christiefan915
Catalyst
This writer is trying to explain what I've been asking for a long time. Excerpts from the article below. I'm still voting for Bernie, though.
(CNN) Before I got out of bed this morning, my wife asked: "Why do they hate Hillary Clinton so much?"
Although I voted in the primary for Bernie Sanders, my senator from Vermont, I don't dislike Clinton in the least. Quite the opposite. I will happily vote for her in November. She is an admirable public servant, despite her obvious flaws, which are mostly the consequence of her decades in positions of authority. Every coin has two sides.
Her work as first lady certainly gave her a close view of life in the Oval Office -- a time of "daring and hubris," according to The New York Times' Peter Baker and Amy Chozick, when she learned how the levers of power work. Having served as a U.S. senator for eight years, she knows how Congress functions -- or doesn't. And she has a vast comprehension of foreign affairs, having visited 112 countries during her years (2009 to 2013) as secretary of state -- more than any previous person in that post.
Her achievements in Congress and at the State Department can't be denied, though many will try. Don't forget her courageous China speech on the rights of women, her aggressive work on climate change and her skill as a senator in guiding the Children's Health Insurance Program through Congress. She helped to negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas during a tense moment in Israel. I think of her successes in forging alliances in South America, Africa and Asia, and her part in establishing tough sanctions against Iran. That's only the beginning. And yet people hate her. Her negative ratings, in fact, have been shockingly high for someone this close to the nomination of her party. Indeed, one of the most frequently posed questions to the candidate herself is some version of "Why don't they like you?"
Of course, Republicans have known for a long time that Hillary Clinton is an unusually strong candidate, and this terrifies them. So they have seized on talking points like Benghazi (for which she bears little or no responsibility) and her email scandal. On the latter, even columnist Ruth Marcus -- certainly no fan of Clinton's -- recently wrote in The Washington Post that "there is no clear evidence that Clinton knew (or even should have known) that the material in her emails was classified." As we've seen, neither Benghazi nor the email trouble are likely to put off Democratic voters, who regard them as Republican talking points...
It's perhaps too easy to blame sexism for the nastiness that colors the opposition to Clinton. Yet one sees misogyny bubbling out in the comments section of articles on the Web, where no sentiments -- however crude -- are off limits. They attack her voice, her hairstyle, her pantsuits, her laugh. On and on. Clinton gets slammed for "shouting" and not smiling enough, though these are criticisms we don't hear about the male candidates. The main thing to dislike about Hillary Clinton seems to be her gender, and one can only begin to imagine the kind of language Donald Trump will summon in the general election...
Serious criticism of Clinton does arise. Some believe, for instance, that she doesn't tell the truth. Or that she's beholden to Wall Street. Or that she got four people killed in Benghazi. Others insist that she played fast and loose with her emails, risking national security and breaking the law. She does shade the truth at times, as do all politicians, including Sanders. Politifact, an excellent website, measures the truth-quality of statements by everyone running for president on both sides of the aisle, and Clinton comes out as perhaps the most truthful of the pack, even more so than Sanders -- although the two are more or less even, telling the whole truth or something like the truth about half the time. (By contrast, only 9% of the statements made by Donald Trump and reviewed by Politifact were rated "true" or "mostly true." More than three quarters of Trump's statements were rated "mostly false," "false" or "pants on fire.")
The main reason that Republicans, in particular, hate Clinton is that she will probably beat Trump or Cruz or anyone thrown up by the GOP in the general election. The abuse of Hillary Clinton must stop. She's not perfect. But she's smart, experienced and compassionate, and she will step into the Oval Office better prepared to take on an exacting job in difficult times than almost anyone in recent memory.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/20/opinions/why-the-hate-for-hillary-clinton-opinion-parini/index.html
(CNN) Before I got out of bed this morning, my wife asked: "Why do they hate Hillary Clinton so much?"
Although I voted in the primary for Bernie Sanders, my senator from Vermont, I don't dislike Clinton in the least. Quite the opposite. I will happily vote for her in November. She is an admirable public servant, despite her obvious flaws, which are mostly the consequence of her decades in positions of authority. Every coin has two sides.
Her work as first lady certainly gave her a close view of life in the Oval Office -- a time of "daring and hubris," according to The New York Times' Peter Baker and Amy Chozick, when she learned how the levers of power work. Having served as a U.S. senator for eight years, she knows how Congress functions -- or doesn't. And she has a vast comprehension of foreign affairs, having visited 112 countries during her years (2009 to 2013) as secretary of state -- more than any previous person in that post.
Her achievements in Congress and at the State Department can't be denied, though many will try. Don't forget her courageous China speech on the rights of women, her aggressive work on climate change and her skill as a senator in guiding the Children's Health Insurance Program through Congress. She helped to negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas during a tense moment in Israel. I think of her successes in forging alliances in South America, Africa and Asia, and her part in establishing tough sanctions against Iran. That's only the beginning. And yet people hate her. Her negative ratings, in fact, have been shockingly high for someone this close to the nomination of her party. Indeed, one of the most frequently posed questions to the candidate herself is some version of "Why don't they like you?"
Of course, Republicans have known for a long time that Hillary Clinton is an unusually strong candidate, and this terrifies them. So they have seized on talking points like Benghazi (for which she bears little or no responsibility) and her email scandal. On the latter, even columnist Ruth Marcus -- certainly no fan of Clinton's -- recently wrote in The Washington Post that "there is no clear evidence that Clinton knew (or even should have known) that the material in her emails was classified." As we've seen, neither Benghazi nor the email trouble are likely to put off Democratic voters, who regard them as Republican talking points...
It's perhaps too easy to blame sexism for the nastiness that colors the opposition to Clinton. Yet one sees misogyny bubbling out in the comments section of articles on the Web, where no sentiments -- however crude -- are off limits. They attack her voice, her hairstyle, her pantsuits, her laugh. On and on. Clinton gets slammed for "shouting" and not smiling enough, though these are criticisms we don't hear about the male candidates. The main thing to dislike about Hillary Clinton seems to be her gender, and one can only begin to imagine the kind of language Donald Trump will summon in the general election...
Serious criticism of Clinton does arise. Some believe, for instance, that she doesn't tell the truth. Or that she's beholden to Wall Street. Or that she got four people killed in Benghazi. Others insist that she played fast and loose with her emails, risking national security and breaking the law. She does shade the truth at times, as do all politicians, including Sanders. Politifact, an excellent website, measures the truth-quality of statements by everyone running for president on both sides of the aisle, and Clinton comes out as perhaps the most truthful of the pack, even more so than Sanders -- although the two are more or less even, telling the whole truth or something like the truth about half the time. (By contrast, only 9% of the statements made by Donald Trump and reviewed by Politifact were rated "true" or "mostly true." More than three quarters of Trump's statements were rated "mostly false," "false" or "pants on fire.")
The main reason that Republicans, in particular, hate Clinton is that she will probably beat Trump or Cruz or anyone thrown up by the GOP in the general election. The abuse of Hillary Clinton must stop. She's not perfect. But she's smart, experienced and compassionate, and she will step into the Oval Office better prepared to take on an exacting job in difficult times than almost anyone in recent memory.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/20/opinions/why-the-hate-for-hillary-clinton-opinion-parini/index.html
