Political reality is what it is. The Democrat machine will pump out a certain minimum number of votes even if the party runs a bowling ball with a smiley face painted on it, and a mop head for a wig.
Hillary Clinton’s political influence and mountain of dubious cash make her the prohibitive Democrat front-runner, opposed for the Party nod by a collection of jokes and footnotes. She’s immune to scandal, and utterly above the law – she can, apparently, even lie to Congress with impunity.
And yet… her campaign looks more like performance art than a serious presidential run. She lurches from gaffe to scandal to faceplant, missing no opportunity to say the absolute worst thing at any given moment. Not even her dedicated admirers pretend to actually believe what she says about her email or fundraising scandals. Her lead-balloon sound bites reinforce every criticism made of her.
For example, as even supportive media figures are beginning to grumble about Clinton’s refusal to answer questions, or make any public appearance less tightly scripted than Kim Jong Un’s birthday parties, here she is smacking down an impertinent reporter who dares to ask whether Her Majesty would care to field a few inquiries from the press:
“I might,” she replies sarcastically to a question about whether she ever plans to answer any questions. “I’ll consider it. I will put it on my list for due consideration.” She proceeded to pantomime doing precisely that.
This is coming from a “political candidate” who, as this event was happening, had yet to answer her eighth question from the media since declaring last month. Meanwhile, the Republican candidates are pinned down by hordes of reporters demanding to know what they’d do about Iraq if they had time machines.
The media has never fallen out of love with Barack Obama, despite some occasionally rough treatment from the object of their worship. The difference is that he’s usually smoother than this on a personal basis – he lies constantly, in a way that makes reporters look like fools for uncritically relaying his words, and he’ll sic the politicized enforcement arms of the State on uppity journalists, but he doesn’t usually mock them for having the temerity to do their jobs. He especially didn’t do that when he was a candidate in the 2008 election, rather than a sitting President with immense power to reward his friends and punish his enemies.
Is the media ready to drag a scandal-plagued politician who won’t even talk to them into the Oval Office, based entirely on her party affiliation, her sex, and her marriage? Tune in next year to find out!
Update: Perhaps sensing her little “joke” wasn’t going over terribly well, Clinton did end up tossing off a few quick answers to reporter questions in Iowa today. Video and a full transcript of her responses can be found here.
The funniest one is where she claims to be “blessed and very grateful” because she and Bill are raking in untold millions of dollars by selling access… er, make that “giving paid speeches.” Sure, it’s just like winning the lottery! Keep playing, dear citizen, and you too could end up receiving half a million bucks, plus luxury travel expenses, to dump a canned 20-minute speech in front of a group that just happens to need the U.S. State Department’s approval for a big-bucks project!
The second-funniest bit was Clinton’s breathless assurance that she wants the American people to see her emails as soon as possible: “Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do.”
That would explain why she used an illegal secret server to keep them hidden for years, lied shamelessly to the American people about why she did it, lied to Congress about how many email addresses she was using, only handed any of her correspondence over to the State Department when they chased her down and demanded them, and ignored subpoenas to delete half of what she was hoarding. Her lips say “yes,” but her hard-drive-scrubbing software says “no.”
As one would expect, Clinton – the only 2016 candidate who actually did vote in favor of the Iraq War – got to slip out of the “was it a mistake?” question with a few unchallenged scraps of boilerplate: “I know there’s been a lot of questions posed to candidates over the last week. I made it clear I made a mistake, plain and simple. I have written about it in my book, talked about it in the past. What we now see is a very different and dangerous situation. The United States is doing what it can. ultimately, this has to be a struggle the Iraqi government and Iraqi people are determined to win for themselves. we can provide support, but they’re going to have to do it.”
Gee, who’s responsible for that “different and dangerous” situation? Who was his Secretary of State during the crucial years of his first term? Did Mrs. Clinton happen to notice that the Iraq Army broke and ran from an inferior ISIS force in Ramadi, leaving behind all that “support” we’ve been providing them?
You can see why Clinton doesn’t want to take questions. The media should not indulge her desire for privacy.
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