You know what, it’s the end of a rather trying workday and, to be completely honest, I’d much rather be sitting on the couch enjoying a fine adult beverage from the Emerald Isle than bringing the Gospel to you fine people. So I’mma make this short.
Jill Abramson is the former executive editor of the New York Times. If that’s enough to make you tune me out already, go fuck yourself, idiot. If not, know that Abramson is the co-author of Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, the seminal book on the pervy Supreme Court justice and Prof. Anita Hill’s stand against him before the Justice Committee of the U.S. Senate in 1991. Jill Abramson is a friend of humankind. So it is with acute interest that I read her opinion piece in the Guardian today: This may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest. And you should too.
For decades she’s been portrayed as a Lady Macbeth involved in nefarious plots, branded as “a congenital liar” and accused of covering up her husband’s misconduct, from Arkansas to Monica Lewinsky. Some of this is sexist caricature. Some is stoked by the “Hillary is a liar” videos that flood Facebook feeds. Some of it she brings on herself by insisting on a perimeter or “zone of privacy” that she protects too fiercely. It’s a natural impulse, given the level of scrutiny she’s attracted, more than any male politician I can think of.
I would be “dead rich”, to adapt an infamous Clinton phrase, if I could bill for all the hours I’ve spent covering just about every “scandal” that has enveloped the Clintons. As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising.
Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.
...Politifact, a Pulitzer prize-winning fact-checking organization, gives Clinton the best truth-telling record of any of the 2016 presidential candidates. She beats Sanders and Kasich and crushes Cruz and Trump, who has the biggest “pants on fire” rating and has told whoppers about basic economics that are embarrassing for anyone aiming to be president….
Clinton has mainly been constant on issues and changing positions over time is not dishonest. It’s fair to expect more transparency. But it’s a double standard to insist on her purity.
Kevin Drum, blogger-in-residence at Mother Jones and one of the best liberal pundits in the bidness, has more (emphasis mine):
After all, Hillary has been surrounded by a miasma of scandal for decades—and even if you vaguely know that a lot of the allegations against her weren't fair, well, where there's smoke there's fire. So if you're familiar with the buzzwords—Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster,the Rose law firm, Troopergate, Ken Starr, Benghazi, Emailgate—but not much else, it's only human to figure that maybe there really is something fishy in Hillary's past.
But many of us who lived through this stuff have exactly the opposite view. Not only do we know there's almost literally nothing to any of these "scandals," we also know exactly how they were deliberately and cynically manufactured at every step along the way. We were there, watching it happen in real time. So not only do we believe Hillary is basically honest, but the buzzwords actively piss us off. Every time we hear a young progressive kinda sorta suggest that Hillary can't be trusted, we want to strangle someone. It's the ultimate proof of how the right wing's big lie about the Clintons has successfully poisoned not just the electorate in general, but even the progressive movement itself.
I was in my twenties during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and I was pretty active on the prehistoric online services that were the going thing at the time, and I always used to bristle when people would condescend to me because of my age. And I swore I would never do that to the next generation. But you know what, there are two sides to that bargain. Because I went out of my way to learn everything I could about American political history of the past few decades. I could talk about Watergate with anyone. I didn’t just accept what the pundits told me about it. If I was going to play in the major leagues, dammit, I was damn well going to prove I belonged there.
If you’re younger than 35 and you passively accept the punditocracy’s conventional wisdom about the Clintons being “dishonest,” you need to understand that you have been lied to. How does that make you feel? Does that make you angry? Man, when I find out that people have been lying to me, it pisses me the fuck off! Do you feel the same way? You should.
This is not about Bernie Sanders. There are so many positive reasons to vote for Sanders, and that is your absolute right. More power to you. Just please, please make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Know who you’re voting against, and know that she’s not the caricature that’s been sold to you by right-wing talk radio and a supine Beltway media.
Please, do yourself the best favor you can possibly do, and educate yourself. Don’t do it for a clueless old codger like me. Do it for yourself.
Oh, and that picture above (not the one with Grumpy Cat, the other one) is from Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court speech today in Wisconsin. It’s amazing. Take an hour out of your day and watch it. I guarantee it will not be the worst thing you see today.