The Peculiar Evil of Hillary Clinton

Before I explain, let's get one thing straight: anyone who advocates physically harming any presidential candidate is a lunatic. In many ways, American society has still not fully recovered from the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Our system of government provides for the peaceful and orderly transition of power through quadrennial elections. Peaceful elections are a hallmark of America's strength and stability; violent changes in leadership characterize the chaos of third-rate dictatorships.

Though usually peaceful, American elections are cauldrons of vigorous debate. Presidential campaigns, prelude to the ultimate election, vividly demonstrate our extraordinary political vitality. Wallflowers do not compete.

In the heat of spirited discussion, candidates will inevitably make unfortunate statements. Nobody's perfect, especially under the unique pressures of a presidential campaign. Still, there is a line that should never be crossed, and that leads me back to Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton has frequently been described as cold, calculating, and insincere. During an appearance several years ago on "The View", Bill O'Reilly described Hillary as "corrupt, dishonest, and mean-spirited." However, within the past year or so, he's backed off of that position. His earlier opinion was more accurate.

One cogent point that Mr. O'Reilly continues to make is that because she hedges on everything, nobody knows what Mrs. Clinton really believes. Hillary is the ultimate spinner, and what a tangled web she weaves! The obfuscation of one's beliefs is a subtle and effective form of dishonesty. Every demagogue from Julius Caesar to Fidel Castro has used it.

An honest candidate will make his or her views clearly known and risk the opprobrium of voters. Not Hillary Clinton.

Her waffling on a simple yes-or-no question about drivers' licenses for illegal aliens during a Democratic presidential debate was merely the latest in a long line of Clintonian dodges. She voted for the congressional resolution authorizing military force against Saddam Hussein and then castigated President Bush for invading Iraq. Senator Clinton has expressed support for increased border security while pandering to those who would effectively abolish our national boundaries. She proposed a $ 5,000 "Baby Bond" for every child born in the USA and then quickly withdrew that suggestion. She has often changed her accent but now assures us that she has found her voice.

Will the real Hillary Clinton please stand up?

Mrs. Clinton has been plagued by scandals. In fairness, it is virtually impossible for anyone running for the presidency to have an entirely unblemished image.

Barack Obama has been hurt by his association with indicted financier Tony Rezko, whose fraud trial begins on March 3, a day before the pivotal Texas and Ohio primaries. Obama also looked foolish when, in a subsequent debate, he stepped in the same quicksand that Mrs. Clinton did, flubbing the question of drivers' licenses for illegal aliens.

On the Republican side, there is the straight-talking John McCain. A genuine war hero hailing from a distinguished military family, Mr. McCain endured five years of torture in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" after he was shot down by the North Vietnamese. Like Barack Obama, John McCain is a fundamentally honest, decent man who is far from perfect.

McCain has famously flipped-flopped on the illegal alien issue. He co-sponsored wildly unsuccessful de facto amnesty legislation with Senator Ted Kennedy and then morphed into a pit-bull on border security. Mr. McCain has been linked to the infamous "Keating Five" congressional influence peddling scandal of the 1980s. He has expressed remorse for his poor judgment regarding that incident. During the 2008 presidential campaign, conservatives and liberals have raised questions about the propriety of his relationships with Washington lobbyists.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is something of an Elmer Gantry. Although his quest for the Republican presidential nomination is all but over, Mr. Huckabee continues to hope that a miracle will save him from defeat. A former Baptist minister, Huckabee is a glib speaker and a fierce debater. But in a December 12, 2007 New York Times Magazine interview, he offered the canard that Mormons "believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers." At a nationally televised press conference, Huckabee played an ad accusing Mitt Romney of dishonesty while disingenuously announcing that the spot would not run. And I wouldn't want to get on Huckabee's bad side when he's around a flagpole.

All that said, when it comes to scandal, Hillary Clinton is in a league of her own. The size and seriousness of her rap sheet dwarfs those of her competitors. Here's a small sampling:

Whitewater. The history of Whitewater is chronicled in a series of Washington Post articles from 2000 available at http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/whitewater.htm.

Hillary and then-Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton were partners in the Whitewater real estate venture beginning in 1978. It was backed by Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, which went bankrupt in 1989. The controlling partners were Clinton friends, James and Susan McDougal. Hillary Clinton did legal work for Madison, which was owned by James McDougal. Vincent Foster, a Little Rock law partner of the Clintons, represented them in the buyout of their shares.

Whitewater became the subject of a Federal investigation, and in 1994, Kenneth Starr was appointed special prosecutor. In 1995 and '96, the matter came before various congressional committees. Starr later expanded his inquiries to include the Monica Lewinsky affair and Bill Clinton's impeachment.

In 1996, the McDougals and Jim Guy Tucker, Bill Clinton's successor as Governor of Arkansas, were convicted of fraud in connection with the Whitewater investigation. Tucker resigned and was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest. Susan McDougal was pardoned by Bill Clinton in January 2001.

Former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbel, who was a law partner of Hillary Clinton's, received $700,000 from friends of Bill Clinton and Democratic Party supporters when he was probed by Whitewater investigators. Hubbel pled guilty to a felony count of misleading Federal prosecutors regarding legal work he did for Madison, and a misdemeanor charge of tax evasion. The Supreme Court voided the convictions.

The Whitewater investigation reached a climax when President Clinton gave videotaped testimony and Hillary appeared in-person before the grand jury. She was the only first lady in American history to do so.

Filegate. The billing records of Hillary's legal work for Madison were under subpoena for two years before they mysteriously surfaced in the Clintons' private White House quarters in January 1996.

Travelgate. In 1993, seven members of the White House Travel Office were abruptly fired, allegedly to make room for Clinton friends. According to reports, the Clinton Administration allegedly pressured the FBI to subsequently investigate in order to justify the firings.

Shortly after Travelgate broke, Vincent Foster, who was now White House counsel, committed suicide. He had recently filed delinquent Whitewater tax returns.

Marc Rich Pardon. In 1983, financier Marc Rich was indicted for non-payment of $48 million in taxes, 51 counts of tax fraud, and running illegal oil deals with Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Rich fled to Switzerland. Like Susan McDougal, Marc Rich was pardoned as part of a flurry of eleventh-hour clemencies handed out by Bill Clinton shortly before he left office in January 2001. Later that year, the Rich pardon was investigated by both houses of Congress.

Denise Rich, Marc's ex-wife, lobbied heavily for the pardon. She later donated $450,000 to Bill's presidential library and $70,000 to Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign, as reported by Time Magazine on February 13, 2001.

A primer on the Rich pardon can be found at http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,99302,00.html.

Presidential Library and Clinton Foundation. A disturbing February 10, 2008 article in The Daily Telegraph reported that Bill Clinton is a partner in a global investment fund entity linked to the ruler of Dubai, who is believed to be a major donor to the Clinton Presidential Library. Mr. Clinton recently flew to Kazakhstan with Canadian financier Frank Guistra, a major donor to the Clinton Foundation. Both Guistra and Mr. Clinton were reportedly seeking an agreement with Kazakhstan on uranium mining.

The Daily Telegraph article can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/09/wus609.xml.

On December 20, 2007, The New York Times reported on the many foreign contributors to the Clinton Library, including the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, and the overlap between Library donors and Clinton campaign donors. The Times article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20clinton.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=clinton%2C+library%2C+foundation%2C+donors&st=nyt&oref=slogin.

The Clinton Foundation has received $500 million in donations, according to The Times, including $31.3 million from a single donor. A major concern is that the Clinton Foundation can be used as a vehicle to circumvent campaign finance laws designed to minimize the influence of special interests.

Hillary recently loaned her campaign $5 million from her personal funds. Given this history, it is reasonable to inquire as to the source of the money.

The Daily Telegraph quoted California Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat, as saying that the enormous amount of fundraising by the Clintons is conducive to abuse. Mr. Waxman has introduced legislation to compel disclosure of donors to the Clinton Library. So far, Mr. Clinton has refused to provide this information voluntarily.

New Square. Bill Clinton also pardoned four Hasidic Jews convicted of stealing $30 million in government funds for a non-existent religious school in New Square, New York. New Square voted virtually unanimously for Hillary Clinton in her 2000 Senate race.

Asian Donors. On October 24, 2007, Michelle Malkin, a conservative columnist, reported in The New York Post on numerous Asian donors in Chinatown, Flushing, The Bronx, and Brooklyn flooding Hillary's presidential coffers with four-figure donations. The donors were typically limited income people who spoke little English. At least one was reimbursed for his $1,000 contribution, according to Malkin.

Ms. Malkin's column echoed a series of articles published in The Los Angeles Times, a liberal newspaper, describing dishwashers, waiters, and other poor folk being pressured to cough up one- and two-thousand-dollar donations to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. According to The LA Times, a fundraiser in a dirt-poor neighborhood in April 2007 netted $380,000. At least one donor admitted to The Times that he was not a legal resident of the United States, a violation of campaign finance laws.

According to The Times, out of 150 donors surveyed, one-third did not have telephones or employment records. Most were not registered to vote. In many cases, when donors' listed home addresses and places of work were visited, nobody there knew who they were. Additional information can be found at http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-donors19oct19,0,4231217.story.

Norman Hsu, a fugitive from the State of California for 15 years, was convicted of defrauding people of $1 million in an investment scam. Hsu was closely associated with Hillary Clinton's campaigns and was often touted as a "Hillraiser." He donated $23,000 to Mrs. Clinton's senatorial campaigns and her political action committee, HillPac, and raised $850,000 for her presidential campaign.

After word of Hsu's fugitive status broke, Hillary returned the money. Hsu was later captured and sentenced to three years in prison by a California court. He is also wanted in New York for running a $60 million investment scam. If convicted on additional counts, Hsu could face decades in prison.

Hsu also gave $5,000 to Obama's PAC and $2,000 to his Senate campaign. Obama has donated the money to charity.

A Reuters report on Hsu can be found at http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0425676020080104.

These sordid affairs are reminiscent of the antics of DNC operatives Johnny Chung, John Huang, Maria Hsia, and Charlie Trie, who were convicted for campaign finance abuses stemming from Bill Clinton's 1996 presidential reelection campaign.

Tax Returns. According to Senate filings, the Clintons have a net worth of between $10 and $50 million. The Clinton campaign has repeatedly stated that Hillary will make her tax returns public if she wins the Democratic nomination. In a recent debate, Hillary said "maybe sooner." Obama released his long ago. What has Hillary got to hide?

You'll have to forgive me for conflating Bill's doings with those of Hillary. It's difficult to determine where Bill Clinton's misdeeds end and Hillary's begin. Hillary and Bill are running as a team. Mr. Obama emphasized that point in a recent debate in which he angrily lamented to Hillary, "It's hard to tell whom I'm running against."

Historian Gary Wills, in a January 26, 2008 New York Times op-ed piece, discusses the dangers of a co-presidency. Wills cogently argues that the Framers rejected the idea of a presidency consisting of more than one person at a time because it would undermine our constitutional system of checks and balances. With multiple presidents at the helm, it would be difficult to hold any of them accountable. Executive power cannot be checked if Congress and the courts cannot pinpoint its source.

Wills notes that Vice President Dick Cheney has given us a preview of a co-presidency. Wills reports that Cheney, the embodiment of secrecy, has set up his own military and intelligence network. Since it is extra-constitutional, it cannot be examined.

Given Mr. Clinton's strident attacks on Mr. Obama, and his near-physical altercations with reporters, it is obvious that Bill would be anything but a first gentleman. The implications are ominous.

As of this writing, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are locked in a brutal primary contest. Obama appears to have the upper hand, but you can never count the Clintons out. According to conventional wisdom, Hillary will bow out if she loses Texas and Ohio on Tuesday. If she does, she will earn the respect of many of her fiercest critics, including this writer.

My prediction is that she won't. All the evidence indicates that the Clintons are scorched earth types. They may love their country and party, but they love themselves a whole lot more.

Even if Mr. Obama were to prevail, I doubt that I would vote for him in a general election. The six-foot one-inch Obama is short on specifics, and some of his naive foreign policy statements are downright dangerous. Obama has said that he would negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jung-Il and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Trying to look tough on terrorism, he subsequently stated that he would send American ground troops into Pakistan to hunt Al-Qaeda. Realizing how foolish that sounded, Obama then characterized the latter position as a "last resort."

Such amateurish pronouncements lend credibility to Mrs. Clinton's charges that the senator from Illinois lacks experience. But the reality is that both Obama and Clinton are relative tyros. Neither has produced a significant piece of Federal legislation. Mrs. Clinton has been a United States senator for seven years, Obama for three. For the past year, both have essentially vacated their seats to run for president. Actually, if you count his eight years in the Illinois Senate, Obama has significantly more experience than does Mrs. Clinton.

That is, unless you count her twelve years as First Lady of Arkansas and eight years as First Lady of the United States. In this regard, there are two possibilities. The first is that her twenty years as a first lady, a largely ceremonial position, cannot possibly prepare her for the presidency. Otherwise Laura Bush would be running in the Republican primaries. The second, and more likely alternative, is that during those years, Hillary was functioning as a de facto co-executive, a position that is unauthorized, unethical, and probably illegal.

Mrs. Clinton has recently stated that, of all the candidates, she is "the most vetted...and, ultimately, the most innocent." The statement is breathtaking in its cynicism.

On the one hand, Mrs. Clinton seems almost proud of having been repeatedly investigated. Contrary to popular belief, the fact that she has never been convicted of anything, or even charged, is not proof of innocence. While there is a presumption of innocence in our judicial system, a finding of "not guilty", or of insufficient evidence to prosecute, is not a finding of innocence.

Judges and juries rarely decide questions of innocence because it is unnecessary for an acquittal. The Feds couldn't lay a legal glove on John Gotti, Sr. for ten years before they finally put him away. Yet no reasonable person would say that Gotti was a model citizen during that decade.

Most of the blemishes on the reputations of the non-Clinton candidates are either isolated incidents, questionable policy judgments, or personality quirks. I don't care whether Hillary has a weird laugh, or if McCain has a temper. We're electing a president of the United States, not a president of Walton High. Personality is always a factor, but in recent years it has taken on way too much importance.

Consider the four-plus-hour Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Two oratorical giants spoke at length on substantive issues before audiences that were far less educated than those of today. Yet modern viewers have the attention spans of rabbits. As a result, candidates speak in little more than sound bites and spend far less time on the podium than did Abe and Steve.

In Lincoln's time, the abhorrent practice of slavery in America was called the South's "peculiar institution." In 2008, physical slavery is long gone, but many Americans remain prisoners of their own superficiality. Today's electorate is fickle, shallow, and easily swayed by simplistic appeals to emotion. Long-held opinions can be upended by a rhetorical zinger, a joke, or a tear in a diner.

I like Barack Obama. Listening to him speak is like watching a young Peggy Flemming skate, or a 1960s Muhammad Ali box. Obama is trying to do something extraordinary, almost saintly. With a Martin Luther King-like inflection in his voice, Mr. Obama has called for an end to racial, ethnic, and political rancor. During the most politically divisive time since the Civil War, he has appealed to the better nature of our angels.

Mr. Obama is a uniter. Mrs. Clinton is a divider.

In an interview with The Chicago Sun-Times published on November 5, 2006, Mr. Obama discussed his relationship with Tony Rezko. During that exchange, Obama said that he was wrong to have purchased land from Mr. Rezko because even though the transaction was legal, it gave the appearance of impropriety.

Obama was right on. Cannons of legal ethics, codified in most jurisdictions, including New York and Illinois, state that lawyers should avoid "the appearance of impropriety."

The Sun-Times interview reveals much about Mr. Obama's character. Mr. Obama gives specific and unequivocal answers to an extensive array of questions about his relationship with Mr. Rezko. Can anyone imagine Hillary Clinton doing that? Mr. Obama's interview can be accessed at http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/124171,CST-NWS-obama05.article.

Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are lawyers. But unlike the forthright Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton regularly violates legal ethics. While none of the above-mentioned incidents involving the Clintons explicitly demonstrate criminal behavior, they reek of impropriety.

How much smoke has to be in a room before you decide to call the fire department?

Seasoned political analyst Dick Morris has aptly said that Hillary Clinton "has lived her entire political life one step ahead of the sheriff." Mr. Morris should know. He frequently worked for the Clintons during the '80s and '90s, serving as adviser to Bill's gubernatorial campaigns and 1996 presidential reelection campaign.

Hillary has gotten the better of America's Barney Fifes, but in the end, she may be her own worst Andy Taylor. The very qualities that people admire in her--toughness, longevity, wonkishness--are also her Achilles' heel. You can never count her out, but it appears that a tipping point has been reached. Many of those who laud Hillary have a bad case of Clinton fatigue and yearn to turn the page.

About fifty years ago, an acquaintance of my father's, who worked in the cured meat business, advised my dad never to visit a frankfurter factory. "If you do," he admonished, "you'll never eat another hot dog again."

If the Clintons were a frankfurter factory, they'd be shut down for unsanitary conditions.

Hillary Clinton has repeatedly stated her intention to lobby for the seating of the Democratic delegates from Michigan and Florida at the national convention this summer. Those states were stripped of their delegates because they moved their primary dates up in violation of DNC regulations.

Mrs. Clinton says she wants the delegates to be seated because Michigan and Florida should have a voice at the convention. Come on. Anyone with half a brain knows that she's not taking that position because she's a champion of fairness. Hillary trounced her opponents in those non-contests and wants to up her delegate count. The Clintons don't give a rip about rules, even ones made by their own party. All they care about is winning, any way they can.

Some people say Mrs. Clinton is good on policy issues. That's debatable. Her proclivity for proposing ambitious social programs such as universal health care without indicating how she's going to pay for them is one counterexample. Others include her muddled views on Iraq and illegal alien drivers' licenses. But even assuming that she's right on issues, Hillary Clinton is still wrong for America.

Her husband's impeachment was a national nightmare that lasted over a year. During that time, no important Federal legislation was passed, and many significant news stories went uncovered. Because the Clintons are joined at the political hip, and both of them have propensity for scandal, it is likely that a second Clinton presidency would produce more of the same. We simply can't afford that.

The strongest objection to Mrs. Clinton's candidacy is not political but practical. America in 2008 faces extraordinary problems. We are fighting a two-front war in the Middle East. Given Iran's nuclear ambitions, a third front may be open by the time the next president takes office. A resurgent and possibly revanchist Russia will vigorously challenge American interests. Newly independent Kosovo is embroiled in civil unrest. The U.S. economy is on the verge of a recession, if not already in one. While oil hovers around $100 a barrel, American energy independence remains elusive. And America is more politically polarized than at any time since Lincoln. A scandal-a-day presidency in 2009 could be catastrophic.

Although I lean towards McCain, I'd be far more comfortable with an Obama presidency than a second Clinton Administration. If it's a choice between a fundamentally honest, decent, naïve candidate and a cynical, corrupt one, I'll take the naïve candidate every time.

Democrats like John Kerry have observed that the Clintons are obsessed with power and vanquishing their enemies, both real and perceived. In an ambitious attempt to remake America in her own image, a President Hillary Clinton would inevitably lash out at her opponents, resulting in investigation, and perhaps even--God help us--another impeachment. The last thing the United States needs right now is Dick Nixon in a pantsuit.

Given this picture, why on earth would anyone vote for Hillary Clinton? Some people will vote for her because she's a woman, just as some will vote for Obama because he's black. Others may vote for Hillary out of fondness for Bill, who, at least until recently, has remained very popular within the Democratic Party. But there is another factor at work here that is far more disconcerting.

There are too many people who simply don't give a damn about ethics. According to this view, all politicians are crooks, and, therefore, honesty is irrelevant. I don't believe that for a nanosecond, but many folks do. Recent surveys of high school students suggest that about 75 percent of them lie on a regular basis. Their parents probably aren't much better. Hence the trivializing of Mr. Clinton's infidelity, legal liability for sexual harassment, false statements made under oath, and disbarment.

The toleration--even approval--of moral cretinism in high places is an insidious evil of our time. It has been coming steadily upon us for decades. It isn't genocide, but it's an evil that is slowly eating away at the foundations of our society.

Behavior among our leaders that was unthinkable a generation ago is now largely acceptable. Marion Barry, a Democrat, was caught smoking crack at a hotel with a woman not his wife and spent six months in jail before being reelected mayor of Washington, DC in 1994. Democratic New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, shortly after admitting he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars of State funds for his personal use, won reelection by a landslide. Governor Spitzer, the district attorney, and the State Legislature had to force him from office.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig, a Republican, is a despicable excuse for a human being. Craig pled guilty to disorderly conduct for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in a public bathroom. Several men then came forward to accuse Craig of sexual harassment. Reneging on a promise to resign, he has vowed to stay put until the end of his term. There has been no effort to recall him.

If people can knowingly elect rogue mayors and state comptrollers, then why not a rogue president? The possibility is revolting but cannot be denied.

Some of our allies are plagued with corruption, including Pakistan, Iraq, and even Israel. Do we really want to emulate those societies, where military and political violence are a way of life? During the 19^th century, our own politics was far more corrupt than it is today. Do we wish to revisit that era? At times, it seems as if we do.

The Clinton camp has used the old divide-and-conquer strategy, pitting blacks against whites, women against men, Muslims against non-Muslims. By dragging him into the mud in an attempt to secure her party's nomination, Mrs. Clinton temporarily kneecapped Mr. Obama. In doing so, she damaged not only herself and her party, but all that is sunny and optimistic about America. That is not easily repaired.

The words of McCarthy nemesis Joseph Welch come to mind. Have you no shame, madam? Have you no sense of decency?

Fortunately, Mr. Obama has recovered from the attacks of the Clinton machine and stands a good chance of securing the Democratic nomination. In this endeavor, people of all political stripes would be wise in wishing him well.