Tipsheet

Hillary Clinton: The One-Woman Wrecking Ball Against Norms and Institutions, Who Won't Go Away

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  October 02, 2019 10:25 AM

Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to simply ignore and forget about Hillary Clinton.  Endlessly re-litigating the 2016 election is boring and exhausting.  She thought she had it in the bag, she outspent her opponent two-to-one, and her staff prematurely celebrated their "victory" before discovering -- to their horror -- that voters in several key states had other plans.  Liberals enjoy accusing conservatives of still being obsessed with Mrs. Clinton, but in fairness to her detractors, she insists upon inserting herself into the national discussion on a regular basis, very often to attack and tear down the man to whom she lost.  Much of this can be chalked up to bad form from a sore loser.  

Other critiques cross the line into institutions-undermining conspiracy theorizing, a toxic blend that seems to be all the rage in our politics today -- including, if not especially, among those who wring their hands at the president's deleterious impact on norms and institutions.  The latest example of Clinton's endless, damaging whining comes from an interview over the weekend in which the former Secretary of State calls the sitting president a "corrupt human tornado," and asserts that his presidency is "illegitimate:"


Two thoughts:  First, whatever one thinks of Trump's situational and myopic ethics, and there's plenty of material to chew over on that front, Mrs. Clinton may want to take a seat during any conversation about public corruption.  Go back and read this piece from June of 2016, in which I carefully chronicled her dishonesty, misconduct and corruption during her time in the Obama administration alone. From her dodgy "slush fund" of lucrative influence peddling, to her outrageous lies about a terrorist attack, to her unceasing cascade of lies about her email scheme, over which she should have been indicted.  Her self-serving and duplicitous conduct was brazen and chronic.

Second, using the word "illegitimate" to describe the winner of a free and fair election is actually dangerous.  Under the rules of the road, Donald Trump won the last presidential election.  Period.  He is duly and legitimately elected.  This is a fact that Mrs. Clinton evidently cannot handle, so she undermines the harsh reality with reckless theories and claims.  On multiple occasions, she has attempted to attribute her loss in the state of Wisconsin to "voter suppression," relying on complaints so wrong that she's been slapped with multiple, harsh fact checks, including another "pants on fire" rating from left-leaning Politifact earlier this month.  She's also spread misinformation and conspiracies about last year's free and fair gubernatorial election in Georgia, in which her preferred candidate lost fair and square.  She's now escalated her rhetoric to suggest that the sitting president is not legitimate, while stating that Trump is "obsessed" with her.  That latter part may have some truth to it, but as Allahpundit has pointed out, that obsession is a dysfunctional two-way street:

We’ll be relitigating the Election Of The Damned for the rest of our miserable lives. Night and day, on and on, for decades. It’s even possible that Trump and Hillary will each live another 15 years and still be sniping at each other on Twitter or whatever hellish social-media nightmare ends up replacing that platform by 2034.

Hillary feigned deep concern for our institutions -- declaring Trump's hedging on whether he'd accept the 2016 election results "horrifying" -- while those institutions were working for her.  Once she lost, she decided to embrace norm-wrecking like the shameless hypocrite that she has always been. Parting thought: Is Joe Biden shaping up to be Hillary 2.0, albeit more affable and likable?

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