Hillary Clinton: A postmortem
On Tuesday, November 8, Hillary Clinton lost the only trial she may ever face for her crimes. The fault lies with Hilary and the Democrats who enabled, excused or rationalized her well-known disregard for legal niceties and nominated her.
Days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that, for more than a year, the FBI was investigating the Clinton Foundation for financial crimes and influence peddling. Andrew McCarthy argued: "[T]he manner in which the State Department was put in the service of the Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary…is suggestive of a pattern of pay-to-play bribery, the monetizing of political influence, fraud, and obstruction of justice that the Justice Department should be investigating as a possible RICO conspiracy under the federal anti-racketeering laws."
The Washington Post’s Ed Rogers wrote, "Nothing about the…Clinton scandal lends itself to a tidy conclusion. There will always be a seepage of fresh emails; new revelations about…the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, Clinton staff…; and reports of Bill Clinton saying or doing something compromising or otherwise inappropriate. There will never be a last email, a last allegation of pay to play or a last word written by a former Clinton insider. Nothing will stop the ooze of Clinton corruption, not even Hillary Clinton placing her hand on a Bible and swearing to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."
Both survived Jimmy Carter, so the American Constitution and the nation can survive Trump’s alleged cluelessness, too, but the public was clearly concerned about how those would fare under Hillary Clinton, a woman nobody trusts.
Washington elites, but primarily Democrats, from the White House on down, have repeatedly conducted themselves as if they’re above the law. For years, most got away with it. For thirty years, the Clintons bent rules and broke laws while letting others pay the price for their transgressions. As president, Hillary could have purged the FBI, however, doing so would have confirmed her criminality and ensured her illegitimacy. A plurality of American voters were unwilling to risk that constitutional uncertainty.
The public sentiments Donald Trump exploited in order to prevail made a difference, too. As president, Trump, along with the political elite in both parties, but, especially, the Republican Party, must understand, adapt to and deal honestly with the righteous outrage of Americans at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
They must face the circumstances which brought America to what establishment losers surely view as a dreadful precipice: America’s worst-ever political class — national media, Republican and Democratic political elites — created an opening for an imperfect outsider like Donald Trump and, then, united in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy him. Trump threatens official Washington’s business as usual. But so do the legions of voters who pulled the lever for Trump, third parties and, during the primaries, Bernie Sanders.
Trump and Sanders are symptoms. America’s political class is the disease. Hopefully, a Trump presidency will be the clinical trial of a cure.
http://www.pottsmerc.com/opinion/20161109/jerry-shenk-hillary-clinton-a-post-mortem
