Misleading the Masses

With so many news reports focusing on Trump and Clinton I guess we truly are engaged in a political campaign for high office. Too bad so much of it is simply misleading and not factual.

Here’s a few thoughts on this.

Hillary Clinton is a very accomplished person. Not just a woman, a full-fledged human being who has mastered many areas of specialty, earned meaningful educational degrees, held jobs of enormous importance and other jobs most of us would make into a career. Her career, however, has taken her to places very few of us would ever think about let alone seek.  In so many ways, Hillary Clinton has done it all.

Yet there are millions of people who deny her the respect and belief she has accomplished any of these many things. I wonder why that is?

Those people prefer to think of her as dishonest because they cannot believe an honest person could ever accomplish what she has? I wonder if it is because they – mostly males – don’t like thinking of a woman being ‘better’ than they? And for her doubters who are women, I wonder why they prefer to think of Hillary as a sham?

The evidence is in. Hillary is not a sham. She is the real deal.

Topping it all off she accomplished what she has with a pack of wolves nipping at her heels because she is a woman, because she is clearly effective and talented, because she is a Democrat, because she is married to Bill Clinton who detractors claim to be a wanton philanderer and somehow this reflects badly on the woman who stood by him?

Hillary Clinton has withstood all of this trash talk for decades. She has continued to pursue goals and objectives that are good for the nation in spite of the flak she has dodged throughout. Has she made mistakes? Sure; several. Who wouldn’t in this highly charged environment where few people are able to perform at all let alone succeed? But Hillary has succeeded.

Hillary also writes policy, thinks policy, strategizes policy, thinks through policy, and ultimately implements policy. Not a lot of people do this. Certainly not on a national or global scales. Hillary has. Trump has never.

And Trump has never held a public job in which policy was the main suit. Such demands change thinking. The policy maker cannot play to one interest group or another; the policy maker must consider the public good overall in such matters. It is not easy. It often takes the Wisdom of Solomon to perform such tasks well.

Because governments get tied into messy balls of confused interests, especially when they are attempting large international projects (think peace, strains among religious cultures, AIDS relief, Ebola relief, etc.) the Clintons created the Clinton Foundation to fund research and service programs that reached critical populations in need of major help but who were significantly untouched by their own governments or groups of governments. That’s what the Clinton Foundation has done. It continues to do this difficult and demanding work when others simply didn’t try or failed in their own attempts.

I’m sure the Clinton Foundation has had its failures as well; few important things are accomplished without attempts and failures that truly test us and teach us how to do things better. And the Foundation knows it cannot do this work alone. It must attract other nations, other donors – corporations and individuals – to share the load both of the work itself, and the cost of it. And influence; who can accomplish anything meaningful and large without others pulling strings and helping the machinery of governments – almost always balky – work smoothly enough to get some good things accomplished?

Yes. The Clinton Foundation has been influential and successful in much it has attempted to accomplish. And it continues to do so. Only now Hillary has attention as a campaigning candidate for high office. Somehow she is supposed to dump her valued work with the Foundation and separate herself from its success?

How ungrateful her detractors are. Yes, Hillary will need to distance herself from the Foundation if she is elected to the White House. But she doesn’t need to apologize for the Foundation’s valuable work. It is a visionary organization that has done wondrous things.

Same goes for Bill Clinton. He’ll need to distance himself from the Foundation if he serves as First Gentleman in the White House. But later he and Hillary should freely rejoin the Foundation’s efforts.

I overheard some gripers the other day claim that Bill and Hillary only created the Foundation to create and launder revenues for their own personal use.  I would counter their opinions with this stunning fact: when Bill left the White House at the end of his second term as President, both Hillary and Bill were standing at bankruptcy’s door. Their enemies had sued them into near extinction. That was the way they attempted to keep Bill from fulfilling his promise as President. Such an effort failed, however. Bill did complete his terms of service and proved to be a very effective President.

So starting their retirement flat out broke was how the Clintons faced their future. With book contracts and advances paid, they bought their New York home and began forming the foundation. The latter takes will and stamina and strong principles to sell to other people who will listen. With an effective background as President, Bill was able to gain traction and get the Foundation built and placed into operation. They did this with little personal cash.

Of course Bill had his presidential retirement income and expense account allowance. Hillary ran for public office as Senator for New York. She won. She, too, had expense allowances and an income. Meanwhile their books sold millions of copies – both of them wrote books – and all were best sellers. Millions of dollars flowed from the book deals past, present and future. The house was paid off. Living expenses became routine. The Clintons were financially secure. Now they could concentrate on accomplishing good things the world needed.

And they have. Instead of casting doubts and accusations, we should thank them and honor their persistence and their honesty.

Methinks I hear jealousy and envy aplenty in the land!

September 1, 2016