Hillary Clinton, who is expected to formally announce her candidacy for the presidency on Sunday, showed us what kind of candidate and president we could expect in a tweet about the tragic shooting of Walter Scott, a black man, by a policeman in North Carolina—a shooting about which there are few questions and for which a guilty verdict for the policeman appears almost certain and justified.
Here is what Mrs. Clinton tweeted:
Praying for #Walter Scott’s family. Heartbreaking & too familiar. We can do better—rebuild trust, reform the justice system, respect all lives.
I don’t think we have to exercise our imaginations too much to say that “too familiar” alludes to the shootings of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.
A grand jury decided that Darren Wilson, the former officer who shot Brown, acted in self-defense. The Obama Justice Department, which after relentless race mongering had every reason to want to prosecute Wilson, reluctantly concurred with the grand jury. George Zimmerman, who shot Martin, was not convicted of murder because there was insufficient evidence to do so.
The shooting death of Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C., appears to be something entirely different. A passerby caught on video white Officer Michael T. Slater’s fatal encounter with Walter Scott. While pictures can lie, it appears clear that there is no question but that Slager shot Mr. Scott in the back while he was fleeing and far enough from the officer that he posed no threat. It is not at all like the other two shootings.
Instead of standing up for the American system of justice and urging calm as Slager is brought to trial, Mrs. Clinton played the race card, stirring up more of the hatred that President Obama has stoked to cement his base for years. The country has already been torn apart by racial animosity, promoted by race opportunists. And yet Mrs. Clinton, seeing political opportunity, has no scruples about playing the race card. In Shakespearean terms, Mrs. Clinton was playing up to and further inflaming a mob.
I suppose many will shrug and say, “Well, it’s politics.” We no longer expect courage and integrity of our leaders. If a presidential candidate wants to use a shooting to inflame passions and thus promote her candidacy, well, so be it; we are no longer shocked.
We’ve had six years of this, and Mrs. Clinton seems inclined to bring us more of the same. America doesn’t deserve to be further divided for political advantage. There is a word for this: demagoguery.
But identity politics, which generally involves a good helping of demagoguery, is the main justification for Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. Feminists, however, would do well to question if Mrs. Clinton is their best exemplar, Andrea Peyser argues in this morning’s New York Post. Peyser writes:
She’s a lady whose star power is not based on her intellect or contributions to the common good, but on her willingness to excuse randy husband Bill Clinton for turning her into a fool.
Widely considered the Democratic Party’s best hope for keeping the White House in 2016, the former first lady, US senator from New York and secretary of state sets a rotten example for her sisters everywhere.
So why can’t feminists, Hillary’s fellow Democrats and even some Republicans face the truth? Supporting the candidacy of this calculating symbol of Tammy Wynette’s song “Stand By Your Man’’ represents a grotesque insult to the fair sex. …
Hillary’s current scandal — private e-mails she sent out while serving as secretary of state have been deleted — has not seemed to jazz up large numbers of voters against her (despite a new Quinnipiac University poll showing she has lost ground to leading Republican presidential candidates in two key swing states). I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of a woman who served as her husband’s chief bimbo-enabler.
I worry about this country.
Me too.
I worry about another four to eight years in which the president of the United States makes cynical use of racial politics. Only with Mrs. Clinton, we get a twofer: she’ll also have the gender card to play and with just as disastrous consequences for American women who need opportunity and freedom instead of bitterness and big government.
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