Hillary Clinton has a problem being viewed as honest and trustworthy. It's a problem of her own creation. But, should she somehow manage to get the Democratic nomination, it could well cost the Democrats the White House in November.
Hillary Clinton is not viewed as honest and trustworthy by most American voters. This one issue truly may be the heart of the matter for Democratic voters as they go to the polls in the upcoming primaries.
In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll only 39% of Americans polled viewed Hillary Clinton as honest and trustworthy. This is down from 52% in May of 2006.
The poll found that
"among Democrats, 63 percent called her honest, down 18 points from 2006; among independents, her trust level has dropped 13 points, to 37 percent. Republicans held Clinton in low regard on this in the past (23 percent called her honest two years ago), but it is even lower now, at 16 percent. Majorities of men and women now say the phrase ["honest and trustworthy"] does not apply to Clinton; two years ago, narrow majorities of both did."
These results give the lie to Hillary's claim that she is the most electable candidate for the Democrats. Why would the American people elect someone as President of the United States whom they believe to be dishonest and un-trustworthy? Why would they elect someone who has knowingly and repeatedly lied to them? If by some small miracle Hillary Clinton were to gain the Democratic nomination, she would most assuredly have to bring in disgruntled Republicans and Independents in order to win the general election. These results indicate that she would not be able to convince them to vote for her because they simply do not trust her.
What has caused this decline in the voters view of Hillary's honesty and trust?
Well, the most obvious answer is the lie about the non-existent sniper attack in Bosnia. It never happened, yet she knowingly told the lie on at least four separate occasions. Her husband, President Clinton, also joined her in the lies on this issue. She joked about her Bosnia lying on a late night talk show and tried, unsuccessfully, to deflect her repeated lies by creating the psuedo issue of distorting Barack Obama's view of small town America.
Voters want to trust their elected officials and candidates, and they tend to get upset when those elected leaders and candidates lie to them repeatedly on important issues.
But Bosnia is not the only honesty and trust issue that Hillary Clinton has with the voters. A discernible pattern has developed in which we see that Hillary Clinton will say and do anything to make herself look more "Presidential" and to get the nomination. A recap of some of these issues from this campaign (there are many other alleged lies and distortions from her time in Arkansas and her time in the White House):
* Hillary Clinton's stand on free-trade agreements.
o She lied about being critical of NAFTA because she needed the labor vote in Ohio. She actively advocated for NAFTA and her only concern with it was the timing - she didn't want anything to interfere with her Universal Health Care plan (which ultimately failed miserably).
o She says she opposes the Columbia free-trade agreement yet her husband, President Clinton, received large sums of money for making speeches supporting it. And, her former Chief Strategist, and still adviser, Mark Penn was actively lobbying for the Columbia free-trade agreement while on her campaign staff. Is Hillary Clinton's alleged opposition to the free-trade agreement another lie to fool the Voters of Pennsylvania? Time will tell.
* Chelsea Clinton's whereabouts on 9/11. Hillary claimed that Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center when the 9/11 attacks occurred. Chelsea was actually across town and no where near the twin towers.
* The Irish Peach Process. Hillary Clinton grossly exaggerated her contribution to the Irish Peace Accords, saying she "helped bring peace to Northern Ireland" and "the role I played was instrumental". Peter King, one of the Ulster negotiators at the peace process said,
"Hillary Clinton was totally invisible at the actual negotiations. As far as I am concerned, Mrs Clinton was as relevant to peace in Northern Ireland as Tony Blair's wife or the ex-wife of Bertie Ahern [the Irish prime minister]."
And Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey said her claims were a "wee bit silly".
* Darfur. Hillary Clinton's two major surrogates, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, have been erroneously claiming that she "was the first Democratic senator to call it genocide in May of 2004 and put a lot of pressure on the Bush administration to recognize it as genocide". On June 15, 2004 Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., was the first Democratic Senator to call what was happening in Darfur "genocide". Hillary Clinton didn't call it "genocide" until March 16, 2006, almost two years after she claimed to have said it.
* Rwanda. Hillary Clinton claims that she urger her husband, President Clinton, to take military action to end the genocide in Rwanda. However, according to the Chicago Tribune,
"Whatever her private conversations with the president may have been, key foreign policy officials say that a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda was never considered in the Clinton administration's policy deliberations. Despite lengthy memoirs by both Clintons and former Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, any advice she gave on Rwanda had not been mentioned until her presidential campaign".
* Macedonia. In a March 5 interview on CNN, Clinton said that she "negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo." According to Factcheck.org,
"Clinton did not in fact "negotiate on matters such as opening borders for refugees during the war in Kosovo."
Macedonia had reopened its border to Kosovar refugees the day before Clinton’s arrival, as has been widely reported. Clinton now says that she pressed for opening the borders "much wider". Factcheck.org goes on to say,
"So how much "pressing" did Clinton actually do? According to her official travel schedule, Clinton was in Macedonia for less than nine hours, nearly half of which she spent touring refugee camps. Clinton was scheduled for photo ops with the prime minister at the residence of the U.S. ambassador at 2:20 p.m. At 2:50 p.m., she had a photo session with Macedonia’s president at his residence, followed by a 3:20 photo op with the first lady. That would leave a total of 30 minutes for negotiations, minus time for photos. Indeed, at the time, the New York Times reported that Clinton’s trip was so scripted that "Administration officials chose which refugees Mrs. Clinton would speak with." News reports on Clinton's own Web site characterize the first lady's visit as "sweeping through Macedonia" offering "publicity" and "aid".
These are just some examples of Hillary Clinton's problems with honesty and trust. There are more; unfortunately many more. And the polls cited above suggest that the American voters are beginning to see clearly that Hillary Clinton has a major problem in this area.
It's a matter of trust.