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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEverything About Clintons Created And A Myth.
There was nothing really crooked about the Clintons all along. Everything was created and the media supported all the false accusations. What is sad is that the real thieves, crooks murderers, liars et al were the ones who created it all.
We must remember all the lost emails with Bush. And we must remember that the GOP and it ilk also used private servers and probably still do. The email were never really a scandalous problem. And even after their problems were debunked they were still cast as criminal.
Now we are looking at rogue, renegade operatives now running our country. And they are all also still working with the Russians.
How will we ever get out of this mess?. When all facts are not relevant and reality is so twisted and offered as real we are in a teal national crisis.
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Squinch
(50,949 posts)as the Republican leadership points the gun at their own heads, truly believes that the woman who was completely innocent, and whose policies would have measurably improved their own lives, is the spawn of the devil. And they believe that the money laundering, real estate grifting, fake seminar peddling, intellectually challenged Russian mob puppet who has done nothing but lie to them, is a gift from baby Jesus.
iluvtennis
(19,849 posts)
Cosmocat
(14,563 posts)This country is lost.
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)We are doomed.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)which was actually very successful on most fronts. They gave us what we said we wanted and mostly did the right things the right way. Yes they went overboard on crime and welfare reform but that's what voters said they wanted.
Anyway the reason Bill brags, and Obama will probably have to start bragging, although he's not particularly comfortable doing it, is because no one else will tell the truth about his admin, even other Dems, who don't want to get tarred with the various manufactured scandals.
What do we do? Find another super-Dem and get him or her elected. He or she is out there I have no doubt.
Ezior
(505 posts)If you can pull this of, you can destroy anyone.
I've asked one of the Hillary basher commenters recently what the specific issues are that he find with Hillary. No reply for a long time, then link to a YouTube vid full of made-up or boring shit (like Benghazi, Wikileaks, donations, paid-for speeches – only real concern in that video was her private e-mail server, which is bad but not a REAL scandal). 30%-40% of US population is either extremely misinformed or nuts.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Hillary's emails were really no problem at all. Colin Powell, Bush & Company, Cheney and just about every official in GOP used private servers. Romney destroyed almost all the records from being governor. I know you would find private servers were used as a matter of fact.
The media aided and abetted by making these email look like they were bad. The GOP was just abel to created a phony and mythical reality that did not exist. And what they accused Clinton of they did all the time.
Benghazi happened because the GOP cut the security budget in the State Department. And it goes on and on with GOP sabotage.
Now we have an entire government compromised and tainted by the Russians. And the GOP is still working with the Russian hackers by NOT doing anything.
karynnj
(59,501 posts)1) Though cutting the security budget hurt the State Department's ability to protect all its facilities, I would prefer pointing out that diplomatic jobs in very dangerous countries come with risk. The men and women who accept those jobs do so knowing that while the US will take enormous efforts to keep them safe, it is impossible to never have security fail. As with the military, this is a risk, they take for their country. Libya was an unstable country, Benghazi was the center of the rebellion and was a consulate, not an embassy - so it had less security.
The reason this became an issue was that it happened in September 2012, right before an election, where Obama was arguing that he got OBL and had been successful in reducing our military footprint in the Middle east. Then Romney immediately politicized it and conflated the Cairo embassy's explanation that the US government does not approve films and had nothing to do with the offending film on Muhammad and the attack on Benghazi. The embassy was responding to protests in Cairo at the embassy over the film. IMO, the republicans were angry that President Obama was not greatly hurt by this politically. This anger eventually focused on the idea that Susan Rice lied on the 5 news shows. Proving it was Obama/Clinton strategy to intentionally lie was probably the root cause for demanding the emails between all of them. (ignored was that Obama, Clinton and Rice all called it terrorism - but did not use the special words demanded by the Republicans.)
Blaming the budget cuts implies that with enough money, the State Department could prevent any American diplomatic deaths. That argument then leads to Republicans looking at anything they could call "not essential" spent by the State Department in the first term as money that HRC could have moved to the security account and made benghazi safe.
With the emails, part of the blame does go to the poor initial response by the Clinton campaign. Ideally, in hindsight, had they just given the work emails to the State Department, especially as there were already requests for them before she left, the State Department would have been blamed for being slow in getting them to Congress and the media, but there likely would not have been an email issue. Given the Republican view that they would show that Obama and his administration hid something (which they didn't) to win 2012, everyone here would have guessed that those requests would have continued until they got them. Then, had she made the very points you did - that there were no procedures from past SoS's to follow and that what she chose to do was not optimal, but there were no best practices to follow at that point. (Note this would have worked better had she archived with the State Department her work email real time or at least when she left.)
radical noodle
(8,000 posts)How they responded since the GOP was determined to blow it out of proportion.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)They admit that they "had nothing" with this emails but the truth is that they ran with them and acted like they were something huge and bamboozled the media into acting like ot was too.
karynnj
(59,501 posts)The Benghazi issue, for the most part, ended after those hearings ended. Congress waited about 2 years - refusing to call HRC for the final time - because they did not have the emails. If the SD had them and provided them in early 2013, that last hearing would have been 2 years earlier, there very likely would have been no email "scandal" and no FBI/ SD IG or IC IG investigation.
The issue, as HRC was seen to change her response fed into 1990s memes and - fair or not - it greatly hurt how she was seen. BOTH she and Trump were seen as not trustworthy. The question was always asked independently for both - so the responses made them seem equivalent, which was VERY VERY wrong. Clinton was far more trustworthy, honest, qualified, reasonable, respectable and almost any other positive characteristic you could name.
What I don't know is whether that mattered at all. I suspect that Clinton "negatives" were an excuse for people who for ideological reasons were voting for a man they could not really defend. This allowed them to say both had problems, but they were voting for the type of SCJ they wanted, change from the last 8 years, smaller government, or lower taxes etc. However, I suspect that even if the Democratic nominee have had all Clinton's credentials and was the best person who ever lived, the result could have been the same.
One reason I think this was that I KNOW I was 100% prepared to vote for the re-election of Torrecelli, when he had major problems -- because the alternative was a Republican, and a conservative one at that. It never became an issue to me of who was the better man. It didn't matter - my vote was for a Senator who would vote for the Democratic caucus -- and where it didn't matter in 2002, had a Republican won that seat in 2003, it would have meant us not taking back the Senate in 2007. As it was, I was relieved that Torrecelli was replaced by the wonderful Lautenberg before the election.
luvtheGWN
(1,336 posts)How many MILLIONS of times do the media call what only amounts to "Malicious gossip or rumours" SCANDAL -- especially when it has been applied to the Clintons? I cringe every time I hear that word used when news anchors and political commentators attach it to the gossip perpetrated by the reichwing about the Clintons, with absolutely no evidence of actual malfeasance. It's the favourite word of the GOP.
At least, when it comes to the Trumps, nothing being said is based merely on rumour. I'm certain all the dirty truth will be laid out for all to see.
ananda
(28,858 posts).. but I do not think the Clintons are lily white either.
They are better than ANY Reep though.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Compared to what the country faces now they look like saints. If the GOP got its way on everything this country would become a dystopian cesspools. And we are on our way their unless we stop them.
Caliman73
(11,730 posts)That has been his problem and he has made unforced errors along the way. I will completely stipulate that the Right Wing media, followed by the sensationalist mainstream media were rabidly going after the Clintons, but in one situation I think Bill did not help matters.
While infidelity is a personal matter between spouses/partners/etc... When Bill tried to parse his way out of accepting responsibility, that was not a good thing. When the story about Monica Lewinsky started to come out, Bill should have gone to Hillary and said, "I am really sorry for doing this to you", then he should have stepped up and told everyone, "Yeah, you know what, I am human and I have failings, I made a bad choice and stupid mistake getting involved in an affair. I hurt my wife, I hurt Monica, and I showed poor judgment. However, this is a personal matter that does not affect the job I have been doing and will continue to do for the American people. My opponents want to make this into something more, but it isn't anything more than a personal matter between my wife and myself".
Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 but the cardinal rule in politics is that the cover up is usually worse than the crime.
Also, optically... Bill hanging out in front of a polling location during a primary election does not look good, nor did getting together with the Attorney General during a particularly contentious election. Bill's judgment is not always the best and while doing the things I mentioned above may not have stopped the Right Wing from going after him and Hillary, those are the major blunders that he committed that did not help.
Otherwise, I agree with you that The Clinton's are by no means crooks and are just politicians.
pirateshipdude
(967 posts)"not lily white". Reality, I know nothing that I am suppose to attack Clintons on or pin on them pertaining to any illegality or unethical, but they still get a brush with bad, with no substance.
It is like when we talk about Clinton's campaign, and we see all she is up against, and each and every time we have to say, the campaign was not perfect.
Or when talking about Hillary Clinton's ability and we have to say, each and every time, she is not perfect.
Because even when we are saying that this was manufactured smear, we still taint them with a manufactured smear, and that is wrong in my book. There is an issue, or not.
ananda
(28,858 posts)Certain things about the Foundation and pay for play bothered me.
Also, I don't think Whitewater was totally on the up and up.
On the whole, though, somewhat white and slightly dirty looks
lily pure compared to 45 and the Reeps allied with the Russians
and money laundering on such a scale.
pirateshipdude
(967 posts)Nothing has been found that is wrong, illegal, uncommon or unethical. Further the rating and research comes up exemplary. So because we have listened to a lot of trash connecting to the foundation, there must be something, while all evidence points there is nothing.
A lot more simple possibility is Clintons knowing the constant attention on them, they are likely to absolutely be "lily white" in behavior whether they want to be or not, or whether they are inclined to be or not.
Yet still, with nothing pertaining to the foundation that is legitimate, you were able to paint them as less than lily white, and move on with slightly dirty.
Then place them in criminal behavior as "less than" the Republicans flat out criminal and unethical behavior.
I get your point, we do not have to keep hashing it out. I disagree.
We can't stop the right-wing from making up fake "scandals" about our candidates.
But we sure as hell can stop reinforcing and legitimizing them.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)NOBODY has ever said that the Clintons were "perfect" or "lily-white." I know some on DU demand perfection in a candidate; good luck with finding something that doesn't exist. I don't get that it seems to be REQUIRED to follow any positive statement about the Clintons with "but they're not...whatever." That they (or any other human) aren't perfect is a given. No need to minimize a positive statement with declaring that.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)It wasn't debunked on Fox News, RW newspapers or on RW radio, so it keeps their base fired up and angry and turning out to vote. And, they can also hold fundraisers off of their angry, fired up base...
csziggy
(34,136 posts)They turned Jimmy Carter into a "failed" president even though he did a lot of really good things. He restored the dignity of the Office of President after Nixon trashed it. He brought about a peace that still holds between Egypt and Israel.
President Carter's big "crime" was to try to convince the US to move away from fossil fuels for the good of the country and the world. Of we'd listened to Carter, we would have been energy independent for decades now. The USA would be the world leader in solar and other alternative power sources. We would not have gotten involved in the first Gulf War, bin Laden would not have gone rabid because US troops would not have been stationed in Saudi Arabia. The attacks on the World Trade Center would not have happened and we would not be involved in the longest war the US has ever wages.
Thank you.
nm
Perseus
(4,341 posts)When people stop thinking that the fate of the country rests on "their team", because politics is not a sport, your team doesn't have to win if winning means the destruction of everything you hold dear. When people stop voting against their interests and those of the country, when the media becomes patriotic and starts reporting real news and not pander to the crooks and liars, when they stop inviting people as "experts" who they know they lie all the time. When people understand that being educated, reading, learning is not an elite thing, but a must because doing so helps you gain knowledge and protect the country you love from crooks like the ones in the White House today. Knowledge IS power.
NO ONE is born "Republican" or "Democrat", people born in the USA, or those who become citizens, must give their loyalty to the country, not a political party. There are good and bad people on both sides, currently there are more bad people on the republican side, but knowledge will give you the ability to see them for what/who they are. I still cannot understand how so many people did not see through Trump, and the only thing I can think of is ignorance, because ignorance also brings with it racism, misogyny, violence, and the worst in people.
Anyway, that is my answer.
thbobby
(1,474 posts)Fake journalism on 24 hour news cycle. Sounds kinda like Trump. He is a master of projection.
1) clustertrump boosted ratings. More profit. No need to think or investigate. Just listen to trumpian bullshit. Even pretend to disagree. But give him lots of free coverage.
2) A competitive election boosted ratings. More profit. Why investigate if what was said about Hillary was true? Just repeat it endlessly. Viola closer election. Better ratings.
3) Is MSM now committed to quality journalism? They are doing a great job exposing of exposes the putrid fatasstrump presidency and its enablers. Still, are they more concerned with profit or quality journalism?
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)
world wide wally
(21,740 posts)
BSdetect
(8,998 posts)
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)When people bring her up, I say what does Hillary have to do with Trump? Even if Hillary had run a pedophile ring out of a pizzeria, that does not excuse treason by a sitting president.