By Alan Caruba
Other than earning her law degree,
name one thing that Hillary Clinton has accomplished on her own. Her
accomplishments—slim as they are—have been achieved on the coattails of either
Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
Had she not been the First Lady, would
anyone have ever heard of her in the context of high power political posts? The
short answer is no. She had traded on her celebrity and name recognition to
become a Senator from New York and then, after a failed bid to become the
Democratic Party’s candidate for President, accepted the position of Secretary
of State.
Obama wanted to make sure she was
“inside the tent” during his first term and, following that, her resignation has
permitted her to now begin distancing herself from a man that many regard the
worst President the nation has ever had.
Let’s back up a moment. Is there a
single piece of major legislation during her term as a Senator from January 3,
2001 to January 21, 2009 attributed to her? The answer is no even though she
served on important committees that included the budget; armed services;
environment and public works; health; education; labor and pensions; and a
special committee on aging. No point reviewing her voting record. If her former
votes pose a political problem for her now, they will simply be
dismissed.
During her four years as Secretary of
State, can you name a single treaty that generated any significant media
coverage? Again, no, If what political pundits believe and her own book
reflects, her views on foreign affairs, strategic objectives and other weighty
matters was entirely directed from the Oval Office of the White House. Now, it
is true that the Secretary of State’s job is to carry out the President’s
foreign policy, but at this point we know he had no consistent or strategic
policy other than to ignore the Middle East and make nice with Russia.
As Secretary of State Hillary spent
most of the time flying anywhere in the world so as not to be seen that much
with Obama, but when the Benghazi consulate was attacked on September 11, 2012,
killing our ambassador and three security personnel, what we learned was that
she had previously paid little or no attention to the question of its protection
at a time when other embassies in Libya were closing their doors to avoid
attacks. The picture that emerged following the attack was that of someone
simply occupying the office without devoting much time to the management of the
State Department.
It’s one thing to allocate management
to those in the Department responsible for its vast responsibilities, but the
buck still stops at the Secretary’s desk and what we learned following the
attack is that she backed up the absurd lies of the President who claimed that
it was the result of a video no one had seen and a casual group of men who
decided to attack the consulate. On the anniversary of 9/11!!! Questioned about it by a Senate committee,
she famously said, “What difference at this time does it make?” It makes a lot of difference when the
President and Secretary of State lie to the nation and the
world.
After returning to private life
following Obama’s reelection Hillary outrageously claimed that she and Bill were
“dead broke” when they left the White House. Hillary’s inclination to say stupid
things and lie without any need to should be especially troubling should she run
for President and, yes, she has been running for a very long
time.
In Hillary we have a person who has
given little evidence of legislative or management skills who wants to be the
first woman President of the United States. It will look good on her
resume.
What, in fact, does she have to offer?
Just as Obama offered voters the chance to say they had voted for the first
black candidate for President, Hillary offers them the chance to say they voted
for the first woman President.
That is not reason enough to elect
anyone, black, white, man or woman.
We have learned from the Obama
experience that his Marxist ideology, attachment to Islam, and disdain for the
U.S. military has proven to be a formula for economic and foreign policy
disasters. His signature legislation, Obamacare aka the Affordable Patient Care
Act, has proven to be the antithesis of his promises that one could keep their
own healthcare insurance and doctor if they wanted. It has been an unmitigated
failure since a Democratic Party controlled Congress voted it into law in 2009
without a single Republican vote. In 2010 the voters gave political power in the
House to the GOP.
Would Hillary allow Obamacare to be
repealed if that was passed by Congress? Would she take steps to destroy the
Islamic State threat in the Middle East? Or simply said, would she cease to be
an extreme liberal masquerading as a moderate or centrist?
Do we want to elect a woman who in
early September told a conference in Las Vegas that “Climate change is the most
consequential, urgent, sweeping collections of challenges we face. The threat is
real, and so is the opportunity…if we make the hard choices.” This is abject
idiocy.
I find all the talk of her candidacy
at this point to be obscene. It is an insult to the Democratic Party, but then
so is Obama. If she is not opposed by primary candidates within the Party or she
floats to candidacy simply as a political celebrity, simply as a woman, then the
Party deserves to be massively defeated in 2016. We may get an indication of
that in the November midterm elections.
I wish Hillary Clinton would simply go
away and permit a serious election to occur.
© Alan Caruba, 2014
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