emails than they pursue Trump on the hundreds of questionable things he’s said and done.
The Washington Post says all her problems go back to a fateful White House meeting on December 11, 1993, when the Clintons rejected aides’ advice that they release documents relating to the Whitewater real estate deal.
From then on, the Clintons have stuck to a strategy of defiance and stonewalling, based on the perfectly rational rationale that their enemies would use anything they released against them.
So the media always assumes the Clintons are hiding something.
And the cycle feeds on itself.
Hillary worked on the Watergate investigation, so she should learn a lesson from Richard Nixon.
In his maudlin farewell speech, Nixon said, “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
That was good advice, though Nixon lacked the self-awareness to take it himself.
Hillary needs to heed it. She probably will win the election even If she doesn’t. But then what happens? Will she survive four more years of this?
Hillary’s scars and secrets
You watch the Commander-in-Chief’s forum, and you see clearly that Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for office. But the race is too close for comfort. Why?
First, Hillary Clinton is a woman. It’s that simple. And it’s unfair. But it’s a fact.
Second, she and Bill have been on the front pages of national politics for a quarter-century. That’s a long time. You build up a lot of negatives, and you pile up a lot of haters.
But a lot of people who’ve been on that stage a long time have a happy-warrior aspect to them. Bill, for one. Joe Biden. The late Ted Kennedy. Not Hillary. When she smiles, it’s through gritted teeth. And you get that, given all the hits she’s taken.
And there’s something else here, something that doesn’t have to be here.
That something traces back to her suspicious nature, her penchant for secrecy and her ill-concealed hostility to the media.
I have learned one lesson from being around the media for fifty years (I started when I was seven): If you treat the media with suspicion and hostility, they will repay you with suspicion and hostility.
That’s why the media won’t let go of the email questions. They say, “There are still unanswered questions!” And “she can’t put away this issue!” (Of course not. You won’t let her.)
When Clinton makes herself available for questions, reporters pursue her more relentlessly on her emails than they pursue Trump on the hundreds of questionable things he’s said and done.
The Washington Post says all her problems go back to a fateful White House meeting on December 11, 1993, when the Clintons rejected aides’ advice that they release documents relating to the Whitewater real estate deal.
From then on, the Clintons have stuck to a strategy of defiance and stonewalling, based on the perfectly rational rationale that their enemies would use anything they released against them.
So the media always assumes the Clintons are hiding something.
And the cycle feeds on itself.
Hillary worked on the Watergate investigation, so she should learn a lesson from Richard Nixon.
In his maudlin farewell speech, Nixon said, “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
That was good advice, though Nixon lacked the self-awareness to take it himself.
Hillary needs to heed it. She probably will win the election even If she doesn’t. But then what happens? Will she survive four more years of this?