Hillary Clinton & Voters' Objections: Rumors or Reasonable Inferences?

The New York Times editorial board, less than a month ago, endorsed former First Lady Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic nominee for President. Now the Gray Lady says, #ReleaseTheTranscripts.

“Everybody does it,” is an excuse expected from a mischievous child, not a presidential candidate. But that is Hillary Clinton’s latest defense for making closed-door, richly paid speeches to big banks, which many middle-class Americans still blame for their economic pain, and then refusing to release the transcripts.

A televised town hall on Tuesday was at least the fourth candidate forum in which Mrs. Clinton was asked about those speeches. Again, she gave a terrible answer, saying that she would release transcripts “if everybody does it, and that includes the Republicans.” [...]

In a debate with Bernie Sanders on Feb. 4, Mrs. Clinton was asked if she would release transcripts, and she said she would “look into it.” Later in February, asked in a CNN town hall forum why she accepted $675,000 for speeches to Goldman Sachs, she got annoyed, shrugged, and [glibly] said, “That’s what they offered,” adding that “every secretary of state that I know has done that.”

At another town hall, on Feb. 18, a man in the audience pleaded, “Please, just release those transcripts so that we know exactly where you stand.” Mrs. Clinton had told him, “I am happy to release anything I have when everybody else does the same, because every other candidate in this race has given speeches to private groups.”

On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton further complained, “Why is there one standard for me, and not for everybody else?”

The only different standard here is the one Mrs. Clinton set for herself, by personally earning $11 million in 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 for 51 speeches to banks and other groups and industries. 

 Voters have every right to know what Mrs. Clinton told these groups. [...]

Besides, Mrs. Clinton is not running against a Republican in the Democratic primaries. She is running against Bernie Sanders, a decades-long critic of Wall Street excess who is hardly a hot ticket on the industry speaking circuit. [...]

Public interest in these speeches is legitimate, and it is the public — not the candidate — who decides how much disclosure is enough. By stonewalling on these transcripts Mrs. Clinton plays into the hands of those who say she’s not trustworthy and makes her own rules. Most important, she is damaging her credibility among Democrats who are begging her to show them that she’d run an accountable and transparent White House. 

Make no mistake, the Arizona Eagletarian's call for Clinton to disclose is not something I came up with after the NYTimes decided it was the right thing to do. I've said it all along.

CNN said, this evening, 

Clinton has so far not heeded calls by progressive and conservative groups who have demanded that the former secretary of state release transcripts from speeches she gave to banks in 2013 and 2014. And Clinton's aides have suggested that she is held to a different standard than other candidates, as evidenced by calls for her to release transcripts.

Is Hillary taking lessons on stonewalling from Trash Burner Bob Stump? Both are in precarious spots. Self-made predicaments. Both act like citizens (voters) are violating their privacy by demanding accountability. Both claim speculation is nothing but rumors.

Both are wrong. I'll spare you the rambling civics lesson just now. Voters demand answers because the power invested in the offices in question belongs to the voter, not to the office holder.

#ReleaseTheTranscripts damn it.

I also have dear, dear friends who have told me that the whole controversy is nothing but the GOP attacking Hillary. That view, however, is based on the game theory notion that Bernie is unelectable in the general election.  This game theory belief declares that the GOP would rather face Bernie in November.

The GOP might want that, but the data suggest Bernie is far more electable.

Since when does the supposition (IF, in fact, that's what they want) determine what Democrats should do? How has playing patsy to the GOP worked out for Arizona Democrats at the state capitol?

It's time to take a proactive course of action.

Everything about Hillary's campaign, for months, has been about reacting. Everything about Bernie and his campaign has been about setting vision.

This is not the time to Settle for Hillary©. This is not the time for "No, we can't."

As to silly claims that Bernie hasn't accomplished anything, have these people at all been paying attention? What makes it possible to accomplish anything in government? Rallying voters. Who has been doing it?

Today it is a case of the grasshopper pitted against the elephant. But tomorrow the elephant will have its guts ripped out. Le Loi, Vietnamese emperor, 15th Century.