Despite the best efforts of the Democratic National Committee, news broke out of the three-way debate in New Hampshire Saturday night.
Even up against a couple of tomato can opponents in Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could not prevent herself from making two major, unforced errors.
The first came with Clinton’s astonishing declaration that “We are now where we finally need to be in the fight against ISIS.” With the Islamic State orchestrating terror attacks for two months in Paris and the Sinai Peninsula, inspiring others such as in San Bernardino, Calif., and running the remnants of the state of Libya she orchestrated the destruction of without a replacement standing by, this was a jaw-hitting-desk moment.
Hillary’s bear hug of her own Libyan fiasco as the country erupts in explosion after explosion of refugees and terrorists signals that she is clueless about the electorate’s assessment of President Obama’s and her foreign policy — from her “Russian reset” button to the Egyptian dizziness to the Benghazi fail and subsequent descent of the country into Islamic State Land 2.0.
Even more astonishing was Hillary’s pure invention of yet another false video narrative — this time of a non-existent video of Donald Trump talking about Islam and Muslims. Hillary declared during the debate that Islamists were using it to recruit new radicals.
That “video” doesn’t exist. Fact checkers from both the Washington Post and New York Times concluded Hillary’s statement was a lie. A. Lie. But she couldn’t help herself. On a national stage in a staged exhibition of a pretend debate she still was compelled to lie. Astonishing.
As was her campaign chairman John Podesta’s resolute “I stand by it” on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning when Chuck Todd pressed him on the obvious falsehood told by his candidate. The first rule of holes — When you’re in one, stop digging! — does not exist in Clintonworld. They just keep digging and digging deeper even when they don’t have to. Even when to do so reinforces the central worry that voters have about Hillary: That she cannot be trusted.
So Hillary in a single performance drew attention to her biggest policy failure and her biggest character flaw — by lying about a non-existent video even as she pretends Libya is something other than an Islamic State playground.
Saturday night was supposed to be a content-free glide into Christmas break. Instead it became a train wreck for a fundamentally flawed and untrustworthy candidate who reminds voters of that reality every time she appears, even when flanked by props intended to set her off as serious and truthful.
The GOP, at least, could not have asked for a better Christmas present.
Hugh Hewitt is a nationally syndicated talk radio host, law professor at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, and author, most recently of The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and the Coming of a Second “Clinton Era.” He posts daily at HughHewitt.com and is on Twitter @hughhewitt.
