HILLARY CLINTON DESERVES A LOOK FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

….Hillary Clinton, from a different P.O.V.

 

Hillary in real life is not as some have said.

 

I have for some time wondered where all the negative attitude toward Hillary Clinton came from in the first place.  What was it that occurred in her past that encouraged the mistrust and support for the “unfavorable” rating of the former Secretary of State?

 

I now think I have finally come up with the item that was so widely distributed decades ago that started the negative concept on Hillary.  After a column that was written by a well-known writer that was distributed across the newspapers years ago, the far right then got ahold of it and they have continued to sell the idea that the former First Lady was and is a terrible individual.

 

The whole thing started back in January of 1996, while investigations were underway in the Clinton’s involvement in an investment operation called “Whitewater”.  

 

At that time, the very conservative writer, William Safire wrote a scathing and now-famous essay about Hillary Clinton entitled, “Blizzard of Lies”.

 

In the piece he called her a “congenital liar”, and accused her of forcing her friends and subordinates into a “web of deceit”. He insisted (without any apparent evidence) that she “took bribes, evaded taxes, forced her own attorneys to perjure themselves, she ‘bamboozled’ bank regulators, and was actively involved in criminal enterprises that defrauded the government of millions of dollars”. He ended his piece by stating that, “She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.”

 

It does appear that this short essay was the birth of the “Hillary is a Liar” theme.

 

Not long after the Safire addition, came an article by Henry Louis Gates. The article was called “Hating Hillary”.  It was written by Gates for the New Yorker magazine, also published in 1996.

 

Gates wrote: "In the course of a single conversation, I have been assured that Hillary is cunning and manipulative but also crass, clueless, and stunningly impolitic; that she is a hopelessly woolly-headed do-gooder and, at heart, a hardball litigator; that she is a base opportunist and a zealot convinced that God is on her side. What emerges is a cultural inventory of villainy rather than a plausible depiction of an actual person." - Henry Louis Gates.  Even now, 20 years after it was first published, it’s a very impressive item that you can still find via Google.

 

What is interesting is that Bill Safire was eventually proven wrong about everything he had written.  Despite the fact that Safire had stated that he would have to “eat crow,” if she were ever cleared of his claims, Safire never apologized or even acknowledged his many errors.  This is because, as we all now know, “When you ‘swift-boat’ someone, that means you never have to say you’re sorry”.

Therefore, at the time the original Safire essay was published, the Republicans then started rubbing their hands together as they passed along the information and quotes from the Safire and Gates articles and thus began the “Legend of Hillary”.

 

So today, because of all this, to the conservatives, “Hillary is a radical left-wing insurgent who has on multiple occasions been compared to Mikhail Suslov.  (If you are unaware of Suslov, he is the long-time Chief of Ideology in the Soviet Kremlin.)

 

Now, on the other end, to many liberal progressives, Hillary Clinton is a Republican in Democratic sheep’s clothing, a shill for Wall Street, and someone who doesn’t give a damn about the working class.

 

The fact that these views could not possibly apply to the same single person does not seem to give either side any pause. Hillary haters on both the right and the left seem perfectly happy to maintain their mutually incompatible delusions about why she is so awful. The only thing that both groups seem to share is the insistence that Hillary is a conspirator and implacable liar, unworthy of society’s trust.

Today, decades from the original Safire publication, for a surprisingly large percentage of the current electorate, the claim that Hillary is basically dishonest is many times accepted as a given.  It is a conviction so ingrained in the on-going conversations about her, that any attempt to even question it is often met with shock.

 

But the reality is that the claim of dishonesty is not true.  For example, Politifact, the Pulitzer prize-winning fact-checking operation has determined that Hillary has actually been the most truthful candidate (of either Party) during the latest 2016 primary election season.  And in general, Politifact has determined that Hillary is more honest than most of the politicians they have tracked over the years.

In addition, there is Jill Abramson’s recent article in The Guardian. 

 

Abramson, is a former reporter for Rupert Murdoch’s conservative, Wall Street Journal, as well as the former Executive Editor of the New York Times. She had this to say about Hillary’s honesty: “As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in ‘Hillaryland’. That makes what I say next, very surprising.  Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.”

Notice how Abramson uses the word “surprising”?  She’s obviously doing that for the public’s benefit, because she knows that many readers will be astonished at the very thought of Hillary being “fundamentally honest”.

After the original Safire piece, Republicans, who had learned from Richard Nixon to never to let a good propaganda opportunity pass, they began repeating the accusations of untruthfulness to anyone who would broadcast or print them.  And if you doubt the staying power of Safire’s piece, today you can type the phrase “congenital liar” into a Google search along with “Hillary Clinton” and see what happens. To this day, “that exact phrase, “congenital liar,” is still proudly used by many on the right whenever referring to Hillary Clinton”.

 

Today, what is so interesting is how Hillary is considered, whether she is in a position of power, or if she is running for a position of power.  The one thing that seems to most negatively and consistently affect public perception of Hillary is any attempt by her to seek public power. Once she actually has that power, her polls always go up.  But whenever she asks for or seeks that power, her numbers drop like a cast-iron manhole cover.

Hillary is nobody’s idea of perfect. That's fine. But if a well-known, liberal man with her qualifications had been running in the latest Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders would have been done before he even started. And if a man with her qualifications had been running for the Republicans, they’d be calling him the next Ronald Reagan, while trying to have Reagan’s face added to Mount Rushmore.

Most of those people who hate Hillary when she’s running for office, usually end up liking her just fine, once she’s won.  And if she wins, you can have every confidence that history will repeat itself again this November.

 

I have been personally watching Presidential elections since before Richard Nixon, and never in my life has there been an easier voting choice than today.  Trump is not merely a bad choice, he is (as many leading Republicans have already admitted) a catastrophic choice, unfit in every possible way for the office of the American Presidency.

Yes, Hillary will disappoint us all on occasion.  But what president doesn’t?

 

However, I think she’s also going to surprise a lot of people.  Hillary would keep us from the damage of a right-wing Supreme Court’s effect on the nation. She will stand for the rights of women, LGBT Americans, and the minorities. She will maintain critical global relationships, and she will react to dangerous situations with the temperament of a seasoned and experienced professional.

 

And in a nation that didn’t even allow women to vote until 1920, she will make history by shattering the very highest glass ceiling.  In doing so, she will forever change the way the next generation of young women view their place in our Republic.

 

Think about this nation under Hillary versus Trump……OK, that’s definitely enough said.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016