DAYTONA BEACH SHORES -- Over the past couple of weeks we have witnessed a classic example of Hillary Clinton’s normal level of operation. She fails at a major task, takes all of the responsibility but none of the blame, and emerges smelling like a rose.
The classic example was the Whitewater scandal, when she and Bill were still in their Governor of Arkansas and wife incarnation. As you may recall, this was a corrupt real estate investment which went sour and resulted in a number of fraud and other convictions, though not of Bill or Hillary.
They were investigated and the records of the Rose Law firm, which handled the Whitewater investment, were considered vital to that investigation. Hillary worked at the Rose Law firm where Whitewater was among her responsibilities. But the records disappeared.
One witness who might have testified against the Clintons went to jail on contempt charges for refusing to do so and B&H moved on to the White House.
The very day after the expiration of the statute of limitations on the Whitewater case, which meant that anyone involved could no longer be prosecuted, the Rose Law firm records miraculously appeared on the kitchen table of the White House.
Oddly, no one could say how they got there. While president, Bill assigned responsibility for creation and management of a massive reform of health care, similar in many respects to the present Obamacare, to Hillary. She and her senior advisor, Ira Magaziner, produced an extraordinarily detailed and complex proposal which failed miserably in Congress.
Hillary was tarred a bit with this brush but most of the blame fell upon Magaziner.
Whatever effect the failure had on Hillary did not slow her grand procession to the Senate, where she began running as soon as she could carpetbag her way from Washington to New York. Not to be too picky but she also failed in her effort at that time to steal a good bit of furniture, china and other things from the White House, items which belonged to the American people and which were eventually, under media pressure, returned to the people’s house.
Then she strutted into another grand procession, this time to her anticipated coronation as president of the United States, only to suffer a shocking defeat at the hands of Barackula.
But she rebounded from this failure as well and slid smoothly into the most senior of the cabinet positions - Secretary of State. As Secretary she was in constant motion - jetting all over the world, meeting and greeting, smiling and waving, working nonstop while achieving nothing of note.
Hillary as Secretary was an absolute miracle of form over substance. Under Hillary’s foreign policy direction America has become weaker and less influential abroad. Our interests and those of our brave allies such as Israel and Poland have suffered.
Hillary as Secretary was an absolute miracle of form over substance. Under Hillary’s foreign policy direction America has become weaker and less influential abroad. Our interests and those of our brave allies such as Israel and Poland have suffered.
Chinese power grows in the Far East while the despicable regime in North Korea tests primitive nuclear weapons and threatens the US with newly-developed missiles. A chance to perhaps weaken the fanatical Iranian regime was missed during their so-called Green Revolution and Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs continue apace.
Her attempt to “reset” our relationship with Russia went awry - she even used the wrong Russian word for the reset button.
The execrable Hugo Chavez was succeeding in his attempt to emulate Castro in Venezuela until cancer, not Hillary, brought him low.
Hillary lauded the Arab Spring until her naïve expectations of a transformation to pro-American democracy fell afoul of Islamic reality. In Libya she helped Obama to “lead from behind” and discovered that a “light footprint” leads to less control as Qaddafi’s weapons stores flowed into the hands of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, where they are used to threaten US and allied interests, kill Americans and to attack and kill our diplomats in Benghazi.
Ah yes, Benghazi. This is only the latest, but surely not the last, example of Slick Hilly’s extraordinary capacity to avoid blame.
Having neglected the Department’s basic security standards - a three meter wall, a 100 foot setback within the wall, protected doors and windows - Hillary’s Department refused repeated security requests and warnings from her personal friend Ambassador Stevens and even reduced the level of security protection enjoyed by our Mission in Libya.
And when Benghazi burned and the four Americans died, when the body of Ambassador Stevens was dragged through the streets, Hillary ran and hid as fast as ever she could. Based on over three decades of service with the Department of State,
I assure you that Hillary knew as soon as the balloon went up in Benghazi.
But suddenly Hillary was nowhere to be found. She was traveling in other countries. She was tired. She was ill. She fell and hit her head. These excuses may or may not have been real, but at base what Hillary was doing was waiting. She was waiting to see of Barackula’s lie about the video inciting the Benghazi attack would fly.
But suddenly Hillary was nowhere to be found. She was traveling in other countries. She was tired. She was ill. She fell and hit her head. These excuses may or may not have been real, but at base what Hillary was doing was waiting. She was waiting to see of Barackula’s lie about the video inciting the Benghazi attack would fly.
When it didn’t she waited as long as possible to see if some distraction, a disaster somewhere, a football player with a fantasy girlfriend or maybe even a Congressional sex scandal, would divert public and media attention away from Benghazi.
She was waiting to see how the election turned out. But mostly she was waiting to get her ducks in a row. She had to get past the election so that the Democrats on the House and Senate committees questioning her could engage in what was largely an arranged exercise in serial genuflection without risking pressure from back home. This, I imagine she reasoned, would offset the public impression created by any harsh Republican probing.
Perhaps most of all she was waiting for the completion of the report of the Administrative Review Board on the Benghazi tragedy, a report which oh-so - helpfully found that only officials several grades below Hillary bore any responsibility for Benghazi.
The ARB, as it was called, gave her something to rely on, something to point to, something to deflect the criticisms which might otherwise have fallen on her. And when Republicans finally had their opportunity all but a few proved weak-kneed and Hilly oozed out of another failure with none of the blame clinging to her.
This left her with nothing to look forward to but the praises of a slavish media and a series of carefully managed PR events as she bade farewell to her stint as Secretary and began her preparations to respond, with the greatest of reluctance, to the “calls of the people” that she accept the Presidency in 2016.
The later love fest with Barackula on “60 Minutes” was just the icing on her cake. It was her modern version of the Rose Law firm records on the kitchen table.
It was Hillary thumbing her nose at Republicans and other conservatives while smiling and saying, “I will be President in 2016, if I want to and there is nothing you can do about it.” Sadly, so sadly for our country, she is probably right.