Dear America,
I'm going to make a prediction now that you shouldn't repeat. The reason that you shouldn't repeat it is that if you do, people will think you are either stupid or nuts. I predict that Hillary Clinton will not run for president. All of the pundits are assuming that she will be the Democratic nominee because no one seems to be stepping forward to challenge her presumptive nomination, but whether a credible alternative to Clinton comes forward or not--Elizabeth Warren (she would be the first woman president elected), Chuck Schumer (he would be the first Jewish president if elected) or someone else who would be a clear alternative to politics as usual--Hillary Clinton won't get the Democratic nomination even if she tries, and frankly I don't think she will. But either way, without the nomination, she can't run for president.
My reasoning isn't really related to the conventional wisdom. I don't think Republican attempts to resurrect Benghazi will ultimately amount to anything but a colossal waste of time, and the fact that the Republicans persist in it will redound to Clinton's benefit. And references to ancient history like White Water won't be availing either. Everyone knows, even everyone who supports her, that honesty is not her cardinal trait. Like probably every other politician who has achieved the kind of prominence on the American political scene that she and her husband have, she has no doubt made some deals and done some things that would disqualify her for sainthood. No, a lack of probity will not be her coup de grâce. A lack of prudence will. Just look at the things that have brought her character into question. White Water was a land deal that went bad, and it involved some characters of dubious virtue. The Rose Law Firm, for which she worked at the time, put together all of the papers necessary for that deal, and she herself oversaw the process. It was a classic case of questionable cards being kept close to a player's chest, but as a lawyer myself, I can tell you that handling your own legal work is imprudent. There is even an old saying in that regard; any lawyer who represents himself--or in this case herself--has a fool for a client. And that tendency to chose bad counsel seems to run in the family; just look at her husband's choice of attorneys during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Bill Clinton chose Robert S. Bennett to represent him in the lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones.
Jones, who was represented by some clever Republican attorneys and still ultimately demonstrated that she was nothing more than a refugee from a trailer park, sued Clinton for sexual harassment--there was a proposition related to oral sex, a Bill Clinton modus operandi, involved--among other things, and in the course of that litigation, then-President Clinton was subpoenaed for a deposition. Bennett fought the subpoena, but ultimately he lost, and that should have been the end of it. All Bennett had to advise Clinton to do was refuse to testify, or at the very least, allow him to testify and then advise him not to answer certain questions...specifically those involving Monica Lewinsky. The worst that could have happened to Clinton was that he would have been defaulted on the issue of liability and never appeared under oath anywhere in the Jones case. He would have had to pay her a couple of hundred thousand dollars (at most) in a judgment against him related to the degradation of Jones' reputation, if she even had one, and left some questions about his universally-known reputation as a hound dog in the public perception of him, and they would have been there anyway. His political accomplishments would have put all that in his rear view mirror within a year. But now he will forever be known as the president who lied to the American people and probably perjured himself in the process of saving himself a few dollars that someone else would have paid for him anyway when he really never had to say or do anything. Oh, and by the way, he is also only the second president ever to be impeached, albeit unsuccessfully. That puts him one step ahead of Richard Nixon in the historical race for the honor of most legally imprudent president. Bennett obviously didn't know what he was doing, or in the alternative, Clinton himself overruled Bennett and did the stupid thing anyway, which is no better. A lawyer taking his own legal advice is only one rung of foolishness below representing himself.
So now comes Hillary with her computer server in her basement and only one cell phone on which she did not just her personal business but the business of the nation as well. You don't have to be a lawyer to know that if you have some business of your own that you don't want to share, whether it is questionable or not, you don't do that business on your official telephone line, which is what her personal cell phone became by virtue of her using it as such. And then, when some officious politicians inquires of you as to what your cell phone records contain, you don't pick what you want them to know and provide it to officials in another department, and then erase everything, including the records related to your official duties. She could have kept those and erased the rest, and all they could have said about her was that she had done her job but was hiding something: an allegation that they could never prove. Now, she has also destroyed official records and presumably all traces of them on a device in her home, and potentially destroyed evidence...a crime. She could be impeached before she is even in office. That she finds herself in this predicament is just stupidity on her part, and she may have been advised by a lawyer to do it all. Forget the legality...or illegality...of it all. Do you want a president who couldn't figure that out in advance and avoid it just by keeping her private affairs private on a second cell phone? Common philanderers and crooks know better, but you don't want them for your president either. They may lack character, but at least they are smart enough. Hillary doesn't seem to be.
Your friend,
Mike
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