Hillary Clinton would like very much for you to forget her record.
The former secretary of state resurfaced this week to warn that the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court would “turn the clock back” to the policies of the 1850s. She also attacked the White House’s approach to immigration enforcement.
“This nomination holds out the threat of devastating consequences for workers’ rights, civil rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights,” Clinton said during an address at the American Federation of Teachers’ biennial conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.
She added, “It is a blatant attempt by this administration to shift the balance of the court for decades and to reverse decades of progress. You know I used to worry that they wanted to turn the clock back to the 1950s; now I worry they want to turn it back to the 1850s.”
“The future of America really depends upon what we do in November,” Clinton said. “If we take back one or both houses, which I pray we do, then we can start holding people accountable again the way they should be. The alternative is too grim to think about.”
This is fearmongering in its purest form, so I’m not going to waste a lot of space explaining how and why the nomination of someone in the mold of Justice Anthony Kennedy is unlikely to have “devastating consequences” on any group.
That said, the inclusion of “LGBT rights” in her list of the potentially endangered is particularly amusing.
See, I’m old enough to remember when Clinton declined in 2008 a very public opportunity to speak in support of same-sex marriage. I’m also old enough to remember that Clinton didn’t come out in favor of the issue until 2013, after it had become politically safe to do so.
I’m also old enough to remember when a certain president signed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which Clinton later tried to claim was a super-secret “defensive action” meant to prevent a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage (never mind that no such amendment was being discussed by anyone at the time). I’m also old enough to remember “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the HIV travel ban.
Anyway. Maybe Clinton meant to say the Kavanaugh nomination threatens to turn back the clock all the way to the – 1990s.
But wait! There’s more!
Clinton also attacked the Trump administration for its treatment of illegal immigrants, including the now-reversed policy of separating children from their parents.
“The test of any society is how we treat the most vulnerable among us, particularly our youngest, our oldest, our people with disabilities,” she said. “And right now, my friends, our country is failing that test. We have never seen such organized cruelty, disdain and contempt for those values.”
Look, I don’t disagree that the Trump White House’s approach to immigration enforcement has been both draconian and needlessly cruel. I’ve said as much elsewhere. But like LGBT rights, Clinton may want to sit out the issue of the federal government’s mistreatment of vulnerable immigrant children.
The 1990s weren’t that long ago.
