Former President Bill Clinton spoke at great length last night about his wife, the Democratic Party's 2016 nominee. His remarks, which were largely personal in nature, omitted a few facts and piece of context:
(1) In describing Hillary as a lifelong advocate on behalf of children, he failed to mention this case, in which she defended a child rapist she knew to be guilty. Everyone is entitled to a defense in our criminal justice system, so Hillary's work on this man's behalf isn't a scandal unto itself. But her oddly flippant tone in an interview discussing how he got off, including chuckling about the accidental destruction of incriminating evidence, is jarring. The victim in the case has spoken out against Clinton's defense tactics, which included aggressively challenging her credibility mental stability at the time. Clinton "put me through hell," the woman recalled in 2014, bitterly recounting how the young lawyer "lied like a dog" about her in court proceedings.
(2) While tracing their life together, Clinton elided some years in the late 1990's, during which he engaged in an Oval Office sexual relationship with a young intern -- the cover-up of which ultimately led to his impeachment and disbarment. The Lewinsky affair was not the first time Clinton was credibly accused of sexual misconduct, including sexual assault. Hillary Clinton, framed as a champion of women's rights in the 42nd president's speech, was an active participant in the smearing of her husband's accusers. Bill's only possible nod to any of this last night may have been this veiled subtextual reference.
(3) Trumpeting Hillary's record as Secretary of State, Bill said, "you could drop her into any trouble spot, pick one, come back in a month and somehow, some way she will have made it better. That is just who she is." Well, she was dropped into a trouble spot in 1996, and she lied about what happened. Libya turned into the worst sort of trouble spot -- a failed state -- because of her foreign policy, resulting in the "preventable" murder of four Americans in an attack about which she lied. Hillary later defended her disastrous policy, asserting that the US didn't "lose a single person" in that country. More broadly, the American people have disapproved of the Obama administration's Hillary-engineered global affairs posture for years.
(4) Clinton averred that within her interpersonal relationships, his wife is "straightforward and completely trustworthy." The public does not share that view, to put it mildly. A July poll pegged her "dishonest and untrustworthy" score at a dismal 67 percent, spiking to a new high after the FBI director comprehensively dismantled the endless string of lies she has told about her improper and national security-endangering email scandal. She continues to tell verifiable lies about this imbroglio, for which she has not been held accountable -- despite proven misconduct and strong evidence of criminal actions.
(5) A keyword search of Bill's transcript turns up no uses of the words "foundation" "charity" or "initiative." If the point of this speech was to underscore Hillary's deep reservoir of human caring, how could the Clintons' extremely dodgy "slush fund"/quasi-charity escape any mention? If Hillary is so selfless, why did she and her husband choose to exploit their power in order to erect a lucrative influence-peddling racket? The FBI's chief recently declined to say whether the Clinton Foundation was under federal investigation, as has been reported.