Sunday, June 12, 2016

Clinton Fantasies

I’m having this fantasy that I’m Hillary Clinton and that I’m answering questions. 

I’m having this fantasy because I’m expecting to vote for her and I’m hoping she’s really not the monster that some people are painting her to be.  I did support Bernie Sanders, but it appears that he’s not going to be the nominee and I do feel that she’s likely better than Trump. 

I never really liked to think of myself as a socialist.  I supported Sanders, because he had some other positions that I liked: for instance, being against overthrowing dictators, because we don’t really have anything to put in their place; saying that addiction is a disease and not a crime; and also the Medicare for all thing (which I guess is socialist).

Anyway, I’m thinking right now that I’ll vote for Clinton, so I’m hoping there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what she’s been doing with respect to the e-mails and the apparently unqualified member of a committee on nuclear policy.

So here are my fantasy responses, delivered not in her characteristically tight-lipped, defensive, bellicose way, but rather in a more relaxed, thoughtful, candid way.

E-mails
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Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea.  It seemed like a more secure, private system than, say, gmail or Yahoo!  In retrospect, I see that those big companies were probably better protected against hackers than my private system, but back then I did not realize that.

I did think we had permission.  Joe, the Secret Service guy who went over the thing, said he got everything checked out.  I guess maybe he didn’t clear it with the State Department.  I didn’t double check. 

Managers are supposed to be big picture people.  We have to delegate details to others, or  we wouldn’t get anything done.

Nuclear committee
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As we go through life, we meet many people in many different ways.  Yes, I met Mr. Fernando because he was a donor; but that’s not why I put him on this board. I put him on the board, because I got to know him, because I found him to be a person of exceptional thoughtfulness and good character.  I think that, if you met him, you would also like him.

I find very sad that this extraordinarily sensitive, generous man is being subjected to the horrible implications that the media is putting forward.

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This is kind of like my books, where I write fantasies as novels.