Letters We Wish We'd Written Dept. - Truth Vs. Perception

Yesterday, we linked to a Chris "Lizard" Cillizza hit piece questioning Hillary Clinton's "trustworthiness."  The only question we have looking back is, what took the Republican-wired Cillizza so long to write this piece?  After all, emptiest- suit- in- America (h/t Charles Pierce) and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince "Prepuce" Priebus started flogging the "trustworthiness" theme in late April;  Cillizza must not be reading his RNC e-mail in a timely manner.  In any event, we present two Letters We Wish We'd Written that appear in today's once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle taking to task Cillizza and, by extension, the hit job "reporting" on the Clinton Foundation that the paper has been engaging in after cutting a deal with right-wing conspiracy writer (and Sarah Palin bud) Peter Schweizer, of "Clinton Cash" notoriety:

Why is it as bad for Frank Giustra to give $100 million to the Clinton Foundation for its charitable work as for the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson to give more than a billion dollars for direct political purposes [“Mining mogul’s ties to Clintons under scrutiny,” front page, May 4]? I grant that Hillary Clinton regularly shows poor judgment in such things, [“For Clinton, a trust deficit to surmount,” Monday Fix, May 4], but can we trust her less than we trust Republicans who actively solicit funds under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision?

Carl E. Nash, Washington

In his May 4 Monday Fix column, Chris Cillizza asked, “Is Hillary Clinton honest enough to be president?” He cited four reasons to doubt her honesty: Whitewater, Travelgate, Monica Lewinsky and the Marc Rich pardon. 

The Whitewater deal cost the Clintons money and was investigated. No misconduct was found. Travelgate was about the firing of the staff who arranged travel for the media. The record-keeping there was so bad that an audit was impossible. The firings were found to be proper. It seems petty to blame Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s private misconduct with Ms. Lewinsky. The Marc Rich pardon was a reasonable subject for criticism.

Of the four examples of dishonesty, two were not dishonest, one was private conduct that hurt Hillary Clinton and one was a legal act by Bill Clinton with a questionable motive.

Assuming that Mr. Cillizza knew all this, I guess he is saying that the truth doesn’t matter, only the perception. 

Mark Weaver, Catonsville, Md.

The problem with the Republican and Republican-enabling media line of attack is that, as we've said, the reality is that the hateful, divisive, backward- looking ideology of Republicans turns most sentient people off to the extent that Republicans have, we hope, an insurmountable deficit of their own.   Here's how E.J. Dionne, Jr., frames it:

Republicans hope that if they can just stir up enough doubts about Clinton, one of their candidates will make it through in 2016. Perhaps this can work. But their anti-Clinton focus will do little to resolve the underlying weaknesses of an ideology and a party that, even against a 67-year-old Democrat, do not look like the wave of the future.