Revving up the old, sad attack machine
For Republicans, the strong likelihood that their presidential nominee will face a Democrat named Clinton is not a happy prospect — especially when that particular nominee could make history as America’s first female President. Which must be why they have been at work for many months already seeking every possible means to denigrate and demean Hillary Rodham Clinton.
When journalists warn that she is “polarizing,” a favorite cliche, what they mean is that we can expect a steady, increasingly vituperative barrage of insults, gossip and sensational headlines, with or without substance. What the Republican opposition research specialists haven’t determined yet is which topics resonate most powerfully against Clinton, one of the most durably popular political figures in the country.
But while voters will inevitably find themselves bombarded with negative memes about Clinton, they ought to pay close attention to what her adversaries aren’t saying as well.
So far, her angry critics on the right have tried to revive none of the old scandal stories that dogged the Clinton White House and dominated media coverage during her husband’s presidency — or at least none of the scandal stories that supposedly implicated Hillary as well as Bill. Although critics complain constantly of “Clinton fatigue” and snark continuously about her “baggage,” rarely do they refer to the ’90s sensations that became famous as Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate and so on.
Why not? They were all proved bogus, after tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent by congressional committees and special prosecutors investigating them. Despite constant predictions that Hillary Clinton would be disgraced or even indicted in the Whitewater probe, she was ultimately cleared of every accusation. The same was true of all the other “gates.”
Unable to refresh such material, Clinton’s determined antagonists have instead sought to capitalize on Benghazi, where Libyan terrorists killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. After 10 investigations, however — including an official probe that led to disciplinary action against several State Department officials and many changes in diplomatic security procedures — the notion that Clinton had personally done wrong, or misled investigators, proved baseless.
Of course the Republicans haven’t quite given up on Benghazi — even after the Republican-led House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence definitively dismissed the charges against Clinton last year. The recent furor over her emails arose from the effort by Rep. Trey Gowdy, who chairs the House committee investigating Benghazi, to revive an exhausted issue. (That’s his job.)
But Clinton appears to have done nothing more egregious in disposing of her emails than her predecessors. She has turned over tens of thousands of emails to the State Department; former Secretary of State Colin Powell admits that he destroyed all the electronic records of his tenure. And Condoleezza Rice claims she hardly used email at all.
Coming attractions from the opposition research studios seem certain to feature the Clinton Foundation, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to pursue health, environmental, educational and civil society projects around the world. A significant portion of that money was raised abroad, from governments and individuals that support the foundation’s work — for very good reason.
Supported by that funding, for instance, the foundation’s assault on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in poor countries has improved and even saved millions of lives. Yes, a Saudi billionaire donated millions to provide anti-retroviral drugs to AIDS-afflicted Ethiopians, yet it seems morally dubious to argue that Bill Clinton ought to have refused his money and simply let those women and children die.
Such facts won’t discourage Hillary Clinton’s opponents from sowing suspicion of her family’s charitable endeavors. She will have to respond by informing voters about what she has actually done — and why all the “scandals” that were once expected to bring her down never did.
Hillary was cleared