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Hillary, the Unlovable Rogue
Conservatives are feeling pretty good as the drip-drip-drip of Hillary Clinton’s missing emails takes over the news cycle. For six years we’ve wanted one of this administration’s scandals to catch the eye of the mainstream press and tarnish Obama’s reputation along with it. Those with more miles on the odometer have waited since the early ’90s for HRC to get her just desserts.
This latest Clinton mess is still in its early days and disturbing insights are popping up on the hour. In a Friday night truth-dump, Spokeswoman/Tri-Delt Rush Chair Marie Harf reversed her pose that the State Department was seeking Hillary’s emails out of their deep love for transparency. Harf now reluctantly admits that the Benghazi committee was a big reason for the panicked search all along.
As more details emerge, many Republicans are wondering if this really spells the end of Hillary’s once-inevitable coronation. In National Review, Charles C. W. Cooke says that progressives are right to panic, not only for 2016 but for the fate of their entire project:
[W]ere I a progressive Democrat… wouldn’t I find myself lying awake at night, fretting that Hillary might become too sick to run? Would I not entertain with horror the possibility that this latest scandal might be the tip of the iceberg, and that Hillary might have one too many crimes in her well-stocked closet? Wouldn’t it occur to me that she might begin to stumble and fall on the campaign trail, the better to be shown up by a young and fresh-faced alternative from the right?
The old adage holds that only a fool elects to put all his eggs in one basket, and, for all our technological progress and social ingenuity, this remains as true now as it ever was. In the New York Times yesterday, Frank Bruni inquired of Hillary: “Does she have a political death wish?” He might well ask that of her party as well. The lights are going out across Blue America. The amplifying fear that there will be nobody viable to light them back aflame is grounded in reality. Time for a little sweating, perhaps.
Jonah Goldberg, meanwhile, has seen this dance before and expects Hillary to survive:
Historically, the Clintons have proved to be politically indestructible. To paraphrase the movie Aliens, to truly destroy the Clinton-Industrial Complex, you’d have to nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Given that alone, I doubt that the unfolding controversy over Hillary’s e-mail schemes spells her doom.
…I think Clinton will survive this mess. If there’s a damning e-mail out there, it’s been deleted, and the relevant hard drive would be harder to find than Jimmy Hoffa’s body. So critics are probably left with the task of proving a negative.
If we’re measuring personal wealth and political influence, the Clintons definitely will survive. This couple is so shameless and their sycophants so slavish, Bill, Hillary and even Chelsea will keep making deals and get even richer doing it.
But if “survival” includes a return to the White House, or even securing the Democratic nomination, I’m not so sure. Most Democrats agree with Ms. Clinton’s platform such as it is and would love to elect a female president. But precious few are genuinely enthused about Hillary as a politician or as a person.
Let’s recall the last time Hillary was inevitable. It ended with a trouncing by a callow, half-term senator with zero experience.
In a 2008 debate, Obama famously told her, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” But to quote Joe Wilson, “you lie!” Hillary isn’t likable in the slightest. She is, in fact, repellent — the very antonym of likable, at least according to Dr. Roget. And this goes to the heart of Hillary’s political weakness, especially compared to her husband’s strength.
Like his spouse, Bill Clinton is a mendacious, unethical, conniving grifter. But Bill is not only likable, he’s downright lovable.
When less partisan Americans see the ex-President taking photos with busty twentysomethings, downing greasy burgers or telling us yet another lie, they just shake their heads and smile. They know that he’s flawed and full of it, but are you telling me they wouldn’t love having a beer or six with the guy?
In the public imagination, Bill Clinton is a lovable rogue. We know he will stretch the truth to get out of a fix or into a bed, but c’mon, that’s just Bill. He’s the Han Solo to Mitt Romney’s Luke Skywalker and most of us would rather be running guns in the Millennium Falcon than taking a life-coaching class on Dagobah.
In contrast, Hillary Clinton doesn’t have that luxury. Where we might root for Bill to get out of a sticky situation — or hope he gets into one just to see how he wriggles out — we just want Hillary to go away. Hillary is the dinner guest you dread seeing seated across the table. When she walks into a party, the lively conversation hits a lull. She’s the one who sees the plate of cocktail weenies and lectures the host about gluten allergies.
Don’t be surprised that Democrats are reconsidering the pre-primary acclamation of their standard-bearer. If they are sick of Hillary now, just imagine how they’ll feel when election day arrives.
Published in General
I mostly agree that this has enough time in front of it to blow over – the election doesn’t ramp to full speed for a year. The only thing I can see that derails her nomination is something more being made of her taking money for Bubba’s foundation while she was spending a gazillion miles of taxpayer dollars flying around the world. It really wouldn’t take much work to show a list of places she’s flown to, the chowderheads she’s posed with, and show how much money their foundation was “gifted”.
That alone should be a big enough advertising slam to sink the witch. Not sure anyone in Republicanland has the stones to do it with enough gusto to get the job done.
Chris
I’ve been wondering for a while when somebody was going to notice that she’s an anti-charismatic retread, and that the polls predicting her coronation 18-24 months before the election mean nothing except that everybody knows her name and there’s not another credible choice in her party. With Pravda on the Hudson, WaPo, and even MSNBC piling on, it’s starting to look like that time might finally have come.
The question for the Dems though, is what’s the alternative? Even if she backed out, is there anybody else with any stature who could plausibly step up? It seems like everyone available on the left this cycle is either even more repulsive than Hillary (Harry Reid?), or a genuine joke candidate (Bernie Sanders?). I suppose that we are so far out, that it’s hard to rule out someone emerging, but it doesn’t look likely.
Oh, and she’s not going to back out. She’s entitled to this in her own mind, and the Clintons are nothing if not shameless. She’ll tough out whatever comes, and they are ruthless, so anybody with any thought of stepping up needs, among other things, to be prepared to first face a bloodletting.
No, this time I think the circumstances have conspired in our favor. The Dems have painted themselves into a corner from which I think there’s no escape in ’16.
Cato, I sure hope so.
Jon, she’s likely to survive the nuclear fire along with the inner city insectoid roach but you are spot on, she’s a mean person. The stories about her horrible personality are numerous and frightening. I think the glass ceiling will be busted by someone with a touch more class unless of course we nominate Jeb.
Bill is both the charismatic AND the smart one of the pair. Hillary is just a humorless grind who married well.
There’s no there there.
I think Frank Sinatra said it best in the Manchurian Candidate:
It’s like Bill is the image the brainwashers planted in our heads, but Hillary is the reality underneath that only emerges after extensive therapy.
I always loved Emmett Tyrell’s catch phrase our boy president’s “lovely wife Bruno” which captured the odd thuggishness of Hillary.
Recall how she dealt with the cattle futures scandal. It was mathematically impossible to profit in that way. She missed margin calls. But there was no evidence that she knew, that anyone had asked for or received a favor in return. But the Hillary image we are required to believe does not permit passive innocence. She instead made the idiotic and utterly false claim that she managed the account by reading the Wall Street Journal. (That was probably meant to be witty because she considered the WSJ editors her enemy.) She dared the MSM to call her on it and of course, they bailed.
The concealment of subpoenaed billing records stashed in her WH bedroom was also characteristically brazen.
Some years ago, two lobbyist/consultant friends (now deceased) who did work for International Paper said that execs from that company were surprised at how gingerly Ken Starr’s people treated some aspects of Whitewater. The original deal (not reported) was a deed in exchange for an undated baloon note, in effect an IOU in a failed scheme to facilitate development financing without reporting acquisition debt. The deal was later done formally at the insistence of IP’s managers and accountants. Hillary reportedly acted as both a partner and settlement attorney for these transfers. The arrogance that being a lawyer supposedly insulates one from scrutiny is tres Hillary.
My friends had a theory that the nightmare scenario for Starr was that Bruno had left her fingerprints all over Whitewater unlike her more experienced pol husband and therefore the special prosecutor team might wind up indicting her but not him and the public would not stand for that. So the Whitewater investigation had intentional gaps.
Hillary will brazen this out. Her critics will tire. The story line will ultimately be about the evil motives of her GOP critics. It will subside and she will still be there like Michael Myers in Halloween 25, soulless, malevolent, relentless…
Jon’s phrase “Hillary is the dinner guest you dread seeing seated across the table. When she walks into a party, the lively conversation hits a lull. She’s the one who sees the plate of cocktail weenies and lectures the host about gluten allergies.” has the resonance of reality to it.
I recall a description from the 90’s of the atmosphere in the Oval Office one morning, with the President and aides trading easy and light banter and enjoying themselves. The phone rings and it is FLOTUS — the ambient energy changes to serious portent and the smiles instantly dissolve.
Just to state the obvious (or at least it has been obvious to me since 1991), Bill Clinton is a sociopath. A really, really smart sociopath. But the thing about a smart sociopath is that he can become extremely adept at mimicking the emotions he does not actually have the capacity to feel, like empathy, compassion, love, shame or guilt. Where normal people have a moral compass, a sociopath has one simple rule – don’t get caught.
The really scary thing about Hillary is that she has certainly known what Bill is for her entire adult life, and she doesn’t care. She has enabled him, even when it had to be emotionally devastating for her to do so. And she has learned his tactic. Do whatever you want, just don’t get caught. And if you do get caught, just brazen it out. It is a tactic that has worked for them both.
So why has Hillary not only stayed with Bill, but modeled herself after him? I can only believe it has been out of overwhelming ambition. How does a moderately talented female lawyer with no charisma become President? The only way was on Bill’s coattails.
Is there some equivalent to co-dependency for sociopaths? Co-sociopath?
Are you trying to give Rob Long a coronary?
Bumper sticker: “Hillary: America’s mother-in-law.”
I keep reading this thread title as “The Unlovable Rouge“.
It does not make her move lovable. A joyless shrew with a shady background for President? Gee, why not? It’s not like she had personal financial dealings with a known felon like Tony Rezko, which would obviously preclude any candidate from pursuing the highest office in the land.
I still think Jonah has the best description of her: every man’s first ex-wife.
The extent to which Obama was able to get away with telling her “You’re likeable enough” tells you everything you need to know about where Hillary stands with respect to the press. If any Republican had said that, they’d be banished to the far edge of nowhere and we’d be hearing how it was a metaphor for sexual assault against women.
If you saw two strangers and you didn’t know they’re affiliations, you’d think of the person who made the remark in terms unfit for Ricochet’s Code of Conduct.
But the political press’s golden boy says it to Hillary because she is in the way of their dream candidate, they are more than willing to say, “Ooo, burn!”
If Hillary is all that stands between them and a Republican president, they will try to carry her over the finish line. If there is a more desirable liberal candidate (like Elizabeth Warren), they will happily stomp on Hillary’s face if that’s what it takes to make it happen.
Jim Webb?
Spokeswoman/Tri-Delta Rush Chair! That had me laughing out loud. The boys over at Powerlineblog have theorized that Obama’s choice of Harf and Pasaki represent his desire to signal to Millenials that foreign policy isn’t nearly as complex as it seems. Mission accomplished!
I get the completely unsubstantiated feeling that Hillary will get passed over, again, in a bid for the presidential nomination. Imagine what it would be like to sit near her when that information is brought to her. A dervish of anger would erupt from her chair, and the television series that would be created as a result of this explosion would be titled:
The Taming of the Embittered Shrew
Who could the Dems put forward at this point? Sherrod Brown? Mike Bloomberg? I can’t see them supporting Biden or Sanders, even Warren couldn’t do as well as Howard Dean did back in 2004. I saw on Drudge that we might see Al Gore campaigning in Iowa [re-elect Gore bumper stickers again?] I’d be interested in who the Ricochetti come up with.
Bloomberg would concern me. Gore looks more clownish now than ever to all but the lowest information voters and dead-enders.
“They know that he’s flawed and full of it, but are you telling me they wouldn’t love having a beer or six with the guy?”
Yeah, I’m telling you that. The guy’s a jerk, he’s what cops call a turd. Only turd wannabes would go drinking with him.
“Petty Boozswha
Who could the Dems put forward at this point? Sherrod Brown? Mike Bloomberg? I can’t see them supporting Biden or Sanders, even Warren couldn’t do as well as Howard Dean did back in 2004. I saw on Drudge that we might see Al Gore campaigning in Iowa [re-elect Gore bumper stickers again?] I’d be interested in who the Ricochetti come up with.”
Remember, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both unheard of before they ran for President. Someone massively charismatic, with a backstory that can be tightly controlled.
The Dems put forward a charisma-free politician with a 32-year record of nothing in the Senate back in 2004 and the press managed to get dangerously close. That’s kind of scary. Never underestimate how much the press will try to carry even the least competent candidates with a “D” after their names.
In his frightening book, People of the Lie, Dr. M. Scott Peck wrote of human evil, detailing his points from case studies from his years of experience as a psychiatrist. Your description of Bill as a sociopath and Hillary as his enabler is pretty much the same way Dr. Peck described how certain evil individuals recruit enablers with whom to work.
Both of the Clintons should be locked away in jail – if for no reason other than to protect America from their corrosive effect on the country.
I don’t think she runs. Hopefully she stays in so long it crowds out anyone else.
I am starting to think a Hillary campaign would assure a GOP win. Outside of her sycophants and media insiders, America will have 25 years of Hillary exposure to reflect upon, and unlike Bill (I agree with you on his charmingness) people really don’t like her all that much.
From the cackle, to her skeletons, she may be the best thing to happen to a GOP nominee.
It is painful to think of the Clintons in the White House.
And there’s a nightmare scenario in which Hillary could win.
All of the new immigrants are slated to vote Democrat. I think the Obama administration is trying to and is succeeding in turning the entire country into a blue state.
All they have to do is scare the baby boomers about Social Security and Medicare. Add a healthy dose of corruption for the actual election, and they could win.
Up until last week, I was thinking that the nation’s finances were in such a mess that a Republican was a shoe-in.
Then I suddenly realized that this is not the same country it was six years ago.
If Hillary drops out, the Dems could nominate an also-ran from a city council race and the liberal establishment combined with the general unease with the GOP (at the national level, anyway) would make it a race.
Maybe there are manipulators hidden within the Democrat machine who are keeping the dreadful image of Hillary in the public eye for as long as possible until they pull back the curtain to reveal a dark horse candidate no one has even thought about, much less scrutinized. Obama only succeeded in 2008 because no one knew anything about him. All the known Democrats are just too horrible to contemplate. The gullible would leap into the arms of a clean articulate young, especially young, liberal, without hesitation.
With acknowledgement to Derbs: Chelsea delenda est.
This is my feeling, too. Except one must never underestimate the power of the voters to elect the most obviously wrong person. Twice.
When I first heard the term “brazen it out” used on the recent episode of Mad Dogs and Englishmen. I audibly laughed at the perfect premonition of what is in store for us as political consumers. To me, the term conjures a reference to the character Ari Gold in Entourage when he employs the phrase “Hug it out!,…”