{"id":7655,"date":"2014-07-14T07:10:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T14:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7655"},"modified":"2014-07-14T07:10:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T14:10:50","slug":"all-clintoned-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/all-clintoned-out\/","title":{"rendered":"All Clintoned Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo via PJMedia Artwork created using multiple Shutterstock.com [17] images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barack Obama did not blow apart Hillary Clinton\u2019s huge lead during the 2008 Democratic primaries just because he was a landmark African-American candidate, new to the scene, and a skilled campaigner. Even Democrats\u00a0were all Clintoned out<\/a>\u00a0[1]<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

By such weariness, I don\u2019t suggest that either of the Clintons is unpopular. Indeed, Americans apparently look fondly back on the high-growth 1990s as the continuation of the Reagan-Bush boom years, and a time when Democrats and Republicans finally fixed budget deficits. (Note well that when Obama went back to the Clinton-era tax rates for the more affluent, the deficit dipped, but certainly did not approach the balanced budget that was once achieved by spending discipline under the Clinton-Gingrich compromise.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The problem instead is\u00a0Hillary Clinton herself<\/a>\u00a0[2]<\/sup>. She is not a very good speaker, and is prone to shrill outbursts and occasional chortling. She has a bad habit of committing serial gaffes (e.g., speaking too candidly), and what she says on Monday is often contradicted by her rantings on Tuesday. She seems cheap and obsessed with raking in free stuff. When Bill steps in to correct her mistakes, either sloppily or out of some strange psychological spite, he usually makes things even worse. We saw that often\u00a0in 2008<\/a>\u00a0[3]<\/sup>\u00a0and are seeing it again now. But aside from the cosmetics of her political style, the Clintons are faced with two fundamental obstacles in 2016.<\/p>\n

One, Hillary Clinton seems to be interested in running on the elite progressive themes of equality and fairness. The problem here is obvious. Few Americans have more enriched themselves by trading on their public service than have she and her husband. A\u00a0George Marshall<\/a>\u00a0[4]<\/sup>\u00a0in retirement Hillary is not.<\/p>\n

With the Clintons there is always a catch to the apologies for their progressive graspingness. At a time of record student debt, sky-rocketing tuition, and scandalous university perks, Hillary Clinton is now charging\u00a0over $200,000<\/a>\u00a0[5]<\/sup>\u00a0for a brief run-of-the-mill \u201cI am Hillary\u201d speech \u2014 no landmark political announcements, no insights into foreign policy, nothing much other than standard liberal therapeutic boilerplate trading on her increased market value due to her recent tenure as chief foreign affairs officer of the United States.<\/p>\n

When these exorbitant fees were questioned by the liberal media, she seemed stunned that any would doubt her progressive fides, and cited her past caring for the poorer off. Then she backed off and assured us that the money went to \u201ccharity.\u201d Of course, with the Clintons, we know there is always a nuance and tweak to follow. So next, the \u201ccharity\u201d turned out to be\u00a0the Clinton Foundation<\/a>\u00a0[6]<\/sup>, which\u00a0tends to fund the extravagant private jet travel of mostly Bill and Hillary and their appendages.<\/p>\n

One Percenters as Populist Poseurs<\/strong><\/p>\n

How then do the Clintons pass as populists, given their exorbitant speaking fees \u2014 Bill has probably raked in more post-presidential money than all prior U.S. presidents of the last half-century combined \u2014 their mansions, and their elaborate one-percent lifestyles? Was $30 million in book advances over the years for the two of them not enough for progressive populists?<\/p>\n

Hillary protested that despite a past multimillion-dollar book advance for her, and multimillion-dollar speaking fees lined up for Bill, they\u00a0left the presidency \u201cbroke\u201d<\/a>\u00a0[7]<\/sup>\u00a0in 2001. When that trope did not work, Hillary turned to the now well-known theory of medieval exemption: they could not possibly be greedy (in the sense of ignoring the Obama rule that a multimillionaire must know when not to profit and at what point she has already made enough money), because they were lifelong liberals who had worked their tails off for social justice.<\/p>\n

Like John Kerry (the advocate of higher taxes who avoided them on his yacht, like Al Gore (the proponent of green energy who likes private jets and big SUVs, and like Tom Steyer (whose green cash donations are predicated on cashing in on sooty coal development in third-world countries), the Clintons see no contradiction in charging outrageous rates for speaking and living quite well \u2014 while being for \u201cfairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, under the protocols of contemporary progressivism, in the abstract being loudly for equality means in the concrete having a lot more things than most anyone else. Modern liberalism has descended into the art of rich people blaming the lower middle class for not being generous enough with money they don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

In such a strange world, Chelsea, Hillary assures us, is not so interested in profit-mongering and all such distasteful money-grubbing, but does tolerate a ten-million-dollar New York tony apartment (replete\u00a0with Italian marble baths<\/a>\u00a0[8]<\/sup>), and sort of puts up with a\u00a0multi-thousand-dollar an hour<\/a>\u00a0[9]<\/sup>\u00a0nepotistic TV contract.<\/p>\n

She is even willing to stomach her multimillionaire parents crafting all sorts of family trusts to avoid inheritance taxes so that she will have enough millions not to worry about having to make millions to support a lifestyle she doesn\u2019t much like. Keep all that in mind as Hillary drops her g\u2019s and\u00a0adopts a black patois<\/a>\u00a0[10]<\/sup>\u00a0when addressing African-Americans, and, to paraphrase Barack Obama, then again becomes Annie Oakley when shooting rifles\u00a0with the clingers<\/a>\u00a0[11]<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

What a strange couple the Clintons became: the feminist president who was a serial groper and ace harasser; the feminist secretary of State\u00a0who chortled in recall<\/a>\u00a0[12]<\/sup>\u00a0about an old sexual battery case in which she got a rapist off easy, and whose advisors reduced Bill\u2019s liaisons to trailer trash or nuts; the two populists who cashed in; the middle-class\u00a0 defenders who fawned over Wall Street; and on and on.<\/p>\n

The second problem with Hillary\u2019s candidacy is Obama. In 2009,\u00a0the betting was close<\/a>\u00a0[13]<\/sup>\u00a0on whether her secretary of State\u00a0 (she had no particular foreign affairs experience prior to her appointment) billet was a deft Obama move (keep your enemies closer than your friends) or a Clintonian wise political gambit (keep in the limelight for 2016).<\/p>\n

The problem is that her four years as secretary of State coincided with a collapse of U.S. foreign policy unseen since 1979-80. In a fair world, Hillary would be judged as the worst secretary of State since Cyrus Vance. Most of the disasters \u2014 Benghazi, the chaos in Libya, the failed reset with Russia, the bogus Syrian red lines, the phony Iranian deadlines to stop enrichment, the yanking of all peacekeepers out of Iraq that led to the ISIS ascendance, the surge and simultaneous withdrawal dates in Afghanistan, the disastrous Middle East pressures that have led to the eve of war, the flip-flop-flip in Egypt, the clumsy spying on allies,\u00a0the lying about and jailing of a video maker<\/a>\u00a0[14]<\/sup>, and on and on \u2014 came on her watch.<\/p>\n

Distancing Her Own Disaster from a Disaster<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if Obama were at 60% approval ratings, if the economy were booming, if there were no alphabet soup of scandals \u2014 AP, IRS, VA, NSA, etc. \u2014 Hillary would have some trouble contextualizing her disastrous record as secretary of State during a popular administration.<\/p>\n

But now she must distance her own disaster from a disaster. I suppose that it is conventionally wise for her to junk Obama (e.g., \u201che did it, not me\u201d), but there are pitfalls nonetheless. She must over the next two years cut herself off from everything Obama. She must do so on the premise that she was secretary despite, not because of, Obama and that all the disastrous decisions that she made were really her boss\u2019s \u2014 the exact nature of which each month she may reluctantly disclose.<\/p>\n

If Obama\u2019s popularity dips below 40% \u2014 the point at which a presidency is reduced to irrelevance \u2014 with more than two years left on his tenure, Hillary will only speed up the process. She will de facto run against Obama (on the premise that she is promising a continuum of Bill Clinton\u2019s Democratic mainstream successes) in the manner that Adlai Stevenson sort of ran against lame duck Harry Truman in 1952, and in the way in which John McCain often seemed as critical of George W. Bush as was Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Yet trashing your kindred predecessor is a hard thing to pull off (ask Al Gore<\/a>\u00a0[15]<\/sup>). Presidents in their last year of office don\u2019t appreciate it, and occasionally have ways to push back. Sometimes the base doesn\u2019t like such ingratitude either. The electorate asks, why elect another Democrat or Republican to follow an unpopular Democrat or Republican? For Hillary to escape Obama\u2019s unpopularity, she must in circular fashion over the next two years only make him more unpopular by her very efforts at distancing herself from him \u2014 while avoiding the charge of,\u201dwell, then, what were you doing from 2009 to 20013?\u201d Adlai Stevenson and John McCain, of course, were not cabinet officers in the respective Truman and Bush administrations.<\/p>\n

None of these hurdles \u2014 or questions about both Hillary\u2019s and Bill\u2019s\u00a0age and health<\/a>\u00a0[16]<\/sup>\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0is insurmountable for a contortionist like Ms. Clinton. Hillary believes that Obama\u2019s great achievement is that he left a permanently divided America, by his various \u201cwars\u201d of race, gender and class. Accordingly, she can reforge that adversarial coalition of young women, gays, greens, minorities, unions, elite liberals and wealthy progressives against \u201cthem\u201d by virtue of her gender and politics \u2014 and do so is a less grating way. The feminist who hunted down Bill\u2019s interns and who makes $200,000 from cash-strapped universities for brief pep talks will soon lecture us on the evils of a misogynist one-percent nation (e.g., don\u2019t we all hate those who make more in 30 minutes than we do in four years?).<\/p>\n

Current polls suggest that she will pull it off. (In the way the early polls had assured that she would in 2008?) What then is likely?<\/p>\n

Who knows, although we can be certain of one fact: If the Republican candidate campaigns according to the Marquess of Queensberry rules in the fashion of John McCain or Mitt Romney and politely deflects each hour the insinuation that as a rich, old white guy de facto he is culpable for some \u2013ism or -ology, Hillary will be elected.<\/p>\n

But if such charges are either inapplicable to the Republican candidate or are answered in slash-and-burn Lee Atwater style \u2014 who was so despised by establishment Republican political operatives \u2014 then nothing is certain.<\/p>\n

Article printed from Works and Days:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/victordavishanson<\/strong><\/p>\n

URL to article:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/victordavishanson\/all-clintoned-out\/<\/strong><\/p>\n

URLs in this post:<\/p>\n

[1] were all Clintoned out:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2009\/06\/01\/insert-obligatory-godfather-reference-here\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[2] Hillary Clinton herself:\u00a0http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/Content\/Public\/Articles\/000\/000\/014\/558oparc.asp<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[3] in 2008:\u00a0http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/bill-clintons-image-damaged\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[4] George Marshall:\u00a0http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_Marshall<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[5] over $200,000:\u00a0http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2281777\/Hillary-Clinton-charge-200-000-speech–YEARS-salary-Secretary-State-Bill-charges.html<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[6] the Clinton Foundation:\u00a0http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/Big-Government\/2014\/07\/05\/Hillary-Says-She-Donated-High-Speaking-Fees-to-Charity-Her-Own-Clinton-Charity<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[7] left the presidency \u201cbroke\u201d:\u00a0http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/blogs\/politics\/2014\/06\/hillary-clinton-stumbles-from-dead-broke-to-not-truly-well-off\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[8] with Italian marble baths:\u00a0http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/381122\/heres-how-little-chelsea-clinton-cares-about-money-dollars-celina-durgin<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[9] multi-thousand-dollar an hour:\u00a0http:\/\/newsbusters.org\/blogs\/tim-graham\/2014\/06\/14\/chelsea-clintons-600000-year-salary-nbc-story-month-obvious-political-fa<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[10] adopts a black patois:\u00a0http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xk7hFnB4JnA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[11] with the clingers:\u00a0http:\/\/bearingarms.com\/awesome-hillary-clinton-compares-gun-owners-terrorists\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[12] who chortled in recall:\u00a0http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2014\/07\/08\/hillary-clinton-refuses-to-apologize-for-laughing-about-12-year-old-rape-victim-she-maligned-in-court\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[13] the betting was close:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2014\/06\/26\/hillary-chelsea-ruling-class\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[14] the lying about and jailing of a video maker:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2013\/05\/07\/hillary-pushed-internet-video-meme-at-victims-funeral\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[15] ask Al Gore:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2014\/06\/27\/hillary-change-or-continuity\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[16] age and health:\u00a0http:\/\/www.drudgereport.com\/flashek.htm<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[17] Shutterstock.com:\u00a0http:\/\/www.shutterstock.com<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2008 Works and Days. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia Barack Obama did not blow apart Hillary Clinton\u2019s huge lead during the 2008 Democratic primaries just because he was a landmark African-American candidate, new to the scene, and a skilled campaigner. Even Democrats\u00a0were all Clintoned out\u00a0[1]. By such weariness, I don\u2019t suggest that either of the Clintons is unpopular. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,187,185],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Zt","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9028,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillary-and-the-suspension-of-disbelief\/","url_meta":{"origin":7655,"position":0},"title":"Hillary and the Suspension of Disbelief","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Works and Days by PJMedia In a September 2007 congressional inquiry about the ongoing surge in Iraq, then Senator Hillary Clinton all but called Gen. David Petraeus a liar. After Petraeus gave a cautiously optimistic\u2014and prescient\u2014appraisal of the growing quiet in Iraq, Clinton curtly dismissed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2016"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2016","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/campaign-2016\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"hillary_stunned","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/hillary_stunned.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8415,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lying-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":7655,"position":1},"title":"Lying Inc.","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Lying is insidious. When it becomes institutionalized at the top, cynicism and lawlessness follow below. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia Heroic quarterback Tom Brady was apparently caught lying about his involvement in deflating footballs. One assumes that such prevarication counts for little in the larger scheme of football and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via PJMedia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/hillary_obama_brady_liars_inc_5-10-15-1-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7669,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-tranquility\/","url_meta":{"origin":7655,"position":2},"title":"Obama\u2019s Tranquility","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia Barack Obama\u2019s team recently took credit for improving the \u201ctranquility of the global community,\u201d and the president made it clear just what a calm place the world has become during his tenure. But this summer\u00a0Obama\u2019s tranquil world\u00a0[1]\u00a0has descended into medieval barbarism in a way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/obama_skydiver_9-26-10-big.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5869,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-read-old-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":7655,"position":3},"title":"Why Read Old Books?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media We all know the usual reasons why we are prodded to read the classics \u2014 moving characters, seminal ideas, blueprints of our culture, and paradigms of sterling prose and poetry. Then we nod and snooze. But there are practical reasons as well that might\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "America's Future"","block_context":{"text":"America's Future","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/americas-future\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1056,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/so-why-read-anymore\/","url_meta":{"origin":7655,"position":4},"title":"So Why Read Anymore?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Is Reading Good Books Over? There is great \u201ctruth and beauty\u201d in Homer\u2019s\u00a0Iliad\u00a0[1], but I would not try to make his sale on such platitudes. Gibbon\u2019s\u00a0The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire\u00a0[2] remains a classic. But I confess it can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7856,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-exactly-is-comprehensive-immigration-reform\/","url_meta":{"origin":7655,"position":5},"title":"What Exactly Is Comprehensive Immigration Reform?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia Comprehensive immigration reform \u2014 rarely\u00a0has a catchphrase been so widely invoked and yet so little defined. Why? If proponents of so-called reform detailed exactly what they wanted, American voters would never support their self-interested agendas. Most Americans insist that existing federal immigration laws be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via PJMedia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/immigration_reform_9-14-14-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7657,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655\/revisions\/7657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}