By Dr. Steve Danso – With the unending gaffes of Mr. Donald Trump, the Republican Presidential candidate, many would have thought that Hilary Clinton would have taken an unassailable lead of around 20 points in the polls, but her lead is just around 5 points. Why isn’t she pulling away as could be expected? It’s because majority of Americans think that she is not trustworthy.
But wait a minute. Ask those people why and they will tell you that they don’t trust her because of her email controversy and the Benghazi attacks. Latching onto this Republican drumbeat is Trump, who has given Hilary all sorts of names, including crooked, devil, liar, rotten, thief, unbalanced, unhinged and even a murderer. One could see that sometimes, Trump, whose consistent attacks on Clinton’s character has become a key issue on his campaigns, runs out of words trying to describe Hilary on his rallies. With severe skepticism about Trump’s psychological and mental psyche for the job he is chasing, he literally describes himself as a moralist.
Trump’s cronies have not shied away from the insults either. New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie led chants of ‘lock her up’ during the Republican Convention for throwing the world into conflagration, saying she was the cause of the crisis in Syria, Iraq and Libya, while Dr. Ben Carson simply called her Lucifer. This has caught on with her critics and it appears that the smearing is going to intensify with the elections a few weeks away.
After initial denials of culpability, Clinton has admitted her mistakes on the email controversy and apologized for her wrong judgment, but her mea culpa hasn’t satisfied her critics. They seize on it at the least opportunity and are portraying her as somebody who has no moral sense to lead.
What is mind boggling is how her critics still link her with the Benghazi attacks. Read what Rudy Giuliani said about her on the attacks at the Republican Convention: “Her dereliction of duty and failure to keep her people safe played a major role in the horrific Islamic terrorist murders on September 11-12, 2012 in Benghazi which claimed the lives of 4 Americans.”
This is a dishonest claim because Americans were all witnesses when the House Select Committee on Benghazi grilled Hilary Clinton for 11 solid hours for her role in the terror attacks and found no wrong doing on her part.
Those critics claiming moral superiority and depicting a holier-than-thou approach should remind themselves of the encounter between Jesus Christ and the Pharisees in the book of John. The Pharisees brought a woman they suspected of committing adultery before Jesus for His opinion on whether the woman should be stoned to death. And Jesus’ answer? “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). The Scriptures say the Pharisees were convicted by their own conscience and went out one by one, leaving Jesus and the woman alone in the temple.
Who is infallible? The Apostle Paul says in the book of Romans: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). All politicians, like all human beings, are prone to mistakes and sometimes shade the truth. In some situations, they admit their mistakes, pay the consequences, learn from them and move on.
It is disheartening to see a woman who has dedicated her life to public service being ridiculed and torn apart by people who, because of hatred, just wouldn’t find anything good in her.
President Obama said it right when he told Americans that Hilary Clinton is by far the most qualified of all Presidential candidates in the history of the nation. And he is right. She has served as a First Lady, a Senator and Secretary of State, positions that have given her solid exposure to be a very capable President and leader of the free world.
The attacks on Clinton’s character may go on, but the American people know too well that those shouting themselves hoarse trying to defame her character will freeze on their tracks when asked to throw the first stone. It is this simple: Nobody is a saint. Trump should campaign on mundane issues like education and taxes instead of indulging in personal insults and character defamation.
