November 1, 2016
To say that this is an unusual presidential year would be a substantial understatement. The race for office is closer than it ought to be, given the Republican candidate, in part due to a populist revolt against perceived misgovernment by elites, but also due to the virtual absence any discussion of issues in media coverage, and due to the unpopularity of the Democratic candidate.
The primary season was odd: on the Republican side, there were multiple candidates, none very impressive but some preferable to the winner. On the Democratic side, the — to me still baffling — inevitability of Hillary Clinton limited the race to four, quickly reduced to two. Bernie Sanders, for all his merit, hardly would have been predicted, a few years ago, as a viable candidate. Mrs. Clinton was lucky in both races: few challengers for the nomination and an ignorant, clumsy extremist as the final opponent.
Mr. Trump has obliterated any record, at least in modern times, for offensive comments by a nominee for the presidency. Early on much of that had little play, partly because of the tendency of most of the media to strike a pose of neutrality, and partly because of the sheer volume of his outbursts, giving rise to an "oh, that’s just the Donald" response. Eventually, he became too gross to be given a pass.
The debates were, on the whole, a disaster for Trump. Although he made some effort to be under control in the second and third, his character by then was too well known for redemption. Certainly the low point was his threat to jail Mrs. Clinton, an indicator of the dismal state of politics in this country. Contrast 2008. At McCain rally, a woman in the audience said, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab." McCain, having none of that, retook the microphone and replied: "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."[75] How far we have fallen in eight years.
Mrs. Clinton’s defects as a candidate, both as a campaigner and personally, virtually faded from view in the storm over Trump’s attitude toward women, but now she is again under the microscope thanks to the baffling disclosure by the FBI director of e-mails on a computer used by a Clinton aide. Even leaving aside the usual reluctance by officials to make controversial announcements just before elections, Comey’s action is odd: no one seems to know whether the new items are significant, or even really new. The effect of the announcement was to stir up the media and aid Trump, an effect Comey must have anticipated.
One of the ironies of the treatment of Mrs. Clinton, by the media and by the Trump forces (Fox would fall into both categories) is the focus on the e-mails while overlooking more serious matters. One of my greatest concerns is her attitude toward military intervention. We all know by now that she voted for the invasion of Iraq (and for the panic-induced Patriot Act). There hasn’t been much attention to her role in the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, which has led to chaos and the establishment of an ISIS outpost. Apparently having learned nothing from the results in Iraq, Secretary Clinton supported intervention in Libya. After Qaddafi was hunted down and killed by rebels, she quipped, inanely and flippantly, "We came, we saw, he died," and then laughed: regime change as comedy.[76]
At a lecture we attended a few days ago, the speaker declared his support for Mrs. Clinton, joined no doubt by all of the audience, but portrayed her in terms which conjured up an image of Joan of Arc. Those of us who will vote for her need to be realistic, and acknowledge that this is very much a matter of choosing, if not the lesser evil, then the less flawed candidate. Both parties have serious work to do if we are not to be faced with this situation again.
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76. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-saw-he-died/
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