{"id":8077,"date":"2014-12-10T07:15:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T15:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8077"},"modified":"2014-12-10T07:15:18","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T15:15:18","slug":"hillarys-bad-politics-and-worse-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillarys-bad-politics-and-worse-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillary\u2019s Bad Politics and Worse Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo via FrontPage Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once again Hillary Clinton has given the Republicans some suicidal soundbites they should stash away for 2016 in the likely event she is the Democratic candidate for president. A review of some of her recent statements reveals that Clinton is not just entitled, money-grubbing, unlikeable, unpleasant, and unaccomplished. Nor do they just show that she is a political dunce who has obviously learned nothing from her politically brilliant husband. More seriously, they expose her commitment to failed ideas and dangerous delusions.<\/p>\n

First there was the \u201cWhat difference at this point does it make!\u201d she practically shrieked to Senator Ron Johnson during a January 2013 hearing on the Benghazi debacle that unfolded on September 11, 2012. Clinton had told the grieving parents of the victims during the transfer of remains ceremony at Andrews Air Force base that they died because of \u201can awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.\u201d Four Americans, including an ambassador, had been murdered on her watch, but she refused to explain to the Senate why she blamed the hapless maker of a YouTube video, who spent a year in jail.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This evasion is significant, for within hours of the attack it was clear that it had been a carefully coordinated, well-planned assault, not the spontaneous reaction to a video. Soon it also became known that ambassador Stevens had repeatedly requested increased security, but had been denied by officials in the State and Defense Departments. As Secretary of State, Clinton was ultimately responsible for those decisions made by State, as well as for the astonishing failure to notice the escalating violence in the months before the attacks, or the significance of the anniversary of 9\/11, or the immediate evidence that the attack was not a spontaneous reaction to a video that had been on YouTube for weeks.<\/p>\n

But in her response to all this evidence of negligence and post facto political spin, all she could do was indignantly declare that all these failures were irrelevant. In 2016, this footage of the arm-waving, shrill Clinton transparently trying to misdirect the Senators and the citizens from her patent incompetence should be played and replayed in political ads.<\/p>\n

Next came the more recent revelation of her embarrassing economic ignorance,\u00a0shameless pandering to her left-wing base. At a campaign event in October, attended also by lefty heartthrob Elizabeth Warren, Clinton lectured, \u201cDon\u2019t let anybody, don\u2019t let anybody tell you that, ah, you know, it\u2019s corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somehow Clinton missed the 1980s, when economic and tax policies that encouraged business investment led to spectacular growth. As the Laffer Center explains<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 1982-1999 was one continuous mega-economic expansion.\u00a0 In fact, as it stretched into 2007, this 25 Year Boom saw a tripling in the net wealth of U.S. households and businesses from $20 trillion in 1981 to $60 trillion by 2007.\u00a0 When adjusted for inflation, more wealth was created in this 25-year boom than in the previous 200 years.\u00a0This sustained economic growth is not only impressive on its own, but even more astonishing as it compares to the period immediately preceding it.\u00a0 In the 10 years from 1972-1982, recessions were deep and recoveries were short.\u00a0 In fact, throughout American history, the nation\u2019s economy has been in recession or depression roughly one-third of the time.\u00a0 But from 1981-2005, the annual growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) in the U.S. was 3.4 percent per year, and 3.8 percent per year during the 1983-1989 Reagan expansion alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compare that to the performance of Obama\u2019s economic policies over the last 6 years, when intrusive regulatory regimes like Dodd-Frank and a runaway EPA, Obamacare\u2019s highjacking of the health-care industry, the trillion-dollar stimulus squandered on crony socialist projects like \u201cgreen energy,\u201d\u00a0and the anti-business rhetoric of Obama\u2019s \u201cyou didn\u2019t build that,\u201d have all led to sluggish economic growth<\/a>, metastasizing debt, declining income for the middle class, an explosion in entitlement spending, and nearly 20 million unemployed and under-employed.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Clinton\u2019s Keynesian superstitions and dirigiste magical thinking, what has \u201cfailed spectacularly\u201d has been progressive economic policies that think\u00a0parasitic politicians and unaccountable government bureaucrats can manage a complex, dynamic economic system<\/a> better than a\u00a0free market that incentivizes people to actually build businesses that create jobs and increase wealth. And just as spectacularly incompetent is Hillary\u2019s political tin ear that lets her make such a statement just to curry favor with a narrow base of anti-capitalist fundamentalists, when she surely must know that come the 2016 presidential election, those words will be pinned to the Obama albatross sure to be hanging around her neck.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is the bizarre statement at Georgetown last week about improving our foreign policy with\u00a0what\u00a0she called \u201csmart power\u201d:\u00a0 \u201cUsing every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one\u2019s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view. Helping to define the problems, determine the solutions.\u201d She then added a banal clich\u00e9 of modern feminism, suggesting that the lack of women negotiators and signatories was responsible for the failure of many peace treaties. After all, women are naturally more empathetic and sensitive to others\u2019 \u201cpoint of view,\u201d one of those Victorian stereotypes that feminists used to tell us were sexist insults.<\/p>\n

These comments embody everything that is wrong with a modern foreign policy based on Kantian delusions about a global \u201charmony of interests,\u201d the notion that all peoples are just like us and want all the same goods such as peace, prosperity, political freedom, and respect for human rights. If they behave differently, it\u2019s because they just don\u2019t know these goods are in their best interests, or they have been traumatized by history, particularly the depredations of Western colonialism, imperialism, and capitalist exploitation, which are the causes of their violent aggression and brutality. Thus if we \u201cunderstand\u201d and \u201cempathize\u201d with the roots of our enemies\u2019 behavior, they will see the light and abandon aggression and tyranny.<\/p>\n

This is the same delusion that Obama based his foreign policy on, as evidenced by his infamous \u201capology tour,\u201d\u00a0on which he donned the hair shirt of Western sin and groveled before foreign audiences. It\u2019s the application to foreign affairs of the two-bit psychologizing that dominates the public schools, where boosting self-esteem and \u201cempathizing\u201d with punks and bullies are the favored mechanisms for teaching and civilizing young people. It utterly lacks any understanding of the tragic constants of human nature and the wisdom accumulated by the human race since the ancient Greeks and Hebrews\u2013\u2013that, as Machiavelli said, \u201call men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all her alleged foreign policy toughness, Clinton\u2019s philosophy embodies the bad utopian ideals that have enabled much of the disorder afflicting the world since their spectacular failure in preventing World War I. We hear the same delusions in the words of Neville Chamberlain after Hitler\u2019s Anschluss<\/i> of Austria in March 1938, when he told the House of Commons, \u201cWe should take any and every opportunity to try to remove any genuine and legitimate grievance that may exist,\u201d and then imagined telling Hitler, \u201cThe best thing you can do is to tell us exactly what you want for your Sudeten Deutsch.\u201d Such blind \u201cempathy\u201d and \u201cunderstanding\u201d and \u201crespect\u201d for Germany\u2019s \u201cgrievances,\u201d of course, in 6 months culminated in the debacle of Munich and the devastating sequel of World War II.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Clinton and Obama, enemies like Vladimir Putin, ISIS, Bashar al Assad, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and Xi Jinping are not the global village\u2019s\u00a0wayward teenagers \u201cacting out\u201d because they don\u2019t know their own best interests and suffer from insufficient self-esteem and \u201crespect.\u201d\u00a0They are hard, brutal men, vicious and ruthless, who know exactly what they want, and who possess beliefs alien to Western ideals like liberal democracy, human rights, tolerance, and a preference for diplomatic words and \u201cmutual understanding and respect.\u201d\u00a0In their \u201cperspective\u201d and \u201cpoint of view,\u201d violence is a tool of international relations, and a legitimate instrument for achieving their aims and interests. And they have nothing but contempt for our schoolmarmish empathy and respect, which they correctly interpret as civilizational weakness and a failure of morale. All they respect is force. That\u2019s the most important truth we need to \u201cunderstand.\u201d<\/p>\n

These 3 statements reveal political beliefs and character flaws that should automatically disqualify Hillary Clinton from being president. And even if we attribute them to rank ambition and venal opportunism rather than sincere belief, their sheer political stupidity and lack of prudence bespeak a mind and character unfit for leading the most powerful country on the planet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http:\/\/www.frontpagemag.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

URL to article: http:\/\/www.frontpagemag.com\/2014\/bruce-thornton\/hillarys-bad-politics-and-worse-ideas\/\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2014\u00a0FrontPage Magazine. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Once again Hillary Clinton has given the Republicans some suicidal soundbites they should stash away for 2016 in the likely event she is the Democratic candidate for president. A review of some of her recent statements reveals that Clinton is not just entitled, money-grubbing, unlikeable, unpleasant, and unaccomplished. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[842,22,11,187,185],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-26h","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8411,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillary-cant-win-or-can-she\/","url_meta":{"origin":8077,"position":0},"title":"Hillary Can\u2019t Win. Or Can She?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Can a person with no experience, no achievements, and no likability fool a majority of voters? by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Hillary Clinton has formally announced she is running for president. Thus begins one of the most interesting and consequential political experiments in American history, one that will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/ha-500x281.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7903,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/reasons-for-political-hope\/","url_meta":{"origin":8077,"position":1},"title":"Reasons for Political Hope","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Many Republicans are excited about the midterm elections. 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Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Jeb Bush tangled himself up recently when he tried to answer a dumb question on the intelligence failures about Iraq\u2019s WMDs and their role in going to war with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/war-450x312.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077"}],"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=8077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8079,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions\/8079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}