During her
recent Congressional testimony about the notorious Benghazi Affair Hillary
Clinton uttered the now infamous rhetorical question “What difference, at this
point, does it make?” Note my
emphasis on the word “it.” In the context the question was asked and answered Clinton’s
“it” referred at least to the murder of four Americans, and probably the State
Department’s antecedent failure to provide adequate security and the White
House’s subsequent stonewalling cover-up.
In other
words — according to the former First Lady, United States Senator, presidential
aspirant, Secretary of State, and putative 2016 democratic party presidential candidate — it
made no difference that the government of which she was then a high-ranking
member exposed Americans to high-risk danger, left them defenseless in a hotbed
of terrorists, made no effort to rescue them, literally watched them being
murdered, and then tried to cover up apparatchik malfeasance by lying through officialdom's teeth to
the people of the United States.
“What
difference?” indeed.
But beyond
what has become obvious about Clinton’s and her colleagues’ betrayal of the
deceased Americans and the rest of the government’s malfeasance, the Benghazi
Affair reveals something even more sinister.
Over the years, some of Hillary Clinton’s questionable
conduct has not involved issues of morality. She has been a poseur,
playing the role of victimized, yet forgiving, wife during the Lewinsky
scandal. She has been a hypocrite, castigating George W. Bush for
warrantless surveillance but using purloined tapes to her own political
advantage. She has been a paranoid, complaining to the world about the
alleged “right wing conspiracy.” She has been a conniver, ousting career
White House travel office employees in favor of her cronies. She has been
a dilettante, presuming to make over America’s health care system.
While this conduct, and much more like it, has been
unseemly and at odds with the dignified and trustworthy image that had been
projected by modern-era First Ladies from Bess Truman to Laura Bush, none of
Hillary Clinton’s conduct raised serious moral questions.
On the other hand, Clinton has done many other things
that have raised serious questions of immorality
(immoral defined as “not in conformity with accepted principles of right
and wrong behavior; contrary to the moral code of the community” [Webster’s
New World Dictionary of the American Language (13th ed.)];
in other words knowing, but disregarding, principles of morality).
Mrs. Clinton authored a brief reeking with fraud while a staff
lawyer for the Watergate Committee. She was a beneficiary of illegal commodities
transactions that turned her a large profit. She fraudulently stung lenders
in the Whitewater land scheme. She bought votes and campaign contributions
with criminal pardons issued by her husband. She lied about Chinese
contributions to her political campaigns. She participated in slandering
and intimidating women whom her husband sexually and otherwise abused, and was
complicit in covering up his salacious conduct. She blithely desecrated the
presidency by selling the Lincoln Bedroom to donors and celebrities. She
stole furniture and furnishings from the White House. And much more, including
her recent complicity in the murder of four Americans in Benghazi and the
attempted cover-up of the entire sordid affair. All immoral conduct.
There’s more, but to elucidate all of it would be to
gild the lily. Hillary Clinton’s immoral conduct— rationalized by her adherence
to the “Rules for Radicals”
promulgated by her mentor Saul Alinsky — has been detailed on the public record
for decades, especially since her abortive campaign for the Democratic Party
presidential nomination in 2007.
At that time, I raised the question of whether
Clinton’s decades-old questionable character traits and corner-cutting conduct
demonstrated that she was merely immoral or, worse: Whether she was amoral—and
whether there’s any important difference between the two concepts.
The answer is that there is a difference, a
profound one, and with Hillary Clinton’s eye on a 2016 presidential nomination it’s
crucially important for the future of the United States of America that the voters
of this country understand it.
I begin with the concept of “morality” itself, one
which Americans instinctively understand. Rooted in fundamental notions
of “right” and “wrong,” most Americans know (or knew!) that it’s right to pay
our bills and protect our loved ones; that it is wrong to defraud creditors and
abuse children. It’s immoral to buy votes, lie to investigators, release
terrorists for a political quid pro quo,
attack the defenseless, steal from the White House — all conduct Hillary
Clinton was a party to — as well as to engage in countless other actions which,
by anyone’s definition, must be characterized as immoral. That this
prospective candidate for the presidency of the United States has acted
immorally time and time again is clear beyond any legitimate disagreement.
But what about amorality?—defined
as “being neither moral nor immoral; specifically: lying outside the
sphere to which moral judgments apply; lacking moral sensibility . . .
.” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.);
emphasis in original.)
A
person who is amoral does not accept
any moral standard by which her conduct is to be judged by others. She simply does not care about the concept
of morality, about right or wrong, in what she thinks, says, or does. Morality does not apply to such a person. “What
difference, at this point, does it make?” could well be such person’s
mantra.
Thus, the questions arise: Does all of Hillary
Clinton’s dubious conduct over the course of decades reflect a simple,
garden-variety immorality—knowing but
eschewing the right, and deliberately doing the wrong? Or does Alinsky’s
acolyte — the leading candidate of the Democrat Party for the presidency of the
United States — at root care nothing for morality and deem it to have no
application to her? Is Hillary Clinton amoral?
Her record (let alone her character) leaves no doubt
about the answer. Yet Clinton and her supporters ask: “What difference,
at this point, does [morality] make?”
To ask the question is to answer it.
