Sunday, August 16, 2015

What Is Really Bothersome About The Clintons

What Is Really Bothersome About The Clintons

 by John Schroeder

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by former U.S. Attorney General and former U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey.  It is not so much an opinion piece as it is a short and well defined legal case against Hillary Clinton and her egregious breach of security in her emailing habits.  Clearly Mr. Mukasey wishes he was a prosecuting attorney on this one.  He then goes on to point out how she violated not only the law, but simple common sense.  As he makes the transition from law to common sense he says this:
All of this is not to suggest that Mrs. Clinton is in real danger of going to jail any time soon.
I think pretty much everybody knows that.  But it did get me to thinking about what is so troublesome about both Bill and Hillary’s behavior on the edge of the law and when under prosecution, whether in the press, in the courtroom, or under impeachment in the United States Senate.  What is so troublesome is not so much that they lie, but that people buy into their lies, and do so in sufficient numbers to save their skins.
This nation has suffered a large share of less than honorable or honest government officials, even in the very highest offices.  But whether through the mechanisms of government itself or by the public finally wising up, we seem to eventually come out the other end having learned a lesson or two for at least the next couple of generations.  Can we say that about the Clintons?  Until very recently the wife of a president running for the presidency after her husband had stood for an impeachment trial would have been unthinkable.  And I am NOT talking about gender equality here.  The public shame associated with the trial would have been enough to end the political ambitions of anyone near that former president.
Hillary is trying to turn her own scandal into a joke.  And people are laughing!  The problem is not the Clintons.  The problem is us, or at least a very significant portion of us.
The nation has survived lying, corrupt government in the past because we were at heart a good nation.  Good people eventually figure out who the bad ones are and deal with them.  But it takes bad people to let bad people get away with it.  One must ask if we are still a good nation.
It is always difficult to deal with the Biblical prophets.  Whenever quoting one, you cannot help but come off like a fire-and-brimstone doom-saying preacher.  But in the dire pronouncements of the prophets there often resides wisdom.  Considerthis from the little quoted Hosea:
Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice,
You have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors,
Therefore a tumult will arise among your people,
And all your fortresses will be destroyed, [emphasis added]
You may or may not be the type to buy into all the “God will come and destroy” stuff, but the message here is very plain – when a people buy into the lies of a corrupt leader, the nation cannot survive.
This writer is unwilling to declare the end of the United States – I know too many good people.  I am also unwilling to be victimized by the obfuscations and lies of the Democratic front runner.  Mukasey is right, she is not going to jail, particularly not under the current administration.  Frankly we cannot worry about that.  What we have to worry about is making sure the nation does not buy what she is shoveling.
Another Old Testament prophet put it very well, Amos:
Hate evil, love good,
And establish justice in the gate!
Perhaps the Lord God of hosts
May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
We do not need to be prepared to prosecute Hillary in the court of public opinion.  There are plenty of good journalists out there to accomplish that.  What each of us has to do is make sure that the nation once again “loves good.”  We have to examine ourselves and make sure we love good, and we have to do so in our children and their children.  We have to allow the fact that the nation looks like it does to tell us that we probably do not love good as much as we would like to think we do.  And then we need to resolve to, with God’s help, do better.

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