…If not impossible
FSP EDITOR – MARK CASERTA
If Hillary Rodham Clinton is all the Democratic Party has for the 2016 election, liberals must be getting pretty nervous. I don’t know of any other potential candidate, in either party, carrying an equivalent amount of baggage into a presidential bid.
While I’m not a huge fan of Jeb Bush, the thought of “another Bush” in the White House pales in comparison to the thought of another Clinton. Let’s ignore for a moment that Hillary’s accomplishments as four years as Secretary of State were, shall we say, minimal; she and Bill are never very far away from scandal.
In fact, it’s worth a trip down memory lane.
The White House travel controversy, sometimes referred to as “Travelgate,” was the first major ethics controversy of the Clinton administration. It began in May 1993, when seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired and replaced with associates from Arkansas. The administration stated the firings were done because of financial improprieties, but never produced supporting evidence. Heavy media attention forced the White House to reinstate most of the employees in other jobs and remove the Clinton associates from the travel role.
“Whitewater” was the popular nickname for a series of investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton that lasted nearly seven years involving a fraudulent land scheme while Hillary was a partner of the Rose Law Firm of Vince Foster and Webster Hubbell. Hubble was later indicted, tried and convicted for tax fraud. Foster, a material witness for then independent counsel Ken Starr’s criminal investigation, mysteriously turned up dead in Fort March Park. His death was ruled a suicide.
Emerging from the same Ken Starr criminal investigation was the infamous Monica Lewinsky scandal, which would cause Bill Clinton to become only the second president in U.S. history to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Clinton was impeached on two counts: perjury and obstruction of justice.
In 1996, in what was labeled “Chinagate,” the Clinton-Gore campaign allegedly received illegal financial contributions from the Chinese government to help its dwindling poll numbers by siphoning funds into the Democratic National Committee. Investigations revealed the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., was used for coordinating the contributions in violation of the law forbidding non-U.S. citizens or permanent residents from giving monetary donations to politicians and political parties.
And most recently, “Emailgate,” in which Hillary may have violated the Federal Records Act and circumvented the Freedom of Information Act by choosing to delete 30,000 emails from a personal account on a private server.
Why take the time to delete 30,000 emails if she has nothing to hide?
But then, the Clintons are in the business of hiding things, hence the need for a private server.
At this point, I believe it’s very premature for anyone to believe Hillary is a shoo-in for the Democrat nomination.
But if she indeed gets the call from her Democrat peers, given the scandalous “Clintonesque” tradition, even the liberal media may not be able to spin Hillary Clinton into the Oval Office.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
Free State Patriot 
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