HAVE WE SEEN THE END OF HILLARY CLINTON? HECK, WE’VE NEVER SEEN THE BEGINNING!! - THE WORLD’S SMARTEST WOMAN HAS ABSOLUTELY NO JUDGMENT
HAVE WE SEEN THE END OF HILLARY CLINTON? HECK, WE’VE NEVER SEEN THE BEGINNING!! - THE WORLD’S SMARTEST WOMAN HAS ABSOLUTELY NO JUDGMENT
I know, I know, some of you may think why are we talking about Hillary Clinton, when she has thrown in the towel with respect to her candidacy for this year’s Democratic presidential nomination. First of all, don’t believe it — this is one power hungry vampire who will require 7 or 8 stakes through the heart before she can be officially pronounced dead. Also, in this regard, bear in mind that she has not yet released her delegates, thereby demonstrating a somewhat diluted vote of support for Obama.
Second, even if she’s finished — and, again, that is a major “even if” — this column can be viewed as my effort to close the door on one of America’s ugliest political chapters — the Clinton chapter — and correct one of America’s most ridiculous myths, i.e. that Hillary Clinton is anywhere close to being the world’s smartest woman.
I speak to a number of Republican groups, and, until recently, Hillary was my topic de jour. And typically I opened every discussion by calling attention to the myth of Hillary’s vaunted intellect and followed by asking the audience who among them could point to a single accomplishment of this “intellectual powerhouse” (other, of course, than her significant gifts to the Republican Party — enumerated in previous columns). It always amuses me that the typical reaction is complete silence — not because the audience is biased against this poor victimized woman (my typical audience is Republican Women’s Groups). Rather it is because Senator Clinton has not only accomplished nothing, she has been a complete failure at every project that has been placed in her charge, and, were her name not Clinton, she would not have gotten the opportunity to head up any such project. Quite simply, Senator Clinton has absolutely no judgment. And bear in mind, judgment is everything; I.Q. is fairly meaningless — the world is filled with high I.Q. failures (and here I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, i.e. that she has a decent I.Q.). I.Q. is a gift, but judgment is the manner in which you use the gift; you can have a Rolls Royce for a vehicle, but, if it has no gas, it’s not going to go too far, let alone too fast.
Let’s start at the beginning, Hillary’s first effort out of Yale Law School — the Washington D.C. Bar. She flunked it!! Two thoughts here — the D.C. Bar has never been regarded as one of the more difficult Bar Exams — the world’s smartest parakeet should be able to pass that exam. Second, in my day, and I suspect today (my suspicion being bolstered by U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey in which law schools are rated), better than 90% of the graduates of a first rate law school would pass any State’s Bar Exam (including California and New York, the 2 most difficult exams) on the graduate’s first try. Now Yale has always been one of the top 2 law schools in the country (alternating with Harvard over the years). This would suggest that Hillary could be found among the bottom 10% of her graduating class — now how smart is that?? She, of course, rationalized (and romanticized) the event in her autobiography by suggesting that it was her heart telling her that she should follow Bill to Arkansas where she had passed the Bar. No, her heart didn’t flunk the exam — her brain did!
She then went to Washington to work on the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Her efforts there have been noted by Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat who was at the time the Chief of Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was less than inspired by either her ability or her honesty, and, in that regard he made the following observation:
“Because of a number of her unethical practices I eventually decided
that I could not recommend Hillary for any subsequent position of public or private trust.” Hillary’s Pursuit of Power, Xlibris Corporation (2006), p. 11.
Also, see Zeifman, Without Honor — The Impeachment of President Nixon And The Crimes of Camelot, Thunder’s Mouth Press (1995)
Two thoughts here (1) this was an early indication of her fundamental dishonesty as well as raising serious questions as to her competence, and (2) her abominably bad judgment, having obviously learned nothing from her Watergate experience, i.e. the one lesson that any one familiar with Watergate had to learn is that it is the cover up that kills you. Yet that is the approach that Hillary took in connection with every scandal — Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, etc. — despite being advised by associates that it was the wrong approach to take.
Her subsequent legal experience was no more inspiring, being based almost exclusively on her husband’s political progress. That is, on his becoming Arkansas’sAttorney General, she was admitted to the Rose Law Firm as an associate; on his becoming Governor, she became a partner in the firm. Her time there was served without particular distinction. It is true that the National Journal twice put her on their list of the country’s 100 most influential attorneys, not to be confused with the country’s 100 best or top attorneys, notwithstanding her effort to have it treated in this manner (thereby facilitating a letter from a member of the Journal’s staff informing her that the term influential was not to be so construed).
In fact, her litigation experience was confined to 5 trials, and, according to one of her biographers, her court room demeanor was such that the firm tried to steer her away from jury trials, see Byron York’s review of 2 fairly recent Hillary biographies (those by Carl Bernstein and Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr.). York’s exact quote is — “She was also, by the way, unimpressive in the courtroom, and Bernstein reports that her worried Rose Law Firm partners ‘began steering her practice toward nonjury work’.” Byron York, The Hillary Chronicles: Worse Than You Thought — Two new biographies shed new light on Senator Clinton, National Review Online, June 12, 2007.
Along these lines, you got a glimpse of both her lack of judgment and her short temper in one of the debates when she was queried by Tim Russert re her feelings on Governor Spitzer’s recommendation to grant drivers licenses to illegal aliens. In the hands of someone with modest judgment, this should have been a soft ball; instead, Senator Clinton got flustered, then angry, and then contentious — with Russert, a good guy and a certified liberal. (to be continued).