Hillary Clinton’s Lack of Foresight May become a Problem for Her

© 2015 Peter Free

 

16 March 2015

 

 

Being oneself may occasionally be a bad idea

 

Lack of foresight and a Clintonian insistence on doing whatever she wants, no matter whom it offends or whatever ethics practices it arguably violates, look to become 2016 presidential candidacy problems for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

 

Admittedly, the Clintons are not narcissistically worse than other self-absorbed connivers on the national stage. But they are occasionally more tiresome, given their capacity for smoking up screens of intentionally slippery language and toe-flitting dances.

 

 

Charles Krauthammer calls this weariness, Clinton Fatigue

 

He wrote:

 

 

Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000 [of her Secretary of State emails], dismissing their destruction with the brilliantly casual: “I didn’t see any reason to keep them.” After all, they were private and personal, she assured everyone.

 

Hillary was determined never to permit another open-ended [Whitewater-like] investigation. Which is why she decided even before being confirmed as secretary of state that only she would control her e-mail.

 

Now breaking through . . . is a stark reminder of the underside of that Clinton decade: the chicanery, the sleaze, the dodging, the parsing, the wordplay.

 

What you’re feeling now is Early Onset Clinton Fatigue.

 

The only known cure is Elizabeth Warren.

 

© 2015 Charles Krauthammer, Early Onset Clinton Fatigue, Washington Post (12 March 2015) (extracts)

 

 

The main issue (from my perspective) is Secretary Clinton’s lack of foresight

 

One would think that someone vaulting toward the presidency would try to demonstrate a capacity for thoughtful strategic foresight. For example, like not blowing off toes on both feet just before planting the takeoff pole. (Pun intended.)

 

Yet, apparently not content with scattering the fertile seeds of her private server email dustup, Secretary Hillary additionally indulged the Clinton Foundation’s continued acceptance of foreign donations:

 

 

The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday.

 

Most of the contributions were possible because of exceptions written into the foundation’s 2008 agreement, which included limits on foreign-government donations.

 

The agreement, reached before Clinton’s nomination amid concerns that countries could use foundation donations to gain favor with a Clinton-led State Department, allowed governments that had previously donated money to continue making contributions at similar levels.

 

© 2015 Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, Foreign governments gave millions to foundation while Clinton was at State Dept., Washington Post (25 February 2015)

 

Thus, not one — but two — avoidable political flaps of her own making.

 

 

The moral? — Combining (i) an ability to irritate people with (ii) poor foresight paves a questionable path to the presidency

 

It may be that Hillary Clinton is not adept at weighing the strategic merits of competing options.

 

A couple of decades ago the Clintons’ predilection for tumbling into the holes they dug was both infuriating and entertaining. Today, it just feels annoyingly inept.