Hillary Clinton passing buck on promoting campaign violence

OPINION:

With so many campaign reporters in the tank with her, eager for a little warm and cuddly, Hillary Clinton’s fear of talking to them is a puzzle. She can be sure of not getting very many tough questions, and her answers will be carefully presented to an unsuspecting reader/viewership. They all share the same assignment, to destroy the Donald.

But she got an unexpected follow-up on Donald Trump’s remarks at the Wednesday night debate about his rally in Chicago in March, about having to cancel it when violence broke out. The Donald cited a video posted by Project Veritas in which Democratic campaign workers discussed how to plant agitators to incite violence.

“So sad when she talks about violence at my rallies,” he said, “and she caused the violence.”

When reporters brought up the subject on her campaign plane back to New York after the debate, she still didn’t want to talk about it. “I know nothing about this,” she said. “I can’t deal with every one of his conspiracy theories.”

Then she shut off further questions, sweetly wishing everyone a good trip home. “But I do hope you all have something to eat and something to drink on the way back to New York.” With that, she retired to her private quarters aboard the plane.

But the question, as she well knew, was not about “conspiracy theories,” but the cold evidence of dirty tricks by her campaign, captured on a video. “She’s the one who caused the violence [at my rally],” the Donald said Wednesday night. “They hired people, they paid them $1,500, and they’re on tape saying, ’be violent, cause fights, do bad things.’”

One Democratic consultant featured in the undercover video, produced by Project Veritas, a conservative organization, was Robert Creamer, who quit his job with the Clinton campaign after the video was released on Monday. Scott Foval of Americans United for Change, also featured on the video, was fired when the news broke.

Hillary insists she didn’t know what her campaign was doing, and she may be right. She has an enormous campaign apparatus, with many people doing bad things. But she is nevertheless responsible, and the least she might do is apologize to the Donald and to the public, and use the incident as a learning experience.

She can pay people to take the blame now, but if she makes it to the Oval Office that option won’t be available to her. Harry S. Truman kept a small framed motto on his desk, “The buck stops here.” The responsibility for everything comes with the job, and anyone who seeks the job should beware.