One of the most effective campaign ads of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was the “3:00 a.m. call”:
It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing.
Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call, whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military — someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.
It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?
The underlying question: Who is the most competent person to take that call? The ad ends with Hillary on the phone.
That commercial was much discussed and very effective. And it didn’t seem far-fetched: some of Hillary’s Senate colleagues had made positive comments about how, once she was became a senator, she did her homework and learned the issues. Plus, she served on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
But the disastrous way she handled her State Department emails, and the even more disastrous way she handled the questions and scandal that have emerged since, have undermined any notion of Hillary’s competence.
First, she claimed she was too incompetent to handle two mobile devices—even though it turned out she did anyway—and hence needed to do everything through a private email account.
Second, she was incompetent in hiring a well-established IT security company to install and manage her server. That has led to accusations of a “home brew server” that essentially had a sign on it in Russian and Chinese: “Come hack me—PLEASE!”
Third, she claimed incompetence with respect to classified information. That argument has created a riff between the State Department, Clinton’s mouthpieces, and U.S. inspectors general about when and to what extent classified information was going to and from Hillary.
Fourth, it appears she and her team were incompetent in turning over all of the required emails. Congress found that out when Clinton crony Sid Blumenthal surrendered documents that Hillary had not released—plus some that were apparently altered.
Fifth, Clinton may have been incompetent in destroying important evidence, er, emails. The FBI has hinted it might be able to get some of the deleted emails back.
Sixth, there’s her self-confessed incompetence in understanding all the details of these issues. When the media ask pointed questions about the emails, Hillary looks like a dear in the headlights, caught and confused, not knowing what to do next.
And these incompetencies only relate to her email. There is still the Benghazi fiasco that led to the deaths of four Americans, the now-discredited blame put on a video, and the general handling of President Obama’s disastrous foreign policy.
In short, Hillary Clinton looks completely incompetent at the job she held—and for the one she wants.
If that call comes at 3:00 a.m., do you want the person answering to be someone who can’t figure out how to manage two cell phones?