Bottom line: Hillary Clinton most qualified

Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person running to be the next president of the United States. Despite more than 30 years of lies and smear tactics, she is the leader for the Democratic nomination. She is the only person in the race to have experience in all three branches of government.

Her legal career included a grant to serve on the Children’s Defense Fund in Cambridge, Mass. She was the first woman to make full partner in the Rose Law Firm. She’s well practiced in litigation and especially defending children and migrant farmworkers. She was twice named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

In the Legislative branch, she’s served as a United States Senator from New York. While holding her seat she introduced legislation to increase the size of the Army by 80,000 soldiers to relieve the strain of constant redeployments (U.S. News and World Reports, Feb. 19, 2014). She voted for many child safety laws. She passed legislation to help homeless veterans. She voted for Veterans Mental Health funding (all from Congress.gov)

In the executive branch she has a unique viewpoint. As the First Lady and as Secretary of State she has gained insight into the daily working of the presidency and the Cabinet.

Her experience as Secretary of State leads to the Big Lie that she maliciously, or to cover her own error, lied in presenting the damage done to the mission in Benghazi and the loss of Ambassador Chris Stevens, a computer tech, and two mercenaries that had trained as SEALs but found the better paying life of “military contractors” more appealing. Yes, she did put out the cover story that the attack was an enraged mob rather than a carefully planned and well executed operation. That was her duty. All diplomats put a positive spin on situations at the very least and in the worst case, lie. That was true of Dean Rusk both on the Vietnam War and the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. About which, he said, “I didn’t believe [the Israelis] then and to this day I do not.”

Let’s say she had said to the media, “today in a well-planned operation Islamist militia sacked and burned the U.S. mission in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Stevens, a State Department Computer tech, and two CIA mercenaries. We were unable to fortify the mission using State Department overseas building funds because the majority of the people working out of the Mission were CIA (Washington Post, May 16, 2013). General Carter Ham offered Ambassador Stevens Special Ops security troops twice but was not taken up on the offers (McClatchyDC, May 14, 2013). In any case, no reasonable force could have defended the Compound (CNN Fact Check, Oct. 12 2012). We are currently scanning video of the event for known jihadists, who we will assassinate if we identify them. Thank you.”

Which as soon as Islamist media heard that speech would have morphed into, “a noble Islamic militia burned down a nest of CIA vipers hiding behind a lie of peaceful diplomacy. The crusaders were trying to remove a part of the Dar al’Islam. Only jihad can protect the lands of Islam from these killers. Join us to protect the peace of the lands of Islam.” I think you will agree that is not preferable to what Secretary Clinton said at the time.

Benghazi has been made a tool for attacking Hillary Clinton’s integrity. She was defending the United States and our Islamic alliances. Yet House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? They’re dropping (CBS News, Sept. 30, 2015).” Even the Republicans admit they’re just politically grandstanding. After 8 inquiries the worst that can be said is that she did her job. If these inquiries aren’t politically motivated, why haven’t there been any committees investigating the 20 attacks on American Consulates and Embassies killing 83 people during Colin Powell’s and Condoleezza Rice’s watches (Politifact, May 12, 2014)?

The same is true of Secretary Clinton’s emails. Out of 55,000 pages of e-mails not one was classified when she received it (McClatchy, 8/15/15). Colin Powell used a personal e-mail account, but we’ll never know about his security status. When he left office he wiped the files (The Hill, March 08, 2015). According to a State Department investigation both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and their immediate staff handled classified information on unsecured email systems (Mediamatters for America, March 7, 2016). There are only two reasons for the cry not to go out calling for criminal investigation: either Republicans can violate all security precautions or there is a vendetta against Hillary Clinton.

Paraphrasing an article in the Daily Banter (Jan. 31, 2016) Chez Pazienza says Hillary Clinton’s reputation is largely the result of a quarter century’s visceral GOP hatred. If you choose not to vote for Hillary in November, don’t do it for her reputation — do it for her positions on the issues, not 25 years of lies and slander the GOP has aimed at her, perhaps sexist — more likely because they are terrified of her. For those liberals backing Sanders, consider, he’s a one trick pony, wealth redistribution. He also aims to cause a massive change in the situation rather than gradual improvements. There is no way that he can work with a House that will be elected in 2016. Executive orders, anyone (http://thedailybanter.com/2016/01/Hillary-gop-smears)?

Hillary is the sole candidate that combines experience with a history of compassion. I feel that alone of the candidates she will lead the next administration into a diplomatic series of solutions, both in the United States and the world. She won’t get us into trillion dollar wars, which are kept off the books as the Bush Administration did. She certainly won’t invade a country without cause and with lies as did Bush.

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Jeff Bourget is a Coeur d’Alene resident.