But for us to really decide about Hillary, we have to consider a vicuna coat. And we have to consider that a vicuna coat has a price much higher than an Armani.
You're supposed to say, "Okay, what's the price of a vicuna coat?"
The answer is: the second most powerful position in Washington D.C.
Back in Eisenhower's presidency his chief of staff and right-hand man, Sherman Adams, controlled access to Ike. Because of his ruthless refusal to let Congressional leaders and others see the president, Adams was called "the abominable no man". Then this powerful man slipped up. He accepted a vicuna coat and some other gifts from a friend who was having trouble with a federal agency. Next, Adams made some calls to the agency on his friend's behalf. The story leaked, and the second most powerful man in Washingon was out on his keister. Goodby, Sherman! Here's your coat and what's your hurry!
No proof was offered that he had knowingly and wittingly broken any federal laws. There was no proof of any quid pro quo agreement. No proof was even demanded.
It was enough that his actions had the appearance of impropriety. As my sainted Irish politico mother used to say, "The appearance of propriety is as important as propriety itself."
That's still true. So why isn't Hillary Clinton being held to this standard? If it has been applied to the second most important position in Washington, surely it applies to the most powerful position in the world. Yet Hillary Clinton is consistently being judged by the wrong standard. Unlike Sherman Adams, she's getting off scott free and for misdeeds far more serious than what Adams did. Instead of a vicuna coat Hillary Clinton, hand in glove with husband Bill, has taken huge contributions from businessmen and foreign governments that were conducting business with the State Department when she was Secretary of State. Hillary's Emails as Cover-up for Pay-to-Play. Part 2 of Clinton's End. She even signed off as Secretary of State on Russia's acquiring 20% of America's uranium, as reported in the New York Times. Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal ...
By comparison with Hillary, Sherman Adams was a cheap date, his vicuna coat being a nothing compared to the many millions of dollars poured into the Clinton Foundation and the milllions handed to Bill as "speaking fees". On top of this, Hillary ignored federal law when Secretary and used a private server to handle all her emails so that her financial shenanigans would be beyond the reach of disclosure. This second layer of misconduct put our nation's secrets at risk, something Sherman Adams never approached doing. She compounded greed and impropriety with virtual treason.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck! She looks and sounds like a duck to me.
In Ike's day looking like a wrong 'un was enough to get you canned. We expected people in high office to act properly, to behave themselves, to appear honest as well as be honest. This was still true even in the deplorable Nixon era. Remember please that Nixon resigned the presidency before he was impeached and even before any impeachment went to trial. What he had done looked so bad that even he realized post facto that he hadn't saved himself by going on TV and vowing, "I am not a crook!" The issue of being a crook should never even have come up, and he knew it. He knew his reputation, stature and presidency were done for.
Hillary Clinton saw the Nixon saga first-hand. She was on-site as a young attorney working for the House committee that was preparing the impeachment. But all she seemingly learned was that if you do something wrong it isn't enough to stonewall about the evidence as Nixon tried with the tape recordings that included a smoking gun. The Supreme Court ordered those tapes be handed over to a prosecutor, and thus the smoking gun was revealed. From observing Watergate Hillary didn't learn to keep her nose clean; she learned to erase evidence. No smoking guns were going to be left lying around in Hillary's life. When she left the Secretary of State job, she erased 32,000 of her emails, claiming—on no evidence but her own statement— that these were all private emails, mainly about her daughter's wedding and her mother's funeral.
Such a wedding! Such a funeral! 32,000 emails worth of wedding and funeral arrangements! Yikes!
We don't have to prove the elements of a crime in order to conclude as a nation—and as a political party and in the media—that Hillary Clinton is unfit to be president of the United States of America. Inappropriately, the media and Hillary's spokespeople keep arguing there is not enough evidence of the "knowing and willful" elements that a criminal conviction requires. Baloney! She isn't being tried in a court of criminal law. There's no need for a court of criminal law. We have never had to wait for a criminal conviction to determine that someone is unfit to lead us as president or serve as a presidential aide.
She must be tried in the court of public opinion, held to account just like Sherman Adams, and—knowing what we now know—be deemed unsuitable for high position and our trust.
The following excerpt by Phillip Jennings in USA Today says it well. Now an author and commentator, Jennings was a Marine pilot in Vietnam and here has written about a young officer who did the honorable thing, owning up to a minor infraction of security rules even though he knew the disclosure could ruin his career. And it did. Jenning writes:
"Clinton is the antithesis of that young captain, [she is] someone with no honor, little courage and commitment only to her endless ambition. This has nothing to do with gender, party affiliation, ideology or policy. It is a question of character.....What we already know about her security infractions should disqualify her for any government position that deals in information critical to mission success, domestic or foreign. But beyond that, her responses to being found out — dismissing its importance, claiming ignorance, blaming others — indict her beyond anything the investigation can reveal. Those elements reveal her character. And the saddest thing is that so many in America seem not to care."
But we do care.
And we care about whether she is too stupid to be president. Is she stupid? Yes! Because she never believes she'll get caught. She and Bill never believe that. And they thoroughly believe that, if caught, they can lie their way out of anything. Boston Herald editorial: Hillary Clinton's Endless Lies
They probably can't lie their way out this time. "Clinton Cash", a well-reviewed movie documenting her as being on-the-take, opens in major cities in July right at the time of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. And of course Philly is one of the major cities with a scheduled showing.
Clearly it won't be just Bernie Sanders' folks making rumblings in Philadelphia at the Democratic convention. I'll bet a fair number of delegates will ask each other, "You want to go see a movie?"
That should produce a rumbling that's a roar!
That should produce a rumbling that's a roar!
For $12,495, Hillary got snookered. It's an awful coat! It hangs badly, has dreadful colors and a dumb neckline, is wrinkled, and makes her look like a bag lady who just got something cheap off the rack at Goodwill. For all her millions, it's still poor Hillary.
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