If it were
left up to democrats, they would skip all the formalities and name Hillary
Clinton as their party’s 2016 Presidential nominee right now. Even amongst all the controversy that
surrounds her, she continues to pole as the overwhelming favorite in what continues
to be a presidential nominee party of one.
While there are other well qualified and capable democrats to represent the party, none have bothered to show any sign of interest. Even with the continued prodding from the more liberal faction of the party, Elizabeth Warren has refrained from providing any indication at all that she might be interested in the nomination. Simply put, no democrat stands a chance against Hillary, the party favorite for 2016.
So what is it exactly that democrat’s find so intriguing about Hillary Clinton, what does she bring to the table that gains her superstar status? And what exactly is it that makes her so presidential to the left?
The Clinton name has a long history of scandal and controversy surrounding it, both of which the Clinton political power couple have not only managed to survive but also have managed to maintain the dedication and support of democrats over the years. There is no better example of this love affair shared between democrats and the Hillary herself than what took place in the days, weeks and months following the 9/11 attack on the US Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi, Libya.
In particular was the disturbing public display of affection shared between Congressional Democrats and Hillary that took place during the January 2013 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Throughout the hearing, committee democrats divided their allotted time between criticizing committee republicans and kissing the Secretary’s back side. Committee democrats were so vested in protecting Hillary that they did not ask the Secretary a single question on accountability throughout the entire hearing. Four brave men had fallen and another 31 wounded on her watch over what appeared at the time and later confirmed as a complete failure of policy from within the State Department. Yet, democrats on the committee could not muster up a single serious question to direct towards the Secretary. It was an appalling and disgraceful sight to witness how partisan the process of oversight had become.
From this display of unconditional support she had just experienced, the message was clear to Hillary, and all democrats for that matter, that she was politically untouchable. At the close of the hearing, Hillary emerged as the new “Teflon” Clinton, more emboldened now than ever.
Then there is the most recent controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton regarding the discovery that she used a private email account while serving as Secretary of State.
A product of the persistence of republican oversight, tasked with answering a the litany of unanswered question pertaining to the Benghazi tragedy, after having received a small number of long awaited emails from the State Department, a troubling pattern quickly emerged. In reviewing the State Department documents provided, for the first time ever, committee members came across emails from the Secretary of State. In this group of documents committee members also discovered that all of the Secretary’s correspondence were generated from a private email account. Further investigation revealed that the source of this private email account was from a private email server which, upon even further investigation was found to be owned and in the sole custody of the Clinton’s.
Considering that it took over two years for the State Department to produce its first email correspondence tied to Secretary Clinton and the fact that committee members were just learning of both the private email account and homebrewed server, it should have come as no surprise to anyone when committee members found these discoveries to be, at the very least, alarming! Well alarming at least to republicans on the committee who were still seeking answer to so many unanswered questions surrounding that fateful night in Benghazi.
While there are other well qualified and capable democrats to represent the party, none have bothered to show any sign of interest. Even with the continued prodding from the more liberal faction of the party, Elizabeth Warren has refrained from providing any indication at all that she might be interested in the nomination. Simply put, no democrat stands a chance against Hillary, the party favorite for 2016.
So what is it exactly that democrat’s find so intriguing about Hillary Clinton, what does she bring to the table that gains her superstar status? And what exactly is it that makes her so presidential to the left?
The Clinton name has a long history of scandal and controversy surrounding it, both of which the Clinton political power couple have not only managed to survive but also have managed to maintain the dedication and support of democrats over the years. There is no better example of this love affair shared between democrats and the Hillary herself than what took place in the days, weeks and months following the 9/11 attack on the US Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi, Libya.
In particular was the disturbing public display of affection shared between Congressional Democrats and Hillary that took place during the January 2013 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Throughout the hearing, committee democrats divided their allotted time between criticizing committee republicans and kissing the Secretary’s back side. Committee democrats were so vested in protecting Hillary that they did not ask the Secretary a single question on accountability throughout the entire hearing. Four brave men had fallen and another 31 wounded on her watch over what appeared at the time and later confirmed as a complete failure of policy from within the State Department. Yet, democrats on the committee could not muster up a single serious question to direct towards the Secretary. It was an appalling and disgraceful sight to witness how partisan the process of oversight had become.
From this display of unconditional support she had just experienced, the message was clear to Hillary, and all democrats for that matter, that she was politically untouchable. At the close of the hearing, Hillary emerged as the new “Teflon” Clinton, more emboldened now than ever.
Then there is the most recent controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton regarding the discovery that she used a private email account while serving as Secretary of State.
A product of the persistence of republican oversight, tasked with answering a the litany of unanswered question pertaining to the Benghazi tragedy, after having received a small number of long awaited emails from the State Department, a troubling pattern quickly emerged. In reviewing the State Department documents provided, for the first time ever, committee members came across emails from the Secretary of State. In this group of documents committee members also discovered that all of the Secretary’s correspondence were generated from a private email account. Further investigation revealed that the source of this private email account was from a private email server which, upon even further investigation was found to be owned and in the sole custody of the Clinton’s.
Considering that it took over two years for the State Department to produce its first email correspondence tied to Secretary Clinton and the fact that committee members were just learning of both the private email account and homebrewed server, it should have come as no surprise to anyone when committee members found these discoveries to be, at the very least, alarming! Well alarming at least to republicans on the committee who were still seeking answer to so many unanswered questions surrounding that fateful night in Benghazi.
The troubling discovery only grew worse as the committee discovered that none of the Secretaries emails were retained by the State Department during Secretary Clinton’s tenure nor did the Secretary turn over her emails to the State Department upon her departure. And as for those emails released to the committee, it was also learned that these originated from 50,000 pages of emails turned over to the State Department by the former Secretary of State. It was at her sole discretion as to which emails she chose to share with the rest of the nation. And one final twist, the former Secretary also indicated that over 30,000 “personal” emails have been deleted from the server, again at her sole discretion.
With no assurance that the State Department has custody of all of the former Secretary’s official email correspondence, other than her word of course, in Hillary Clinton’s one and only public appearance on the matter, she stated that her private email server would remain so and would not be made available to others for scrutiny. Ironically, from the 50,000 pages of the Secretaries emails turned over to the State Department, not a single correspondence covering the most critical days in question were included in the small batch of emails proved to the Selected Committee. About the only thing missing from this story is a lost hard drive and someone pleading the fifth.
And with a string of requests, lawsuits and pending subpoenas being used to compel the former Secretary to turn over her email server came the predictable pushback from democrats who of course are claiming this is just another scandal created by republicans to attack democrats.
But how can this be a scandal? Did Hillary not admit to using a private email account to conduct her official State Department business on and did Hillary not admit that this email account was managed on a her private email server and did Hillary not confess to withholding those emails from the State Department beyond her tenure as Secretary when she admitted she turned over 50,000 pages of emails just this past December? Of course she did, she stood before an international press and made all these admissions.
No, there is no scandal but there is a great deal of wrong doing going on on the part of the former Secretary, a well-educated, practiced attorney and long standing political figure who certainly knows the difference between right from wrong.
Having been involved in politics dating back to the Nixon Administration where she cut her teeth on government cover-ups and corruption during her participation in the Watergate hearings, Hillary Clinton also served as the First Lady of Arkansas, the First Lady of the United States and eight years in the US Senate. Make no mistake, Mrs. Clinton knows full well the importance of retaining records, both for historical purposes as well as for maintaining both transparency and the integrity of our government process. It is this very knowledge of the importance to retain records that makes her actions highly suspect and puts the moral integrity of the likely 2016 democratic presidential nominee in question.
And in the most recent news of Hillary’s email controversy, it was learned yesterday that the former Secretary has refused to turn over her private email server to a third party and as well, it has also been learned that the server has been “wiped clean” of all emails, an action that took place sometime after the October 28, 2014 request to turn over all documents pertaining to her tenure as Secretary of State, documents that still resided on the server on the date of the request. None of this is coincidence.
But despite the documented string of leadership failures of her State Department and what can be viewed as nothing less than a blatant and undeniable effort to hide her emails from congressional oversight, democrats seem to have no issue with Hillary Clinton. At this point, I am not really sure there is anything that Hillary can do wrong that would turn democrats against her, it is as if the people of the party have lost their moral compass.
For those on the right, it is difficult to comprehend how an individual with so little to show for a political career that spans over four decades and has such a checkered past as well as present can capture the unwavered support and affection of so many on the left, but here Hillary is.
This is what democrats have become. They can’t run from it, they can’t hide from it and they certainly cannot deny it, but god willing, they can change it.
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