By Robert
Reich
 |
| Not trust Hillary but trust this guy? Really? |
This
is astounding, given that Trump’s campaign is in shambles while hers is a
well-oiled machine; that he’s done almost no advertising while she began the
month spending $500,000 a day on ads; and that Republican
leaders are deserting him while Democrats are lining up behind her.
The
near tie is particularly astonishing given that Trump has no experience and
offers no coherent set of policies or practical ideas but only venomous bigotry
and mindless xenophobia, while Hillary Clinton has a boatload of experience, a
storehouse of carefully-crafted policies, and a deep understanding of what the
nation must do in order to come together and lead the world.
What happened? Apparently the FBI’s recent report on Clinton’s email heightened what already were public concerns about her honesty and trustworthiness. Last month, on that same CBS poll, 62 percent of voters said she’s not honest and trustworthy; now 67 percent of voters have that view.
So
as the Republican convention prepares to nominate the least qualified and most
divisive candidate in American history, the Democrats are about to nominate
among the most qualified and yet also most distrusted.
What
explains this underlying distrust?
I’ve
known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old. For twenty-five years I’ve
watched as she and her husband became quarries of the media – especially, but
not solely, the rightwing media.
I
was there in 1992 when she defended her husband against Jennifer Flower’s
charges of infidelity. I was in the cabinet when she was accused of fraudulent
dealings in Whitewater, and then accused of wrongdoing in the serial rumor
mills of “Travelgate” and “Troopergate,” followed by withering criticism of her
role as chair of Bill Clinton’s healthcare task force.
I
saw her be accused of conspiracy in the tragic suicide of Vince Foster, her
friend and former colleague, who, not incidentally, wrote shortly before his death that “here
[in Washington] ruining people is considered sport.“
Rush
Limbaugh claimed that “Vince Foster was murdered in an
apartment owned by Hillary Clinton,” and the New
York Post reported that administration officials
“frantically scrambled” to remove from Foster’s office safe a previously
unreported set of files, some of them related to Whitewater.
I
saw Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation metastasize into the soap opera of
Bill Clinton’s second term, featuring Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, and Juanita
Broaddrick, among others – culminating in Bill Clinton’s impeachment and
Hillary’s very public (and, presumably, intensely private) humiliation.
Then,
more recently, came the storm over Benghazi, which led to inquiries about her
email server, followed by the questions about whether or how the Clinton
Foundation charitable work and the Clintons’ own for-profit speeches might have
intersected with her work at the State Department.
It
is worth noting that despite all the stories, allegations, accusations,
insinuations, and investigations spread over a quarter century – there has
never been any finding that Hillary Clinton engaged in illegal behavior.
But
it’s understandable why someone who has been under such relentless attack for a
large portion of her adult life might be reluctant to expose every minor error
or misstep that could be blown up into another “scandal,” another media circus,
another interminable set of investigations generating half-baked conspiracy
theories and seemingly endless implications of wrongdoing.
Given
this history, any sane person might reflexively seek to minimize small
oversights, play down innocent acts of carelessness, or not fully disclose
mistakes of no apparent consequence, for fear of cutting loose the next attack
dogs. Such a person might even be reluctant to let their guard down and engage
in impromptu news conferences or veer too far off script.
Yet
that reflexive impulse can itself generate distrust when such responses
eventually come to light, as they often do – as when, for example, Hillary was
shown to be less than forthright over her emails.
The cumulative effect can
create the impression of someone who, at worst, is guilty of serial cover-ups,
or, at best, shades the truth.
So
while Hillary Clinton’s impulse is understandable, it is also self-defeating,
as now evidenced by the growing portion of the public that doesn’t trust her.
It
is critically important that she recognizes this, that she fight her
understandable impulse to keep potential attackers at bay, and that from here
on she makes herself far more open and accessible – and clearly and fearlessly
tells all.
ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for
Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books,
including the best sellers “Aftershock, “The Work of Nations,"
and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "Saving
Capitalism." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect
magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, INEQUALITY FOR
ALL.
