Character does count

I'll admit that I'm becoming more and more dismayed about the prospects of a Clinton presidency, and to my doubts are much more about character than policy. As many have noted (check out Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's New York Times, for example), from a liberal perspective, Clinton is better on domestic issues than Obama, albeit not by much in matters that count.

But character?

Her arrival in Bosnia has already blown up in her face, thankfully. (For any who haven't heard about it, she simply lied to make herself look more heroic, and when the lie was blown apart by archived CBS footage of her arrival she tried the classic weasel of claiming she had only "misspoken;" for me and many others the episode evoked memories of George W. Bush's "flight suit moment" aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.) Somewhat less noticed are her claims to have been "instrumental" in the Northern Ireland peace process which led to the Good Friday agreement. Yet the newly released copies of her White House schedules clearly show that when Bill was dealing with Northern Ireland, Hillary wasn't involved. I am employed by an organization dedicated to promoting conflict resolution around the world, and we have an extensive library on the peace process in Northern Ireland. I checked the indices of every book on the shelf for mention of Hillary Clinton, and found only one which mentioned her, written by Gerry Adams after Bill had left the White House and Hillary had entered the Senate, and although Adams was clearly trying to curry favor with anybody who might be helpful, even he didn't describe any significant role for Hillary. As FactCheck.org notes, the list goes on: Hillary claims to have "negotiated open borders" in Macedonia, but didn't arrive until after they had been opened; her claimed role in trying the stop the Rwandan genocide was ineffective or minimal or both.

Like George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton seems to think that facts are malleable things that can be bent to passing political purposes. In short, she is a liar. And that is a character issue that matters.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 29 March 2008