Clinton Contempt

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Sept 2016

Full disclosure:  I can’t stand even to look at Bill Clinton.  From way back in 1992, when I first saw him on TV, I thought he was a contemptable liar, a smarmy politician, who stood for nothing but himself in power, that he would say anything to win, and that he had this smirk on his face whenever he thought he was putting something over his audience.  His “aw-shucks” manner of speaking was a complete put-on, unbecoming a Rhodes Scholar.  His career as a liar and a sex-fiend in office merely confirmed what I thought of him.

His appeal to large swaths of the American electorate – even now - is completely lost on me.

Late this week, Bill was speaking on the stump on behalf of his wife, Hillary.  Before an audience of progressive rubes, Bill let us know what he thought of coal miners who once voted for him.  Apparently, to Bill, if you no longer support him, you become pond slime.

Bill Clinton mocked “coal people” for supporting Donald Trump.

Putting on his thickest Ozarks accent Bill said, “We all know how her opponent has done well in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.  The coal people don’t like any of us anymore.  They all voted for me.  I won twice.  And they did well.  They blame the president when the sun doesn’t come up in the morning now.”  Apparently, Hillary Clinton’s call to put coal miners and coal companies out of business, and Barack Obama’s success in doing so, explains nothing to Bill.  You’re just supposed to love a Clinton, regardless of what they do to you.

Later in the speech, Bill turned to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”  Bill thinks the slogan is racist.  He explained to his audience that “if you’re a white southerner, you know what it means.”

Funny thing is, though, that Bill used the same slogan himself in the 1992 election, and again in 2008, when he cut a campaign commercial for Hillary.  “Together, we can make America great again,” he said in 1992. “It’s time for another comeback.  Time to make America great again,” he said in 2008.

That was then, and this is now.  When it was convenient, Bill told his audience that white Southerners are still racist trash.

Hillary was not on the stump, yesterday.  Instead she was raising money at an event hosted by Barbara Streisand, in which the audience was largely LGBT.  In the course of her prepared remarks, which she read off a teleprompter, Hillary had her Mitt Romney moment.  Hillary said that she placed half of Donald Trump’s supporters “into what I call the basket of deplorables.  Right?  Racists, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.  And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up.  He has given voice to their websites that used to have only 11,000 people and now have 11 million.  He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, and mean-spirited rhetoric.”

She went on to say that these people were “irredeemable” and “not America.”

Hillary raised some $6 million at the event, and some paid as much as $50,000 to attend.

The ‘basket’ to which Hillary referred comprises about 25 % of the American electorate, and Hillary’s campaign slogan is “Stronger Together.”  She is also on record as saying that Republicans are her enemies.  I don’t know how more self-contradictory you can get.

After an uproar in even friendly media, Hillary tried walking back the remarks, saying she “regretted saying ‘half’ – that was wrong.”  She then listed all the transgressions she felt the Trump campaign engaged in.  She went on to say that she would continue to call out “bigotry” in Trump’s campaign – but not apparently in her own.  Some walk-back.

Hillary’s problem is that she is not a good enough politician to get away with things that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton can.  Obama was caught describing people in Pennsylvania as “clingers” to God, guns, and the bible.  Bill, of course, was impeached by Congress, sexually exploited 20-year-old intern Monica Lewinsky, raped a bunch of women, lied before a jury, and was disbarred.  Both are still beloved political figures, though I can’t understand why.

The contempt of the Clintons for the electorate was on full display this week, by condemning half the electorate and pandering shamelessly to the other half.  Hillary, being Hillary, is going to “walk-back” her remarks by condemning Donald Trump, and she is going to continue to lie about her emails and her corrupt use of the powers of office to raise money for the Clinton Foundation, with its historic level of administrative overhead.

The “basket” remark may prove to be the torpedo below the water-line that produces uncontrollable flooding below deck.  It may prove to be her Mitt Romney moment that causes her rudderless, powerless campaign to drift irreversibly in the wrong direction.

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