Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) began her 2008 campaign by announcing a Presidential Exploratory Committee on January 20, 2007. Even after her defeat in Iowa’s primary, she ran her campaign as though she were already the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. She then proceeded to lose 12 straight contests in a row, and her campaign strategy of incumbency changed during and after this period with wild swings in tone, lines of attack, and almost every other factor imaginable, save one line which has remained constant: “I’m in. And I’m in it to win.” What lies unsaid at the end of that little sound-bite is the “no matter what it takes” that the American public has only begun to understand.

Recently, Senator Clinton has even suggested that pledged delegates can switch their political allegiances at whim and that super-delegates should not pay attention to who has the popular vote and the most pledged delegates—effectively, she is arguing that the will of the voters should have no bearing on the nomination process. Unfortunately, this arrogant and self-serving line of thinking is hardly the first dirty tactic that voters have seen.

Senator Clinton has run her campaign on a graceless foundation of hot air and hyperbole, on deceit and duplicity, and on secret handshakes with the party elite behind closed doors. She has introduced damaging rhetoric to political discourse through the sacrifice of her surrogates (recall Geraldine Ferraro) and she has herself been no stranger to the deceptive doubletalk which has dominated American politics since FDR (“There’s nothing to base that on, as far as I know” [on Senator Obama being some kind of Muslim Manchurian candidate]).

Senator Clinton has run her campaign on the basis of her “35 years” of experience in politics. What is this experience, exactly?

“I helped bring peace to Northern Ireland”

What actually happened, as Nobel Peace Prize winner (for bringing peace to Northern Ireland) and former First Minister Lord Trimble recalls,

“I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around,” he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely “the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets” during elections. “She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.” (link)

Well, okay. It’s great that Senator Clinton was vocal in her encouragement for peace. Yeah, she exaggerated a little. So what? The problem is that her tactics aren’t limited to exaggeration—they are dependent also on downright fabrication of events.

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

If by “ran with our heads down” she means “took a leisurely stroll across the tarmac” and if by “sniper fire” she means “cute little Bosnian girl”, then her statement isn’t false at all. Unfortunately, this time semantics aren’t on her side and Senator Clinton now says she “misspoke”. Really? Twice? When pressed for elaboration, she held that she had a “different memory” of her one and only landing in Bosnia. Later, she said, “So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which, you know, for some people, is a revelation”, her flippant words laden with condescension and disdain. Nowhere have the words “I’m sorry” left her mouth, however insincere. Is this what Americans are to expect should Clinton become President?

Days before the Ohio primary, she shouted “Shame on you, Barack Obama!” for his campaign fliers asserting her support of NAFTA. Here’s Hillary in her own words:

“Oh, I think everybody is in favor of free and fair trade, and I think that NAFTA is proving its worth.” (1996)

Additionally, MSNBC broke down some White House documents which show that Hillary held five strategy meetings on how to win congressional approval for NAFTA, and that her support was helpful in blocking labor and environmental unions’ protests against the agreement. (link)

Is this another “different memory” of events? Even if she says she didn’t agree with NAFTA at the time, as MSNBC says, the facts remain that she helped to get it passed. Remember, Hillary cares about actions, not rhetoric:

“[McCain has] never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

So in addition to her actions to pass NAFTA, what other actions has she taken? What kind of judgment has her “35 years of experience” given her? Well, here’s one answer, from a floor speech in 2002:

“This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make — any vote that may lead to war should be hard — but I cast it with conviction.”

The vote she’s talking about is the one that authorized the war in Iraq—the war that has embroiled the United States in a conflict that has no end in sight and that has now claimed the lives of 4,000 American servicemen and women and anywhere from 87,000 to 675,000 Iraqis.

So is this what Americans can look forward to should Hillary become the Democratic nominee, or even President? Do Americans—and the rest of the world—deserve this lack of judgment and flat-out flagrant disregard for democratic principles, for truth, and for honesty in the Leader of the Free World?

The answer, of course, is no. Too long have American politics been dominated by the selfish desperation for reelection that leads to such underhanded tactics and disrespect as we have seen throughout Senator Clinton’s tenure in the public eye. Senator Clinton ought to be considered a relic of the past—the time for change has finally come.

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