A friend of mine recently shared an article from The Guardian titled “This may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest.” By way of introduction for the article, my friend wrote, “I don't expect any Republican to believe this, but based on hard investigation and fact checking Hillary Clinton is honest. She beats the scrutiny of Trump, Cruz, Sanders by miles and miles. If you refuse to believe then maybe you need to look at yourself.”
Here’s what I wanted to say to his post about Hillary being honest (the article said “fundamentally honest” but he said honest). Before I post my take on it, let me say that this response is only geared towards Hillary’s honesty, not any of the other politicians’, only because her honesty was the only one being touted.
With that caveat in mind, I don’t think that voters believe Clinton is hiding something because “her instinct is to withhold;" I think that they think she’s hiding something because she does not tell the truth. There’s no “pattern of concealment;” there’s a pattern of falsely reporting things.
People have “Hillary for Prison” signs because if she were anyone else, she’d already be wearing orange. The fact that she is not only underscores that she is part of the political elite (made up of members of both parties) who not only think they are untouchable but clearly must be. That does not sit well with the average Joe.
To say that some of this resentment is “stoked by the ‘Hillary is a liar’ videos that flood Facebook feeds” is missing the point. These videos don’t “stoke” the resentment; they clearly demonstrate the point. You can’t deny watching Hillary in her own words describe landing in Bosnia under the threat of sniper fire and having to run for cover when the news feed unequivocally shows that is not even close to how it happened. As CBS noted, “her memory doesn’t match [their] videotape.” Ask Brian Williams how well that worked for him.
And just why is the idea of her being indicted or going to prison over the emails “nonsensical?" If it wasn’t illegal, her lying about it certainly was. People are indicted all the time for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. Just ask Scooter Libby or David Safavian.
Clinton may have mainly been constant on issues, and you’re right, changing positions over time is not dishonest, but lying about whether your position has changed is by definition dishonest. In 2002 Hillary flat out said that she did not believe New York state should recognize gay marriage, and in 2004 Hillary said, “I believe marriage is, not just a bond but a sacred bond, between a man and a woman.” In 2010 she admitted that she had “not supported same-sex marriage.” But, in 2014 she told NPR that she had a “strong record” on supporting gay marriage. Maybe that’s not a lie depending on your definition of a “strong record,” but to the average person, her own words contradict her assertion of a strong record supporting gay marriage, for that matter any record supporting gay marriage.
The one yardstick I use for measuring anyone’s honesty is really simple: is what they’re saying true? In Hillary’s case, from her “support” of gay marriage to her support of NAFTA, what she says is not always true, and she seems willing to say whatever it will take to get elected. That is why she is fundamentally dishonest in my book, and that is probably why “40% of Democrats say she cannot be trusted.”
