Hillary: Is She Da Bomb...or...Is the Bomb About to Fall on Her?

Hillary: Is She Da Bomb…or…Is the Bomb About to Fall on Her?  Hillary Clinton is an enigma to me.  Her public record clearly shows that she’s had problems telling the truth; almost to the point of being a congenital liar.  It seems at times that she will lie when telling the truth is easier to do.  On the other hand, one must acknowledge that she has been pretty successful in her life.  With the exception of the thrashing she took at the hands of Obama, she has proven to be very skillful at picking the right time and place to run for office.  What some might call devious and opportunistic, others may call genius.  I continue to be amazed at the broad and deep Democratic voter loyalty she engenders.  She has managed to cobble together a rather impressive resume of public experience.  Many in the media, both her allies and her critics, refer to her as an intelligent person.  Personally, I am not prepared to give her this crown.  The ability to succeed in the pursuit of power and fortune is not necessarily an indication of intelligence and we are all way too anxious to join these two traits in a seminal fashion.  In fact, Hillary’s wealth and power, and the manner in which she acquired them, might very well prove to be liabilities before this presidential campaign is over.  That, my friends, is what I dwell on at this time.

What are the chances that sometime before the Democrats officially select their 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will be indicted?  Six months ago, mentioning this possibility was laughable; today, not so much so.  I see three indicators that have raised the possibility of a Clinton indictment.  First, there is a silence that surrounds both the Congressional investigations into Hillary and the FBI investigation into her affairs.  One may argue that silence means there is nothing there and perhaps that is true.  On the other hand, many times silence can be more ominous than incessant chatter and that might just be the case this time.  Secondly, the trigger man in deciding whether or not Hillary skates or skews is James Comey.  Comey comes as close to being an objective, non-partisan, by the book, bureaucrat as exists in the Obama administration.  He has just as many Democrat hides on his wall as he does Republican.  In a very public fashion, he has demonstrated his political independence on several occasions and there is no reason, at this time, to doubt that he will go where the email trails lead him.  And finally, what exactly does Obama think of Hillary?  I have long been of the notion that Obama might not personally like her much, but would view her as the best option to preserve, at least in his mind, his presidential efforts.  At this late date in his tenure, with the public opinion of his performance settling in, I am no longer sure that there is very much of that legacy that Clinton could or would try to preserve.  If I am correct in this thinking and Obama comes around to this position, he might very well decide that history might be kinder to him with a Republican successor than with Hillary.   As is his wont, he would demonize and demagogue a Republican successor and continue his plea that all he accomplished was in spite of the Republicans and all that went wrong under his watch was because of the Republicans.  A Republican successor would allow him to continue that theme into his post-presidential era.  On the other hand, and if given the opportunity, Hillary would undoubtedly rework Obama’s initiatives; some with a tweak and some with a hammer.  Is her vision for America the same as his?  It is not out of reason to think he might prefer the clear foil of a conservative Republican president to that of a more traditional Democrat president.  I grant that this is entirely supposition and a high grade of supposition at that.  However, if it were to have a grain of truth, it might be the third factor that results in serious legal issues for Hillary in 2016.  There can be little doubt that even without influencing Comey, the Obama administration will have some effect on how the public image of Hillary is impacted by her 2016 adventures in justice. 

National polls consistently show that fully sixty percent of the public do not view Hillary as trustworthy.  Even though one would be a fool not to consider her political apparatus as formidable, that type of locked-in public perception will be extremely difficult to overcome.  Now the 2016 presidential election may be a technical one decided more by political metrics than by simple vote tallies and if so, Hillary could very well figure out a way to win this thing.  On the other hand, if sixty percent of folks don’t trust you now and the Republicans have yet to spend one dollar to encourage that notion, what will happen to her image when the attacks come?  And then, what would happen if Obama took a laissez faire approach to the FBI investigation of her and even worse, began to drop bread crumbs that lead down trails better left untraveled?

If Hillary were to be indicted, could Bernie end up being the Democrat’s Goldwater?  The 2016 Presidential election may already be engaged to a much greater degree than any of us realize; it might be the Republican presidential nominee primary.