Question of the Day

From PJM’s own Roger L. Simon writing about the almost-getting-interesting Democratic primary:

But there is one way they can win, any of them, but they have to be truly daring and honest. It’s simple, actually. They can win by speaking the truth and calling Hillary a liar — publicly and definitively. They can add that it is terrible for our country that someone known to be dishonest becomes president. We have gone from George Washington and the cherry tree to Hillary Clinton and her emails in less than 250 years. What a depressing national decline. Is this the country we want to leave to our children? Is this the message we want to deliver to them?

I’d like to toss the larger question of national decline aside, if only because it’s just a bit too early for a liquid brunch. Perhaps we’ll …revisit… the issue shortly.

Taken alone, Roger’s question still should interest you — because calling Hillary a liar, calling her what she is, from someone ostensibly from her own team, may be the only way to beat her. It also may be the only battlefield prep which will work against her in the general election, should she still win the primary.

In other words, if Martin O’Malley or Bernie Sanders genuinely want to be the nominee, they’re going to have to attack Clinton’s Achilles Heel — which is the plain fact that she is the most corrupt person I can think of ever to seek a first term the office of President and have a real shot of winning it. (Nixon beats her for now, but only when he ran for his second term. Nixon required the powers of the presidency to discover just how low he could go; Clinton has always been there.) For now, the MSM doesn’t have to seriously address Clinton’s lies and corruption. The occasional NYT hit piece stings, but doesn’t wound. A direct an un-ignorable attack from O’Malley or Sanders might remove that cover.

The risk for O’Malley and Sanders would be mortally wounding Clinton, but not killing her off in the primary. Partisanship and policy aside, how would you like to be the person who destroyed your party’s chances of keeping the White House? How would you like to be the person who prevented the First Woman President from ever taking the oath of office?

Now I’d like to think more highly of Messrs. Sanders & O’Malley. I’d like to think they would put the health of their country above party politics. I’d like to think they would do whatever it took to prevent such a venal and corrupt and dishonest person from holding another high office, even at the risk of their own standing within their party. I’d like to think that they are good people who would never want to see such a bad person be sworn in as President of the United States.

I’d like to think this isn’t all just wishful thinking — but we’ll see.