We have sycophancy on the media’s dance floor again. Perhaps I read the wrong headlines, but I see the press hugging itself all over because we now we have a woman running for president. Being a woman does not qualify you for any office, any more than being a man qualifies you for any office. Being a leader with integrity qualifies you for high office, especially president. Where do we find evidence that Hillary Clinton has those qualities?
The press say that Hillary Clinton delivered an historic speech Tuesday night in California, as she claimed the nomination. “Thanks to you we’ve reached a milestone: the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee,” she declaimed. Eight years ago we all congratulated ourselves when we nominated, then elected the first black president. Look how well he turned out. What a surprise, he preserved his predecessor’s national security policies, because that’s what presidents do. Clinton says that’s why we should elect her: because she’ll preserve the same disastrous policies that Bush and Obama forced on us!
Clinton’s so-called historic speech sounds inspirational in the hands of smitten media. In fact, Clinton does nothing more than praise herself for her gender, and thank voters for making history by selecting her. You never heard Margaret Thatcher suggest British voters should vote for her because she would be the first woman elected prime minister. She told British citizens where she wanted to lead the country, and let voters decide whether they wanted to follow her. Clinton’s speeches about where she wants to lead the country have no more substance than the ode to Hillary she delivered Tuesday night.
I wonder how many women actually take pride in the Democratic party’s selection of Clinton. The way she takes credit for being the first female presidential nominee in our nation’s history opens a small window on her weak character. Why do we have to keep listening to her talk about herself? After so long in public life, you still feel she wants us to vote for her because she’s a woman, and because she has an impressive resume. If you choose a leader based on gender and her resume, you are not looking for qualities relevant to the job.
You see propaganda shots of Hillary bathed in celestial floodlight, looking benevolently up and over her followers. What a load of crap served up by – who can tell where this stuff originates? She is a power-grubbing politician whose only vision of leadership is her own electoral success, who uses other people to satisfy her desire for self-advancement, who sends other people’s sons to war not to protect her country from danger, but because to do otherwise would endanger her career. She shows no qualities of leadership, no sense of integrity or service, no sense of anything but entitlement and ambition.
People say she works hard and does her homework. That’s what we want in a leader? Our minimal standard now is someone who does her homework? That’s a good quality for administrators who want to be prepared, but do we want to pat her on the head with a private jet and the White House? She is a weak candidate who will do nothing to correct our country’s problems, and to make a big deal of her gender discredits female leaders through history who actually had integrity and vision. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, shows qualities we now expect from every phony leader who wants to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: crony crapitalism, favor trading, and a stooge like willingness to do what the national security state wants her to do.
Perhaps most revealing is her callous expectation that people ought to admire her because she has power. Remember leaders with integrity have power because people admire them.
The Jeffersonian 