Clinton Needs to Learn from Her Mistakes
WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton's top priority, if she is elected president, shouldn't be enacting an infrastructure plan or pushing immigration reform. It should be -- must be, if she is to succeed on any substantive front -- to combat her own worst instincts.
To be clear, I desperately want to see Clinton elected, not only because the alternative is Donald Trump and not only because it is time for a woman in the White House. Clinton has the experience, intelligence, skill and discipline to be an excellent president.
But she has also repeatedly displayed tendencies, overlapping and toxically reinforcing, that could undermine all those positive attributes:
To believe -- correctly, in my view -- that she is the victim of an implacable political opposition, and to respond by hunkering down and lashing out.
To believe -- again, correctly -- that she is being held to different, higher standards than others, and, rather than accepting this unpleasant reality and adjusting her behavior accordingly, to rail against it on the theory that nothing she does will ever satisfy the critics.
To believe that her own good works are so extensive, and her goodwill so evident, that questions about her behavior can stem only from the malicious intent of political enemies, or the ravenous appetites of a hostile media.
To respond to demands for information by elevating lawyerly caution over political judgment. To apologize if and only if circumstances require -- and then not until the passage of time and the imperative of contrition have drained the moment of any sincerity. To bet that any potential problem will blow over, not fester, even if unhappy experience dictates the exact opposite.
Finally, to surround herself with a closed circle of advisers inclined more to enable than to prevent, and to reinforce Clinton's us-against-the-world mentality rather than to challenge it.
These instincts were on display from the moment of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign through the Clintons' two terms in the White House. They reappeared during Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and again -- with a vengeance -- this time around.
If there is an episode that encapsulates most if not all of these instincts, it is, of course, her handling of those damn emails.
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Copyright 2016 Washington Post Writers Group
