On July 29, The New York Times carried a news analysis by one of its senior political reporters (“Hillary Clinton Asks Not for Trust, But for Faith in Her Competence”) which reported on an extraordinary concession by Hillary Clinton: She is reconciled to the fact that an awful lot of Americans just don’t trust her.
“I get it, that some people just don’t know what to make of me,” she said.
Indeed, the reporter concluded, “The trust of the American electorate remains out of her reach. Its affections still elude her…. So after 40 years in public life, Hillary Clinton grasped for something less lofty and far more attainable [in her convention acceptance speech]: an unquestioned acknowledgement of her readiness for the job.”
The voters will ultimately have to decide how far she can reasonably rely on the competence issue. But the trust issue was sharply raised last week by a remarkable statement she made in the course of defending her earlier misrepresentation of the FBI investigation into her use of a private e-mail server for official business.
On that occasion, she said the FBI had concluded that her statements during the investigation were “truthful.” Of course, what FBI Director James B. Comey actually said was that she’d been “extremely careless” – and he refuted many of her statements.
Mrs. Clinton responded to the intense criticism generated by her claim that the FBI had found her “truthful” by acknowledging she “may have short circuited” while making it. There was nothing even close to an acknowledgement of an apology for plainly misstating the truth. She seems to be rather comfortable hiding behind linguistic vagueness.
We can understand why the subject of her misuse of the private server would be distasteful for her. But she can blame no one but herself for the lack of trust she inspires.