But What if Hillary Clinton Really Is a Crooked Liar?
A combination photo shows Hillary Clinton (L) and Donald Trump (R) in Los Angeles, California on May 5, 2016 and in Eugene, Oregon, U.S. on May 6, 2016 respectively. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (L) and Jim Urquhart/File Photos
Typically I’m not one to defend Donald Trump, the noxious ass a large number of Republican insisted on making their presidential nominee (barring some skullduggery at the GOP national convention in Cleveland), but the Fargo Forum editorial today forced my hand.
A day after FBI Director James Comey delivered a very large pile of evidence of Hillary Clinton’s lies and cover-ups (though, strangely, no recommendation for indictment) the Forum goes after Donald Trump for calling Clinton a liar:
It was classic Trump. It was another lost opportunity to go after the presumptive Democratic candidate for president. He was armed with an FBI report that was packed with information that makes the former secretary of state look irresponsible at best, criminal at worst. Instead, Trump resorted to his playground rhetoric, calling Clinton “a liar” and “crooked Hillary.” That shallow pot-shotting might play to his fans, but it won’t have staying power with the general electorate he needs desperately if he has any chance of winning in November.
Trump does have a propensity to say stupid things which get in the way of his larger political points, but is it really “shallow pot-shotting” to call Hillary Clinton a crooked liar when she has, very plainly, been caught in a litany of lies?
The Forum would have us believe here that the larger problem isn’t that Hillary Clinton is a crooked liar, but that Donald Trump is calling her a crooked liar.
I, as much as anyone else, wish Republicans had picked a better sort of candidate to go up against Clinton. I am afraid that the American people, forced into a decision between Trump or Clinton, are going to go with dishonest, corrupt Clinton over a bloviating reality television star with the intellectual depth of a puddle. I’m also afraid that Trump at the top of the Republican ticket is going to cost Republicans in down-ticket races.
Maybe not in North Dakota, but certainly in other parts of the country.
All that said, Trump’s not wrong when he says Hillary Clinton is a crooked liar.
She is. Without a doubt. We should never criticize a politician for telling the truth, and Trump’s comments on Clinton crookedness are perhaps some of the most true things he’s ever said. If you want to hit Trump for being a hypocrite, since he’s no stranger to prevarication himself, then fine. But that doesn’t make Clinton any less crooked, or any less of a liar.
