In other words, she lied. Again. And about Emailgate as well. And just yesterday, when she insisted that she's never, not a single time, lied about either and then reiterated the same lies she'd just lied about, dismissing all the investigations and probes as, without saying so (surprisingly), part of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy.
But what else can she do? She completely lacks her husband's ability to hypnotize people into believing everything she says. Benghazigate isn't nearly as much of a threat because that scandal is so old, but Emailgate is fresh as a morning daisy and she's in it up to her bushy eyebrows, and while her coverup will be enough to keep her out of any criminal prosecution (no matter what Dick Morris thinks; Huma Abedin-Weiner, on the other hand.....), the multiple PR body blows to her campaign's viability are unavoidable. Plus the image she wants to create of being a "fighter" is hardly augmented by her hiding from the press and public like she's been doing for months, even though increasing her public visibility will just make her more unpopular because in her ability to annoy people she makes Sheldon Cooper look like the Dos Equis beer spokesman.
In short, she has no good options, but she's got to do something. And leave us not forget the only campaign strategy open to her: Nuclear scorched earth negativity leavened by capillary-bursting audacity. "These are not the droids you're looking for," and all that.
And, thus, Mrs. Clinton in Iowa yesterday:
Hillary Clinton offered a fierce defense of her handling of the 2012 Benghazi attacks and her use of a private email server as Barack Obama's secretary of state, dismissing the controversies as "partisan games" in a speech before influential Iowa Democrats on Friday.
"They'll try to tell you it's about Benghazi, but it's not," [Mrs.] Clinton said, pointing to Republican-led congressional inquiries that she said had "debunked all the conspiracy theories."
It's a very interesting quantum history from which Hillary comes, isn't it? Too bad it doesn't happen to be this one.
"It's not about emails or servers either. It's about politics," she said.
There's the moral supremacy angle. Since Democrats are of the the "right tribe," they are incapable of doing anything wrong, while Republicans, being of the "wrong tribe," are inherently evil to begin with. Check.
"I won't get down in the mud with them.
In their "mud," IOW. She will, however, bury them in her OWN mud, and this was the first salvo.
I won't play politics with national security," [Mrs.] Clinton said at the annual Wing Ding, a Democrat fundraiser in northern Iowa that attracted three other presidential candidates.
That's a functionally meaningless term that ought to be expunged from the political lexicon. EVERYTHING that takes place in politics is "political" by definition. "Playing politics" simply means being in politics and retaining a pulse. And, of course, nobody - AND JASMIUS MEANS NOBODY - plays politics more, and dirtier, than Hillary Rodham Clinton, as this speech demonstrates.
I did find this little detail interesting in the context of concerns about her health and age:
[Mrs.] Clinton, who at one point quelled a coughing fit with a drink of water, sought to take on twin controversies that have buffeted her presidential campaign while presenting herself as combative, tough Democrat prepared to fight Republicans in the race to succeed Obama. [emphasis added]
Was that just a tickle in her throat or was it something more? Cowardice or regal stand-offishness might not be the only reason she's been a comparative hermit over recent months.
Is it "playing politics" to point that out? Well, good; I rather enjoy playing politics, as it happens.
Though obviously not nearly as much as Her Nib.
And that's no lie.
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