Questions About Character Cost
Clinton
By
STAR PARKER
Founder & PRESIDENT
COALITION ON URBAN RENEWAL & EDUCATION
The honesty and
transparency themes are driving much of voter sentiment in this
election. It helps explain the surprising success of Republican
candidate Mike Huckabee. And we see similar dynamics with the
Democratic candidates.
Consider a “The
Economist/YouGov” poll out last week.
When Democratic
voters were asked which phrases they would use to describe their
candidates, results included the following:
-
Honesty: Obama 54 percent, Clinton
35 percent.
-
Moral: Obama 54 percent, Clinton 34
percent.
-
Religious: Obama 29 percent, Clinton
19 percent.
-
Says what he/she believes: Obama 60
percent, Clinton 39 percent.
Clinton’s growing
image of untrustworthiness is taking a toll.
Obama now leads in
Iowa and the gap between him and Clinton is tightening in other
state and national polls. Now, just out, is a poll by John Zogby
showing Clinton losing in races against every Republican candidate.
Yet, Zogby’s poll shows Obama or Edwards winning these same races.
It’s more than
perception. Dishonesty defines Clinton’s campaign.
A few examples:
— Health Care:
Clinton’s signature issue. The defining theme is the need for
mandated universal health care because of the large number of
uninsured.
When the Census
Bureau reported earlier this year that 47 million Americans are
without health insurance, Clinton said: “When I began the fight for
universal coverage almost 15 years ago, there were 37 million people
uninsured. It was an outrage then and with 10 million more uninsured
today, it is an even deeper outrage today.”
Who are these 47
million? It’s not hard to dig into the U.S. Census Bureau numbers to
see. N. Gregory Mankiw, Harvard economics professor and former head
of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, did this a few
weeks ago on the pages of The New York Times.
About 10 million are
not U.S. citizens and many are illegal immigrants. Another 18
million have annual household incomes over $50,000, half of whom
have incomes over $75,000. According to Mankiw, about 25 percent of
the uninsured have been offered health insurance by their employer
and have turned it down. A good chunk of the remaining individuals
qualify for Medicaid and haven’t applied.
After eliminating
non-citizens, those who can afford to, but for whatever reason don’t
insure themselves, and those qualifying for Medicaid but haven’t
applied, the remaining universe of uninsured is a fraction of the 47
million.
— Social Security:
According to Mrs. Clinton, the Social Security problem is benign and
the system was in good shape when her husband left office.
Fox News reported at
the end of October that Sen. Clinton “says that when her husband
left office, Social Security was projected to be solvent until the
year 2055.” They checked official statistics and found that when
Bill Clinton left office the Social Security system was projected to
remain solvent until 2037, not 2055.
Fox News reported
then that they “asked the Clinton campaign repeatedly ... to provide
the source for the claim that the projection was 2055 when Bill
Clinton left office — but so far we have received no response.”
But two weeks later
at the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, Clinton was at
it again: “Six and a half years ago when George Bush came into
office ... the Social Security system was on a path to be solvent
until 2055.”
You don’t have to
rely on the Fox News research staff.
Here’s President
Clinton himself in his State of the Union Address in 1999, the year
before he left office: “...by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be
sufficient to cover monthly payments. And by 2032 the trust fund
will be exhausted, and Social Security will be unable to pay out the
full benefits older Americans have been promised.”
— Iraq: I wrote
earlier this year about the documentation by New York Times
journalists Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. in their book “Her Way”
of Clinton’s obfuscation of her vote for authorizing our invasion in
Iraq. When it was no longer politically attractive to support the
war, she claimed she thought she was voting for more diplomacy. But,
as the book shows, Clinton voted against Sen. Levin’s amendment that
would have required this very additional diplomacy.
Now alter ego, hubby
Bill, the former president, said a few days ago on the campaign
trail that he “opposed Iraq from the beginning.”
Google search engines
were smoking from journalists trying to find a shred of evidence of
this — to no avail. Sen. Clinton, when asked about this clear
fabrication by her husband, responded, “There was nothing new in
what he said.”
Layered upon the
wholesale dishonesty that defines Sen. Clinton’s presidential
campaign is a projected arrogance that it doesn’t matter. That
somehow this nomination and this election belong to her, regardless
of what she says or does.
Voters, of course,
will have the final say on this.
---------------------------------
Star Parker is president of the
Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education and author of the new book
White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.
Prior to her involvement in social
activism, Star Parker was a single welfare mother in Los Angeles,
California. After receiving Christ, Star returned to college,
received a BS degree in marketing and launched an urban Christian
magazine. The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business, yet
served as a springboard for her focus on faith and market-based
alternatives to empower the lives of the poor.
Leave a comment about this article
