Hillary Clinton’s Chutzpah
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Hillary Clinton has just topped the classical definition of chutzpah. It used to be the youngster who murdered his parents and then pled in court for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. Now it’s the former state secretary, who has shirked her duties in the email probe at every turn and whose key aides have taken cover of the Fifth Amendment, pleading for the director of the FBI, James Comey, to explain the new issue he’s discovered in her emails — “without further delay.”
That takes some brass. The last thing America needs right now is for the director of the FBI to take yet another powder in respect of Mrs. Clinton. He has reopened the case for his own good reasons (we’d like to think that the near revolt of some of the FBIs most experienced agents has something to do with it). The best thing at this juncture is to let the bureau work the problem until it gets to the bottom of it. Let a grand jury be called so that American citizens can decide whether to indict.
The idea that Mrs. Clinton’s legal jeopardy can be solved before the Election Day is chimerical. Election Day has already started. Hardly a paragraph goes by that the New York Times isn’t whinnying about how non-existent is Mr. Trump’s route to victory at the electoral college (Pennsylvania “remains out of reach” is the way the Times touted its latest poll). If Mrs. Clinton is so all-fired eager to protect Election Day, why doesn’t she start a movement for people to be able to recall the ballots they’ve already cast in early voting?
Forgive our sarcasm, but one of the galling things about this situation is that for months now, Mrs. Clinton has sought to duck the substantive issues in this campaign by asking for judgment in respect of Donald Trump’s fitness. He has obliged her by being all too eager to respond in kind to her attacks on his character. When he’s prospered, it’s precisely when he’s turned to policy. What took the God of Democracy so long to put her on the defensive over her own fitness, we don’t know. But the truth is more important than the timing.
