Sailing To Oblivium: August 14, 2017

Because I’m from Arkansas, friends from other states have asked me about Hillary Clinton. I don’t know the woman personally. I shared a running track with her a few times when the old downtown YMCA in Little Rock still had a health club. I was with a friend at the airport one day when she came over and thanked that friend for the expert testimony he had provided for her in a trial a few years back. She introduced herself to me.

Those are the total times I have been in her presence, although the Governor’s Mansion was only a few blocks from where we lived back in the day.

Of mutual acquaintances who did know her well, I have never heard one say a bad, demeaning, unkind, or critical word about her.

The only disparaging remarks I have heard from Little Rock residents came from attorneys at the aforementioned health club talking about how she had destroyed one of their brethren in court and how they hoped they would never have to go against her.

The editorial staff of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette despises her. For an Arkansan, that is one of the highest endorsements of good character that one can achieve.

The consensus among some professionals was that she was smarter than her husband. Others disagreed, saying she was the better administrator and he was the better politician. All say they were good parents. None of my professional acquaintances ever accused Hillary Clinton of being warm and charming in public. That is an assessment that fits a majority of trial lawyers in our state. They, in their defense, are paid to win cases, not friends.

After Ken Starr and his band of zealots spent $70M dollars trying to find dirt on her and her husband, uncovering only an extra-marital affair between her husband and another woman, and nothing at all on her, Having damaged or destroyed countless innocent lives in the process, Starr and his merry evangelicals moved on. I thought the personal crusade against her was over.

No. Trey Gowdy spent another hundred million or so trying to convict her of something and failed. Failed completely. Had he found an unpaid parking ticket, he would have had her arrested. But no. He found nothing. I though the inquisition finished.

No. After a convoluted and confusing battle over the fact that she had erred in the use of her e-mail accounts, uncovering little more than sloppy methodology, I thought the harassment was over.

During all this, nobody ever found grounds for charging her for anything. Anything at all, despite the fact that her enemies controlled both houses of Congress, and enjoyed the full faith and credit of the Koch Brothers and other billionaires with which to finance digging for dirt. With the “null hypothesis” thus extant, surely the search was over.

No, Fox “news” took charge of the campaign. This time, facts were not a necessity. They fed the unsuspecting brains of their viewers with tons of rot and garbage that would have made The Galilean himself look like a child molester.

One example: an individual assured me, without fail and with perfect certainty, of seeing a video of Hillary Clinton laughing because she had gotten a child molester off, as his attorney. Some facts:  (1) There was no video. (2) The lie developed from an unaired, but recorded, interview with a prominent Arkansas journalist when Hillary Clinton was a young attorney. (3) She was assigned the job as attorney for the accused, neither seeking nor wanting the assignment. (4) She was relating to the interviewer how the accused, no doubt guilty of something, had easily passed a polygraph exam. She laughed when she related how that had made her forever distrust polygraph exams, a youthful case of unartful conversation at worst. (5) Hillary Clinton didn't "get the man off." The victim’s parents dropped the case before it went to trial. There's a little more to this if one cares to dig a bit.

I offer this only as an example of how countless hours of work by Brietbart and others can distort reality. Oh, and she never ran a child pornography cell beneath a fast-food restaurant. Thank social media for that one.

After the assault by Fox, I thought the worst may have been over. Then, James Comey had to decide whether to alienate the political party in power or the political party out of power.

He chose poorly, and now we are in the mess that resulted.

I’m not posting this to defend Hillary Clinton or to change anyone’s mind. So please, I offer no ad hominem attacks on any of you, and would graciously ask the return favor. You are welcome to your opinions. I spent four years of my life defending you from being punished for having them. I’m just printing this as my honest assessment, and the reason as to why I voted for this capable woman for president and will die treasuring that as one of my proudest votes.

Just thinking.