[1]Right From the Start
Last week was a busy week on the campaign trail for the presidential candidates of both parties providing new and/or additional insights less on the policies of the candidates and more on their character. And in several instances it wasn’t pretty.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
I don’t like Mr. Cruz. I haven’t ever liked Mr. Cruz. When I look at him, hear him speak, and listen to his arguments I am reminded of former President Richard Nixon (R). It is not his policies with which I disagree – for the most part, there is no material difference amongst the Republican candidates with the exception of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) – it is him. He is a small-minded man given to petty grievances and demagogic and personal attacks – it is no wonder that he is universally disliked in the United States Senate. He rivals former President Bill Clinton (D) in parsing words and dissembling the truth. He is a divisive character in a time in which we need healing. Basically, he is Barack-Obama-on-the-right.
In the latest Republican primary debate on FOX News, with Donald Trump boycotting the debate, Mr. Cruz had the opportunity to demonstrate leadership – to stand above the fray – and he failed. In answer to the very first question regarding the absence of Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz engaged in a mocking, mean-spirited attack on Mr. Trump (no slouch at personal attacks himself). Later he accused the FOX News moderators of encouraging attacks on him by the other participants and threatened to leave the stage. I recognize that both of these were Mr. Cruz’s lame attempts at humor but they were more descriptive of the real Mr. Cruz. First, Mr. Cruz spent the first six months of the primary campaign trying to cozy up to Mr. Trump – primarily to avoid attacks by Mr. Trump but more in an attempt to succeed to Mr. Trump’s supporters should Mr. Trump falter. His attacks now are contrived and duplicitous. Second, Mr. Cruz waited until Mr. Trump was gone and could not defend himself to launch his attacks – it was a cowardly thing to do. And third, while Mr. Cruz may find his remarks humorous, a real leader engages in self-deprecating and situational humor, not personal attacks. (For all of his attempts at wrapping himself in the cloak of President Ronald Reagan (R) Mr. Cruz missed the whole concept of Mr. Reagan’s use of humor.)
Mr. Cruz won the Iowa caucuses based on a superior organization (ground game). But while Iowa gives us a first glimpse at voting patterns it has failed to produce an eventual Republican winner in decades. (That is the result of its structure and the relatively low turnout when compared to the total registered voters. Now it is on to New Hampshire with an open and more traditional primary. If Mr. Cruz fares well there, then Republicans should worry. Based on character, Mr. Cruz will not only lose to Ms. Clinton but could well hand the Senate back to the Democrats.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Ms. Clinton, who sought to minimize her opportunity for visible mistakes and criticism during the primary season by using the Democrat National Committee (DNC) to limit the number of debates and place them opposite more popular television events, is now, in the face of declining poll numbers, trying to increase the number of debates in hopes of repairing her damaged reputation and stopping the insurgency of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist – VT). But all of that may be to no avail given the disclosures last week. The Wall Street Journal noted:
“[State] Department spokesman John Kirby said 22 documents containing highly classified information will be excluded entirely from the release of Mrs. Clinton’s archive [the documents transmitted, received and/or stored on Ms. Clinton’s private email account and server]. So far, more than 1,300 have been redacted, with portions blocked out, due to the presence of classified information, but this is the first example of emails being entirely withheld from public release.” [Bracketed words supplied].
The WSJ also reported that the State Department will now launch its own investigation into these and other reports deemed classified and that further disclosure will be delayed during that investigation. The delay is likely to last through the Democrat primary season. How convenient! Of course, Ms. Clinton immediately called for a full release of all of the documents – something she has done previously and something she knows will not happen because her former colleagues at the State Department and the Obama administration will continue to cooperate in stonewalling information about Ms. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
We are all left to speculate as to the content of these documents but what we know with certainty is that they are fresh evidence of Ms. Clinton’s continuing lies about the use of her emails and servers. Given the Obama administrations willingness to lie and withhold evidence in other matters we are also free to speculate that the information being withheld has less to do with national security and more do with Mr. Obama’s complicity in one or more of the international disasters (i.e. The Russian reset, the Syrian red line, Benghazi and the ouster of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi) or Ms. Clinton’s involvement in a “pay for play” scheme involving foreign governments and enterprises and the Clinton Foundation.
And while the mainstream media dismisses Ms. Clinton’s email scandal as mere misdemeanors which subject her to a fine at worse, they are wrong as usual. A good prosecutor would charge Ms. Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin with conspiracy to commit misdemeanors which is a felony and punishable by prison time. All a conspiracy requires is a demonstration of agreement to commit the crime (misdemeanor or felony) and an act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Ms. Clinton and Ms. Abedin (along with others) agreed to install and use Ms. Clinton’s private email account and server for the receipt and delivery of State Department information including classified information. They then installed it – agreement and acts in furtherance of the agreement. There are a myriad of other acts by Ms. Clinton and/or Ms. Abedin in furtherance of this conspiracy including instructions to strip designation and source information from official documents and send them as if they were unclassified documents.
The Clinton scandals are the best argument for any Republican who becomes President to retain Gov. Chris Christie (assuming he himself is not the winner) as Attorney General with instructions to fully prosecute the Clintons and end over two decades of influence peddling by America’s newest crime family – Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton as Protector of Women
Democrat presidential primary contestant Hillary Clinton has wrapped herself in a form of feminism in which she, and she alone, defines the struggle of women in America. As a part of that, Ms. Clinton appears to be the sole arbiter of who is a sexist, and who it not. One of her first targets during this campaign season has been Republican presidential primary contender Donald Trump. (For the rest of the Republican field, don’t worry, Ms. Clinton will get around to you if you rise in the polls sufficiently to realistically challenge her for what was to be her coronation.)
But Mr. Trump, never one to take a criticism lying down, has fired back by reminding America of the predatory sexual practices of Ms. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.
“If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!”
The so-called “women’s movement – yet another legitimate cause, suborned now as an arm of the Democrat party – quickly rose to the defense of Ms. Clinton by noting that she too was a victim of Mr. Clinton’s sexual dalliances – the cucquean. (Oh, for Pete’s sake look it up – I had to.) But that’s not true – Ms. Clinton, at the very least, was an enabler.
During last week’s Republican presidential primary debate, several of the candidates – all men – tried to crystallize the criticism of the Clintons and their parts in the abuse of women. Sen. Rand Paul (R-TN) noted:
“But I do think her position as promoting women’s rights and fairness to women in the workplace, that if what Bill Clinton did, any CEO in our country did, with an intern, they would be fired…The thing is, [Hillary] can’t be a champion of women’s rights at the same time she’s got this that is always lurking out there, this type of behavior. So it is difficult.”
Ben Carson asked whether we have any moral standards.
But leave it to Carly Fiorina to put the proper perspective on it. Ms. Fiorina noted that if her husband had acted as Bill Clinton did he would have been gone a long time ago. And that’s the point. Ms. Clinton chose power over fidelity, power over humiliation and power over right. Ms. Clinton recognizes that without Mr. Clinton she is nobody. She has no independent accomplishments. On her own she has been fired for lying and withholding evidence from the Watergate Committee and has failed the bar examination for Washington D.C. It is only through Mr. Clinton that Ms. Clinton has achieved importance.
She did not just tolerate Mr. Clinton’s serial sexual predatory practices, she actively participated in the subsequent denigration of his accusers right down to embracing the term “bimbo eruptions” as an excuse for Mr. Clinton’s frequent predatory acts. From Gennifer Flowers who Ms. Clinton described as “trailer trash” to Monica Lewinski who she described as a “narcissistic loony tune” Ms. Clinton chose power over the protection of women. When asked whether Paula Jones should be believed concerning her accusations against Mr. Clinton, Ms. Clinton responded:
“Well, I would say that everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence.”
Thus implying that Ms. Jones should not be believed based on “facts.” Unfortunately, the facts indicate that the Clintons paid Ms. Jones $850,000 in settlement of those accusations.
And add to that the fact that the Clintons have accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments who treat women as mere chattels and you again realize that money and power trump everything for which Ms. Clinton claims to stand. There are hundreds of women who are true champions of women’s rights and women’s issues – Hillary Clinton is just not one of them.