EVIL WOMAN?

American woman, stay away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don’t come hanging around my door
I don’t want to see your face no more – Guess Who?

 

I got a black magic woman
Got me so blind I can’t see
That she’s a black magic woman
She’s tryin’ to make a devil out of me — Santana

 

The “Lesser of Two Evils” is not really about evil. “It is the principle that when faced with selecting from two unpleasant options, the one which is least harmful should be chosen.” It is a strategy, like Hobson’s Choice; or Sophie’s Choice if you are so inclined.

True Evil is probably best used to describe terrorists, torturers and murderers. Dictators like Hitler and Stalin. None of the candidates in this Presidential election is literally “Evil”, yet Evil has become the go to hyperbolic word in the current election season, often used to malign Hillary Clinton.

 

WHEN DID SHE BECOME EVIL?

Without getting into “The Bad Seed” scenario and the events of her childhood, let’s stipulate that Hillary Rodham was an okay, normal, intelligent young lady when she went off to Wellesley and Yale Law School.

As a student in 1970 she was providing free legal advice for the poor in New Haven and handling cases of child abuse. She also researched migrant worker problems in housing and education.

Maybe it was in 1971 when she started dating Bill Clinton that an evil spell first appeared. Supposedly he was very charming and might have slyly gifted her a talisman.

It couldn’t have been in 1972 when she worked on George McGovern’s campaign. George was Liberal, one of the good candidates. She also spent time undercover in Alabama  to fight discrimination in education.

In 1973 she wrote an often cited scholarly article for the Harvard Education Review defending children’s rights. Hillary’s first job out of law school was with the Children’s Defense Fund, and one of her first tasks was going door to door investigating why so many children were missing school. She found that parents were not sending their children because schools did not accommodate disabilities.

In 1974 she was a member of the House impeachment staff investigating Richard Nixon. Could she have caught a corruption virus? There was a lot of it going around.

In 1975 Bill put the marriage ring on her finger and they moved to Arkansas. She joined a powerful law firm but still worked pro bono in child advocacy.

In 1978 and 1979 she speculated in land and commodities and made a lot of money. This could be it! As they say, “money is the root of all evil.” Yet accusations and investigations by two Republican Congressional Committees and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr about Whitewater found nothing incriminating Clinton.

In the early 1980s, as First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary fought for reform of the state’s public education system. She fought for curriculum and classroom size standards and for preschool.

As a prominent and influential attorney she served on many boards from the Children’s Defense Fund to Walmart. Wikipedia states: “Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices.” Maybe it was from proximity to the Walton’s that she caught the evil bug.

As First Lady of the U.S., Hillary developed the Clinton Healthcare plan which required employers to provide healthcare to their employees. This was certainly evil, at least in the eyes of Republicans and the insurance lobby. Consequently, “Hillarycare” went nowhere and her popularity took a big hit. Working with Ted Kennedy she continued pressing healthcare issues and in 1997 the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) became law. Millions of children have been protected due to her efforts.

Hillary helped to create the Office on Violence Against Women at DOJ. She also initiated the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the Foster Care Independence Act.

Travelling around the world as First Lady, Hillary voiced concern about the plight of women. She was one of the first prominent people to speak out about the Taliban treatment of Afghan women. Most famous was her 1995 speech at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing where she said to delegates from over 180 countries:

“It is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights…If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

Elected to the Senate in 2000, Hillary is generally acknowledged to have worked hard and built relationships on both sides of the aisle to get things done. After 9/11, she was instrumental in securing funding to help rebuild New York. She also instigated the investigation into health issues faced by the first responders.

Then she made a big mistake. She got sucked into voting for the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002. She later admitted it was a mistake and apologized for her vote. The vote was five months before the war actually began. She wasn’t the Commander in Chief. There was plenty of time to allow the inspections to run their course using the authorization as a diplomatic tool. But Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld wanted war and the responsibility for it falls on them. But now Hillary is getting blamed.

There are a lot of other votes and issues that took place during that time period. Some are controversial such as the Patriot Act (she voted in favor) and the Bush Tax Cuts (she voted against) but nothing that could rise to the level of truly Evil.

As Secretary of State she traveled the world, met with world leaders, and generally improved the favorability of the United States from that of the disastrous Bush II years. Until the Arab Spring.  While the protests in Tunisia led to an orderly change in government, the situations in Egypt, Libya, and Syria did not go so smoothly. US support for regime change might have been made in a sincere attempt to bring democracy and a better life to the people living under autocrats, yet religious fanaticism, tribal rivalries, and other factors resulted in the situation beoming chaotic.

As unwise and counterproductive as these actions were by the Administration, it is quite a stretch to say any of it was done with evil intent.

On the positive side, in 2012 she helped negotiate a cease fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and she worked on the agreement that halted Iran’s nuclear program.

 

WHERE IS THE EVIL?

There are a lot of issues that Hillary Clinton had positions on during her 40 or so years in the public spotlight. No one will  agree with all of them. Positions sometimes changed; maybe honestly with the times; maybe some for political expediency. People say that she does not have any core principles.  Yet there is a constant theme that seems threaded throughout her public history: she has always tried to help people. As shown above, she has fought to help children, the disabled, women, minorities, the sick, and the oppressed. She was a powerful voice within the establishment for people that had no voice. She effectively worked to make the system fairer for everyone. She worked hard and got things done.

During her career there were many Pseudo Scandals. Republicans used their power to launch investigations, eight about Benghazi alone, using millions of dollars in government funds to damage her reputation. Politically motivated, they were throwing crap up against the wall to see if anything stuck. The media, with their “he said / she said” false equivalence reporting enabled the Big Lies and phony narratives. If there is any evil to be found, it starts with a big “R”.

Every election is important but this one more than most. The disparity in qualifications between the major candidates is higher than ever. If Hillary Clinton loses the election this November to Donald Trump, it will certainly be a Pyrrhic Victory for her political opponents and the people who dislike or hate her. And it will be a sad day for the country.