OPINION:
The FBI’s recommendation of no criminal indictment of Hillary Clinton in “Servergate,” accompanied by its scathing indictment of Mrs. Clinton’s professional leadership skills in the matter, backlights a very underreported aspect of the presidential campaign: Mrs. Clinton is flat-out incompetent. Worse, her managerial malfeasance is just the main ingredient in a stew that includes Nixonian paranoia, avarice and a moral relativism that is jaw-dropping in its accommodation.
Mrs. Clinton and her entranced supporters fancy her to be, as opined in The New York Times, “no-nonsense” and “sensible.” The public record screams otherwise. “Travelgate,” her health-care initiative, her tepid senatorial career (her only consequential stand there was to support the Iraqi war — a vote she now says was a mistake), Benghazi, her presidential campaigns and the server fiasco all point to someone manifestly incapable of managing with good sense, good judgement and without that lingering miasma of corruption and dangerous insecurity. Mrs. Clinton cannot even manage her own household, with her hound-dog husband constantly reminding voters that the Clintons float above the gravitational pull of normal decency, fealty and accountability.
Like him or not, Donald Trump has a demonstrated record of real managerial competence. He just won a major party presidential nomination, spending relatively little money, ignoring conventional wisdom and overcoming a formidable establishment animus. He did this while still running his business operations. Going to Great Britain to look after one of his enterprises during the Brexit vote was brilliant and illustrative political theater.
Much of Mr. Trump’s campaign style is shtick and his supporters know it. They don’t care because they sense the can-do, butt-kicking, failure-firing, no-nonsense manager behind the shtick. With Mrs. Clinton, the posturing of skill, good judgement and charismatic leadership qualities is the shtick. Underneath that phony exterior is a person of no real personal accomplishment and horrible leadership skills and instincts. If you don’t believe it, just ask the director of the FBI.
JON KETZNER
Cumberland, Md.
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