Opinion | Politics

Charles Trimble: Tough women like Hillary Clinton deserve a chance

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Charles "Chuck" Trimble. Courtesy photo

Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve Vilification
She Deserves a Chance
By Charles "Chuck" Trimble
CharlesTrimble.Com

Even if she wins the office of President, Hillary Clinton will find that she still is bumping up against a barrier; not a glass ceiling but a barrier of greater expectations and demands than any man would have to face – on her intellect, abilities, judgement and ethics, and even her morality. She is facing that now, and has endured it for the past 24 years she has been in the national spotlight.

Take for example, the Trump epithet “Lyin’ Hillary” is reviewed in a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof, who challenges the “persistent narrative that Hillary Clinton is a slippery, compulsive liar while Donald Trump is a gutsy truth teller.”

Kristof’s piece cites the independent PolitiFact service, which found 27 percent of Hillary’s claims mostly false or worse as compared to 70 percent of Trump’s. Yet only 34 percent of registered voters say Clinton is honest and trust worthy, but 36 percent say that Trump is.

The Republicans in the US Congress has wasted months and millions of dollars investigating her actions as Secretary of State in an effort to smear her. Yet that same Congress and the security sector of this country are overlooking treasonous speech and possibly-criminal actions on the part of Donald Trump – especially relative to his business dealings with Russia; words and actions that the GOP would use to try to indict Hillary Clinton, even as they tacitly approve the antics of their GOP leader, Donald Trump, and even his dog-whistle call for her assassination.

Hillary Clinton is still being investigated for an admittedly-careless decision to use a personal email system instead of the more-secure US government system, and the most desperate attempts are being made by the Republican party to exaggerate findings of such things as incidental use of the system by aides to conduct personal business relating to the Clinton Foundation, and other relatively insignificant communications matters. And although the beneficiary of those actions would be a valid global development foundation, it is being charged by her enemies as corruption to enrich herself and her family. There isn’t anything near proof of such allegations.

In a column earlier in the primaries I had expressed by dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton. But much of my mistrust and resentment of Hillary comes the actions of Bill. I disliked Bill Clinton from the git-go; I saw him as a second-rate saxophone player and an oversexed juvenile yahoo. But that was when I was a registered Republican, and rumpled because he defeated George H.W. Bush, who I thought was a good President.

Even her endurance of Bill’s folly and philandering is criticized, calling her a cold and hard woman. Why not use the term “tough woman” to describe her, because that’s what she is? Sarah Silverman at the Democratic National Convention called her a “kick ass woman;” that’s what she is. That sounds an awful lot like descriptions of Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel, or Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

Or in my own career in Indian Affairs, how about the likes of Helen Peterson, Lucy Covington, or Ada Deer and countless other women leaders. In my own life there is my mother Lucy Trimble and all my sisters – tough women all, and honorable to the core.

But like all good tough women, they are people who terrify would-be tyrants and real scoundrels, and drive them to insane/inane lengths to vilify them, and work diligently to destroy them and their dreams and promises to the world and to humankind.

Although to my knowledge, she wisely hasn’t used the term, let’s tell it the way it is, and call it what it is: SEXISM. Let’s put that aside, and give this woman Hillary Clinton a chance, like we’ve given chances to male candidates who were far less experienced, far more unprepared, and HORRORS! possibly one now who is clearly unstable and patently dangerous to the security and national interests of America.

Charles Trimble, Oglala Lakota, was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association in 1969 and served as its Executive Director to 1972 when he was elected Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. His website is charlestrimble.com and he can be reached at cchuktrim@aol.com.