By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Another day, another Hillary Clinton bombshell
disclosure.
This time the scandal comes from disgraced former
congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer, bringing more suggestions of
Clinton’s sloppy attitude about U.S. intelligence law. Meanwhile, seemingly
every day WikiLeaks produces more evidence of the Clinton Foundation leveraging
the Clinton State Department for pay-for-play profiteering.
At this point, Clinton has trumped former president
Richard Nixon’s skullduggery — but without the offset of Nixon’s foreign-policy
accomplishments.
Even before the most recent scandals, Clinton’s campaign
had an eerie resemblance to the Nixon playbook.
Compare the election of 2016 to the election of 1972. The
favored Nixon re-election juggernaut (dubbed CREEP, or the “The Committee for
the Re-election of the President”) squeezed corporations and wealthy
individuals for millions in donations, in much the same way that Clinton’s
multi-million-dollar cash machine has vastly outspent her opponent, Donald
Trump.
The Watergate tapes later revealed an entirely cynical
Nixon campaign team and a hard-nosed White House cadre led by H. R. Haldeman
and John Ehrlichman — plus a host of lesser toadies, such as the conniving John
Dean. They all took for granted that Washington functioned on a quid pro quo
and pay-for-play basis.
In that regard, the Clinton campaign under chairman John
Podesta (the new Haldeman) has become Nixonian to the core, thanks to Podesta’s
ruthlessness.
The WikiLeaks/Podesta e-mail trove reveals that Hillary’s
consultants have no moral compass. They lampoon Latinos as “needy.” Catholics
are written off as being stuck in medieval times. Aides bartered with
plutocrats for Secretary of State Clinton’s face time on the basis of cash
donations. A primary debate question was tipped off by CNN contributor and
Democratic operative Donna Brazile.
The nickname “Tricky Dick” referred to Nixon’s perceived
anything-goes campaign style and his “flexibility” on issues. CREEP’s
“plumbers” staged break-ins to look for leaked information. Petty activists
supposedly tried to disrupt rallies for Nixon’s 1972 opponent, George McGovern.
Clinton is using similar tactics. In the ambush tapes of Project Veritas,
Clinton’s for-hire thugs bragged on film of provoking violence at Trump rallies
and bringing in voters by bus to cast illegal ballots.
The anti-communist and free-marketer Nixon turned out to
be a wheeler-dealer who had no problem wooing communist China or imposing
socialist wage and price controls. From hacked e-mails, it is clear that
Hillary’s positions on fracking, trade deals, the Keystone XL pipeline,
immigration, and foreign policy hinged on whatever best served her political
self-interest.
Most loyal aides who served Nixon ended up disgraced,
jailed, or humiliated. Does anyone think that Podesta, Cheryl Mills, or Huma
Abedin — the fixers so prominent in the WikiLeaks scandal — will have a
political future, given their aiding and abetting of Clinton knavery and
profiteering?
We know that Nixon lied about what he had known about the
cover-up of the Watergate break-in. And now we know from the WikiLeaks e-mail
dumps and the FBI investigation that Clinton likewise has never told the truth
about her e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation’s pay-for-play schemes, or the
catalysts for the Benghazi killings. Nixon always attacked the messenger in
hopes of discrediting the message — and now Clinton is going after FBI director
James Comey.
Nixon professed that he never knew the sordid details of
his campaign’s dirty tricks. Clinton has resorted to the same defense with
regard to the shady activities of the now-disgraced subordinates who resigned
after being caught trying to disrupt Trump rallies. Stonewalling was a Nixon
specialty. Clinton told FBI investigators 27 times that she could not remember
key details about the e-mail scandal.
A Democratic operative from a political action committee
bragged on tape that Clinton herself liked the operative’s idea of having
protestors decked out in Donald Duck costumes provoke Trump supporters at his
rallies. (“In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future
president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground,” the operative
said on tape.)
Abedin wrote in an e-mail to Podesta and Clinton aide
Robby Mook that the idea of accepting $12 million to speak at an event held by
a Moroccan-government-owned mining company (which had received a $92 million
loan guarantee from the U.S.-financed Export-Import Bank) was Clinton’s: “This
was HRC’s idea, our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent
believe they are doing this at her request.”
A Clinton family advisor described shakedown efforts to
reap millions of dollars for former President Bill Clinton as being the work of
“Bill Clinton Inc.”
There remains, however, one disconnect.
Nixon covered up misdeeds long enough to be re-elected in
a 1972 landslide — only later to resign before his looming impeachment, when
even his administration flunkies could no longer mask his past misdeeds.
Would an elected President Hillary Clinton eventually
meet the same fate?
This time around, there is not the same sort of
investigative reporting that there was in 1973–1974. Much of the media is
backing, rather than investigating, Clinton.
Does the death of independent journalism ensure that
Clinton’s hubris will never earn a Nixonian comeuppance — or at least not until
after the election?
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