Americans
of a certain age who follow politics and policy closely still have
vivid memories of the 2000 election — bad memories, and not just because
the man who lost the popular vote somehow ended up in office. For the
campaign leading up to that end game was nightmarish too.
You
see, one candidate, George W. Bush, was dishonest in a way that was
unprecedented in U.S. politics. Most notably, he proposed big tax cuts
for the rich while insisting, in raw denial of arithmetic, that they
were targeted for the middle class. These campaign lies presaged what
would happen during his administration — an administration that, let us
not forget, took America to war on false pretenses.
Yet
throughout the campaign most media coverage gave the impression that
Mr. Bush was a bluff, straightforward guy, while portraying Al Gore —
whose policy proposals added up, and whose critiques of the Bush plan
were completely accurate — as slippery and dishonest. Mr. Gore’s
mendacity was supposedly demonstrated by trivial anecdotes, none
significant, some of them simply false. No, he never claimed to have invented the internet. But the image stuck.
And right now I and many others have the sick, sinking feeling that it’s happening again.
True,
there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of
honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded
on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off
script, he’s being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn’t
round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he’s moving
into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what
appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention.
Meanwhile,
we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be
corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre
coverage of the Clinton Foundation.
Step
back for a moment, and think about what that foundation is about. When
Bill Clinton left office, he was a popular, globally respected figure.
What should he have done with that reputation? Raising large sums for a
charity that saves the lives of poor children sounds like a pretty
reasonable, virtuous course of action. And the Clinton Foundation is, by
all accounts, a big force for good in the world. For example, Charity
Watch, an independent watchdog, gives it an “A” rating — better than the American Red Cross.
Now,
any operation that raises and spends billions of dollars creates the
potential for conflicts of interest. You could imagine the Clintons
using the foundation as a slush fund to reward their friends, or,
alternatively, Mrs. Clinton using her positions in public office to
reward donors. So it was right and appropriate to investigate the
foundation’s operations to see if there were any improper quid pro quos.
As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the foundation “raises
questions.”
But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, “no.”
Consider the big Associated Press report
suggesting that Mrs. Clinton’s meetings with foundation donors while
secretary of state indicate “her possible ethics challenges if elected
president.” Given the tone of the report, you might have expected to
read about meetings with, say, brutal foreign dictators or corporate fat
cats facing indictment, followed by questionable actions on their
behalf.
But
the prime example The A.P. actually offered was of Mrs. Clinton meeting
with Muhammad Yunus, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who also happens
to be a longtime personal friend. If that was the best the investigation could come up with, there was nothing there.
So
I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or
simply engaging in innuendo, and urge the public to read with a critical
eye. If reports about a candidate talk about how something “raises
questions,” creates “shadows,” or anything similar, be aware that these
are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of
wrongdoing out of thin air.
And
here’s a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate’s character are to
look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she
is proposing. Mr. Trump’s record of bilking students, stiffing
contractors and more is a good indicator of how he’d act as president;
Mrs. Clinton’s speaking style and body language aren’t. George W. Bush’s
policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the
up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Mr.
Trump’s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton’s carefulness speaks volumes
today.
In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can’t afford another election tipped by innuendo.
“What in the hell do you have to lose?” indeed.
