A Ramble on Hillary By Richard Sale

     I don’t care for Hilary Clinton as a candidate for the U.S. Presidency for reasons I will shortly make clear, but I admire her attempt to overcome the male hogwash that has so long been part of our national life.

     What sort of male hogwash? I sometimes try and realize the obstacles that the prejudices of pigheaded men have put in the path of Hillary from the beginning. In our national history, women have been consistently slighted, underrated and slandered.  We have all heard the arguments. Women are not on an equal footing with our glorious males. A woman was worth only 3/5^th of a man.  (You can add up any way you wish, but the total remains the same.) Women were not made for strenuous mental or physical efforts. Women are childish, silly and shortsighted. A woman’s life is supposed to be trivial and easy going. Women cannot reason; women are not able to reflect.  They are inferior to men in terms of things like fairness, honesty, conscientiousness, and insight. Women are mental myopics. Women don’t have original ideas. They get their ideas from men.  Women are incapable of being objective. Women have a tendency to run away with their feelings. Women are guilty of perjury much more than men. Women are a stunted, narrow shouldered. Broad-hipped and short-legged breed. And even when women band together, they don’t command the mental power of men.  A woman’s whole purpose in life is to propagate the race.

   All of this is vile.

     On the other hand to elect a woman to be president on the ground that she is a woman, strikes me as racist. We should vote for merit and not sex.

    

But to elect a woman to the Presidency merely because she is a woman, strikes me as a racist view.

 

Unscrupulousness as Policy

 

     The want of any sort of moral principle or intellectual scruple is often the main engine that drives a candidate’s rampant desire to become a dominating public figure. The politicians who thirst and burn for distinction are very often commonplace in those areas sheltered from the public view. In fact, the inner characters of such leaders display their deficiencies by the very nature of what they yearn to have. The leader who wants to succeed at any price, like Hillary Clinton, is a slave of the concepts of Public Eminence, High Station, the Worship of Collective Human Power and Military Force. Such leaders hunger for fame in bold, proud letters; they hunger to see their names plastered atop every official building and every monument.

     There are few things as ugly as this rampant self-worship. Under its gaze, ordinary life shrivels and diminishes. The vast universe contracts to a mere tawdry bauble kicked to and fro by contending rivals. Hillary has eyes only for those circumstances, facts and incidents that suit and confirm her own biases and which advance her own designs, however morally dubious they may be. Self-worship like hers is not blind in the least-- her temperament, her disposition, her power of analysis, enables her to select people whose ideals and ambition and desires are similar to her own. A political leader estimates his or her allies based on their usefulness in furthering the leader’s designs and schemes. Think of the people who occupy high positions in her campaign: her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, or her deputy chiefs, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, loyalists all, all working to cover up the e-mail scandal, a scandal that clearly threatens Hillary’s viability as a candidate. Staffers like hers bend the rules until they break. One suspects that aanything or anyone that doesn’t serve Clinton’s appetite for public power is cast aside, belittled, scoffed at, undermined or marooned. A political leader like her, sees people as furniture, objects to be moved here, moved there, placed where they will do the leader the most good. A close supporter of a leader has no will or desires or designs of their own. They suspend such things in the hope that their subjugation will be generously rewarded. They accept that their purpose in life is to be used by someone greater, someone who will prove a generous giver of favors, advancement, money and prestige. In other words, their destiny is to be the tool of another’s more powerful and decided will. 

     Leaders like Hillary despise the minds of the people that they court. She sees her supporters as a means, not an end. Hillary coldly gauges their gullibility, their credulity and addiction to hearsay and vague, incomplete ideas of life and the trivial events as conveyed by the TV news. Unfortunately, her public has become receptive only to the obvious because they sadly lack the culture and knowledge and wit that would enable them to cross-examine and discredit the spurious things she asserts. This is why her fans applaud and approve whatever nonsense she utters. They are blank sheets to be written on.

     The sad and inevitable fact is that members of any political party always end up firmly in the grip of its leader. Members of a crowd don’t dare to diverge from what its leader asserts. There is a kind of mental contagion that prompts them to support the self-proclaimed strong against the feeble and weak. The followers seem not realize that any Government is a kind of barter system, a vast connivance, an organized trading of favors in a rigged game. The strength of a party leader is not talent -- it consists mainly of access to inside information. The leader knows when or where a big gain in support is coming and from what quarter, and who is going to deliver it. There are only a few choice spots open to the ambitious, but with the right backers and influence, you could be one of them. And of course, once a choice position was gained, its occupier will use it for the ruthless furtherance of his or her own personal interests. The Hillary followers know from the beginning which side is safe to back. They know who works the levers that set the whole machine in motion. If the party had performed its work efficiently, almost all the guesswork had been taken out, everyone figuring out a way to sell everyone to everybody.

     Political campaigns clearly retail all sorts of hollow promises. The supporters of a leader forget that any party acts at its own peril. They may embrace the current promises, but the outcome is not preordained. Political alliances are a way to escape the perils of uncertainty which is why supporters work so frantically to elect their chiefs. The philosopher John Dewey observed that in most people, “…judgment and belief regarding actions to be performed can never attain more than a precarious probability.” In other words, any practical activity, domestic or foreign, deals with individualized and unique situations which are incapable of being duplicated, yet to a voter’s mind, faith in a leader is fundamentally connected with a desire for a certainty which shall be absolute and unshakeable. Yet history proves again and again, that any leader is brutally surprised by the unforeseen challenges that attend their triumph.   

   I believe that if Hillary is elected as President, she will become more domineering and unscrupulous. Her will is imperial. She is ambitious as Macbeth. She not only wants to rule, she wants to reign. One can only imagine how docile, obliging, suppliant, and weak her cabinet officials would be, and how quickly they would hand over any store of their own critical judgment and self-reliance to her. It is clear that Hillary suffers from a temperamental impatience which renders her more peremptory and shameless. She and Trump suffer from the same defects. They are brusque with inferiors because either they are tools, or, if not, they merely stand in their way. In Hillary’s case, her chief interest is her career and her family. She loves money, however it is obtained. Since her habitual thought aims at station and power and subjugation, such things as honor, conscience and humanity merely stand in her way.

     Will her election change Hillary? “The designing knave may sometimes wear a visor to beguile but watch him narrowly, and you will detect him behind his mask,” Hazlitt said. Success will not act to change Hillary from a hard, unfeeling, insolence character and transform it into one of openness and generosity because of improved circumstances. Again, as Hazlitt noted, “A flat face doesn’t become an oval one or a pug nose into a Roman one” because you have acquired a new office. Successes endorses your usual way of thinking and doing. “Things won are done,” said Shakespeare

     Hillary is at heart vulgar soul. She is never going to be convulsed by conscience. She does not want to be mild, just and beloved; in fact, she despises such things as weakness. She is immune from contrition. Nothing -- no setback, no defeat, no attack, no annoyance or scandal is going to move her to relinquish her designs, to abandon her shady deals or odd connections. She embodies a narrow single track of combative will. A fixed pugnacity sits at the center of her nature.

     It is deeply unfortunate that our political candidates never talk from the heart. They don’t unveil their deepest urges or traits. What they say is fashioned with a purpose – it doesn’t have to be true because its real purpose is to convince. Hillary would have us believe that the popular is the profound. The truth isn’t really true because in an election, it only needs to sound like the truth. One is prompted to wonder how much Hillary knows about the workings of her own mind. If Ambition erases the ability to have second thoughts, Success obliterates them entirely. Hillary’s desires may prove triumphant, but one suspects that they are founded on the corrupt, the greedy, the exploitive, the ruthless, and the unsound. Hillary reads the terrain of political conflict better than her rivals. But she is devoid of the ability to question herself.

     Hillary touts her wide experience. She praises her powers of judgment because of that spacious experience. But having experience doesn’t make you smart, and the new leader has to have a mind free from stubborn prejudges if you want to achieve real insight. Only the gifts and capacities of the candidates mind, if they are excellent and outstanding, can they provide the ability to administer foreign policy. The standout qualities of Hillary as a leader is her immense, pitiless and stubborn will, a will that wants to carry the day, in spite of the fact that the triumph will bring unexpected dilemmas and perils. The key question that should be asked, has her experienced produced in her any strategic soundness? Look at Libya. Look at Iraq. The brazen hollowness of Hillary’s, "We can do it" attitude may sound brave and vigorous, but such an attitude can disguise her own incompetence and persistent defects of analysis. Banal slogans like “keeping the country safe, upending the Iran deal, snuggling closer to Israel, shows how little we have advanced in the debate over how to advance actual U.S. national interests versus our compulsion to impose democracy in foreign countries.

   The gigantic and fatuous ocean of trite statements issued daily by the media, the unending tiresomeness about “the aspirations of the Iraqi people,” or “giving the Iraqis or Syrians democracy and a free market economy,” or “Give freedom to Syria’s opposition,” only make us gag. They numb the mind. The phrase “Syrian people,” used by U.S. politicians, is especially annoying because it is a species of theft, the infirm product of some mentally limping office-seeker who is laying claim to the authority to speak for millions of foreigners when in fact they know only a minute and obliging scatter of them. Frankly, the phrase “American people” is for weak-kneed and semi-literate phrase. The great poet Paul Valery once said that the only word that truly defined the phrase “the French people” was the word “mixture.” The latter word deflate a lot of grandeur from of the phrase, but it act to let the air out of common bombast. Deflating bombast is sorely needed in today’s world where so many shrill, tinsel voices often blare their loud rhetorical bugles while sitting on their high horses.

   Indeed, Hillary has learned a lot from working n a man’s world, says my wife.

Comments

[xbrowning]

62 year-old labor Democrat (yes, they exist) and a dedicated Sanders supporter. Ronald Reagan made me a Democrat. Bill Clinton made me a sceptic.

On the subject of Hillary: I just don't get the vitriol. Feverish thirties-style invective, gossip, innuendo and pure invention. Redolent of anti-Rooseveltian (?!) tirades from the past. Black conspiracies, treason, money, murder, sex, power. Gawd, on and on.

She's a pol. Why is she special?

She's a politician. It's her nature, I wouldn't begrudge her that. Like any other politician. I know what to expect. I've watched her for these twenty-odd years like anyone else has. We've all had the opportunity. Like any other pol.

I've never seen her do anything political more deserving of condemnation than any other politician. They're mostly all cut from the same cloth. She did some good work in the Senate in the short time she was there. Love to see her go back.
State Dept? Well, let's see... Competent, capable, more sanguine that I would like, didn't let any make too big a fool of her. Unintimidated, I'll give her that. I think she could deal with Putin. Hehe.

That or The Court. Forget Obama. Put Hil on the Court. Yowza.

It's beyond trash-talk. It's unreasoned something. Is it the Clinton thing? Is it the woman thing? Is it just a Democrat thing? Is it a blonde thing? Skirts? Pantsuits? I just don't understand the fear and hatred this woman seems to generate and the willingness and zeal with which it is propagated to... whom?

True believers? Why bother, they already believe.
The Persuadable middle? Good luck

I always figured Bill for the villian in this play. Happily voted for him twice. Railed passionately against his financial policies. And Russia policy - badly botched and still haunting us. Bill didn't do us many favors.

I'm working for Bernie, but if it's Hillary in the end. OK. In either event, I'll make my X with a sceptical eye.

[Jackrabbit]

pl

The best description I've seen for why its a big deal is that Marines at embassies and consulates are asked to die to protect such information.

Then add Hillary's feigned cluelessness and obfuscations. What difference does it make? Depends on what the definition of 'is' is?

[mike]

JM -

I have a great deal of respect for the vast majority of Colonel Lang's assessments and opinions. As far as those email problems being considered problematic "by pretty much every military and intelligence professional in the world", I take that as an exaggeration. I spent almost two decades in the MI field myself and understand about the sensitivity of classified material. I also understand about overclassification which is out of control and has been going on for half a century or more. Are you telling me that as an intel professional you never ever took some unclassified portions of a secret or top secret or even a codeword document for distribution under a lower heading? I also understand about classification after the fact. And whatever happened with those emails it seems to me she did it for the right reasons, unlike Dick Cheney who deliberately leaked classified info for political reasons and skated free.

You are certainly free to believe that she "will certainly work to benefit herself, her family, ... based purely on her past actions". I consider her reputation to be as clean as any other current candidate. Please show me one of them who has is not a grifter. The only reason Hill takes flak is based on a quarter century of right wing BS. Whoever said "no lie can live forever" is dead wrong.

[turcopolier]

mike

Do you know her? You have every right to be her partisan. I would caution you against assuming that what was declassified and transmitted was over-classified and unimportant. pl

[JM Gavin]

President Obama has a secure Blackberry. I have a secure Blackberry. Hillary Clinton fell somewhere between the President and I on the continuum of important folks working for the USG. She is considerably closer to the top than I am. If I rate a secure Blackberry, so did she. She chose not to use a secure Blackberry. I deal with DoS folks all the time who rate secure Blackberries.

I don't judge what is over-classified. I conform to the classification of the originator. If I raise the classification, I mark it as such. While I do sometimes see traffic that may appear over-classified, I also understand that I may not know the whole picture, so I respect the classification. That is my duty, and I am legally bound to honor it...just like Hilary Clinton was legally bound.

I also bear in mind at all times that my email is subject to monitoring. I am aware that using a personal account to conduct official business places all traffic on that account subject to review and FOIA. So, no, I do not sometimes cut and paste and eliminate headers, and I would never advise someone else to do so.

While the other candidates may be grifters, Hillary Clinton is the only one that has spent so much time in the last 30 years being investigated for criminal wrongdoing. The "vast right wing conspiracy" thing is getting old. Right now the DoD, DoS, DoJ, NCS, and FBI are dominated by Democrats or folks that lean that way.

[rjj]

not good that. in fact double double ungood! thanks for the link.

[The Twisted Genius]

JM Gavin,

Succinctly explained. I guess the idea of carrying two Blackberries was just too onerous for Madam Secretary. DOL

[optimax]

I won't vote for Hillary anymore than I will for Cruz or Rubio. From what I can tell, Bernie is the only candidate running for what he considers the public good and not to feed his ego. In this sense, I don't think Hillary is any worse than the Republicans. Because Richard's post is not about the emails but about her character, I won't address them.

Hillary is a hypocrite, liar, narcissist and everything else Richard says she is. The biggest narcissist is Trump. One telltale sign of a narcissist is how he relentlessly attacks, through insults, the character, the appearance, the failures of a person that challenges his self-perceived supreme position at the top-of-the-heap. Most of Trumps speeches consist of insulting the other candidates, especially anyone gaining on him. That hasn't been amusing since eighth grade.

Still, I'd vote for Trump over Cruz. Ted reminds me of wht Sinclair Lewis: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." After winning the Iowa caucus he said, "All glory to God." It is presumptuous to think his victory magnifies God. He's a liar and cheat, anyway. Hiding campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs, shaming citizens who didn't vote in the last caucus. "A Face in the Crowd" is what I consider an important part of voter education.

Rubio might be honest but he's wrong. We've gone down the road of more war, less taxes almost to the dead end.

Barbara Tuchman wrote that the presidency is too complicated for any one person. The duties broken up into 4,5,or6 (I forgot the number) elected council members. Theat way, you vote for a person based on their expertise in foreign policy, domestic, economic and Hillary could be Queen. She would be good at it because, as Nietzsche observed, the people of a Republic elect the gregarious, and Hillary is an exceptionally social animal.

[rjj]

it's denial.

[Matthew G. Saroff]

The problem is that she seems inauthentic.

It comes from sharing the stage with Bill Clinton, who could make Pope Frank look like look like the Andy Kaufman character Tony Clifton.

Next to him, everyone looks inauthentic.

[William R. Cumming]

IMO the coin flips demonstrate NO significance to DEMS EFFORTS IN IOWA!

[William R. Cumming]

The Mormons are closet socialists-perhaps Jon Huntsman!

[rjj]

what then? what then? what then? induces a bad case of the stares.

[rjj]

By way of how big a deal it is: to the ignorant onlooker it seems that HRC violated the same principle (though probably different statutes) as Wen Ho Lee.

[Richard Sale]

That is extremely well said.

Richard

[Richard Sale]

Thank you very much. I'll look up the link.

Richard

[Richard Sale]

Thank you. I think you are right.

Richard

[mgj]

Actually yes, I am often in need of an editor. Regards.