BALTIMORE — Millions of American voters will soon find out what millions of others already know: Hillary Clinton is like what Gertrude Stein once quipped about Oakland, California. “There is no there there.”
Polls indicate that the buffoonish billionaire Donald Trump — once the longest of shots — is closing fast on Hillary after new disclosures that the FBI is investigating e-mails leaked from top aide Huma Abedin’s server. Whether it’s fast enough to overcome Hillary’s backing by her slavish friends in the mainstream media remains to be seen.
The major TV networks: ABC, CBS and NBC, and PBS; the leading cable networks: CNN, MSNBC along with the nation’s most powerful left-wing newspapers: The New York Times and The Washington Post, have all fawned over Hillary like doting grandparents.
They've ignored her constant and blatant money grubbing from Wall Street bankers and foreign officials seeking favors from our government, which surely would continue in her presidency.
Despite Hillary's misdeeds as Secretary of State during President Obama’s first term, the mainstream media have pretty much ignored her many flaws even as polls show large majorities of Americans consider her untrustworthy. They figured out long ago that she's merely a bundle of unquenchable cravings -- for power, money, respectability, and adulation -- and now is masquerading as a benevolent dispenser of Federal largesse.
If Hillary's record at State had been reasonably good, more Americans would be willing to give her some leeway. Unfortunately, her tenure as America’s top diplomat was a major disaster.
Hillary's first mistake was her decision to oppose keeping 10,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad to provide security for Iraq after it was liberated by the George W. Bush Administration. That allowed a fledgling ISIS to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East.
Her second huge error was urging the Obama administration to help the British and French dislodge the Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi. That's not to say that Gaddafi wasn't a ruthless dictator. He surely was, but he repressed Libya’s tribal factions and kept that nation's oil flowing to Europe.
Removing Gaddafi opened the door for ISIS and like-minded Islamic terrorists to rampage in North Africa.
ISIS' stunning success sent hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees fleeing for their lives into well-functioning European countries, providing cover for thousands of Jihadists to create a Fifth Column of terrorists in the heart of NATO.
However, perhaps the major concern of Americans — and especially of Hillary's devotees — is her health and whether she will have the stamina to endure the White House pressure cooker.
Hillary fainted twice twice during her days as a New York senator and twice again as Secretary of State — the last episode resulting in a concussion that left a blood clot on her brain. In addition, Hillary is obviously overweight and has a history of blood clots in her legs.
To be fair, Hillary's fading rival, the bumptious Trump, is 70 and a bit pudgy.
However, all voters now have to go on are brief letters of assurance from the personal physicians of both candidates that both are fit and capable of surviving four years in the most stressful job on the planet.
If elected, both could end up like Woodrow Wilson, who suffered a stroke campaigning for the Versailles Treaty and spent the last 17 months of his second term partially semi-comatose in his White House bedroom. Wilson's decisions on matters of state were delivered to government officials and the press corps by his wife Edith.
Whether our next President is Hillary, now an odds-on favorite, or Trump, both owe it to the American people to have semi-annual medical examinations by a team of politically neutral physicians. Their findings should be reported to Congress and the American people.
Meanwhile, at this point in our history, those who believe in the efficacy of prayer should pray.
Whitt Flora, an independent journalist, covered the White House for The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and was chief congressional correspondent for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. Readers may write him at 319 Shagbark Rd., Middle River, Md. 21220.
