I’ll give this much to politics: just when you think it can’t summon from the muck candidates more slimy and menacing than the last bunch, it – amazingly – manages to do so.
Here’s a slice from my column:
At this moment – my assessment might change tomorrow – I have a slight preference for a Trump victory [in November over H. Clinton]. The reason is that the same mainstream media that would fawn idiotically over a Clinton administration would be appropriately merciless on a Trump administration. President Trump would not receive, because he does not deserve, any benefit of the doubt. President Clinton would receive, even though she does not deserve, every benefit of the doubt. This almost-certain difference in press treatment would tightly check the policies of President Trump while they would fuel those of President Clinton.
Also, President Trump might inadvertently scrub off of the presidency the aura of faux majesty that now encrusts it. The president is a human being – a naked and imperfect ape, like the rest of us. Yet he’s treated, because of his high office, as if he is uniquely wonderful and valuable to Americans. He’s not. Finally, unlike Trump, Clinton has a political track record. It’s ugly. Of course, like the typical politician, Clinton changes her stated opinions to win votes, so we know that she’s unprincipled. But to the extent that we can infer from her record any of her “beliefs,” it’s clear that she has no understanding of economics. And her instincts are those of a central planner – a harsh nanny, a pitiless schoolmarm, an officious elite with no trust in ordinary people to live their lives as they choose rather than as she and her fellow intellectual elites suppose ordinary people should live their lives.
On foreign policy, she’s not only hawkish, but also – as her actions as secretary of State [and as Senator] prove – an unusually reckless hawk.
No one who is as obsessed as Clinton obviously is with gaining power should be trusted with power. Nothing good will come of a Clinton presidency; it will be calamitous, at home and abroad.
