By: Jeff Katz – Sept. 2016
While Hillary Clinton continues on her lifelong quest to become President of the United States, the rest of us are left to ponder just how she’d do in that position. To get a good idea of her potential presidential prowess, I’m suggesting that we look at her past performance and at least get a baseline.
Everyone of a certain age can certainly remember the Bill Clinton administration. Economy was good. Needed reforms were made to welfare programs. For the most part, the United States was still the strongest power in the world. Some of that was Clinton’s doing and a lot of that was due to a GOP Congress holding Bill Clinton in check. But enough about Bill Clinton. What was Hillary Clinton’s involvement in that administration? Nothing really. She stood around a lot of the time and tried to act like she truly wanted to be among the great unwashed. Oh, there was that time that her felonious, philandering husband held her and their daughter up for ridicule and humiliation. Her response to that as a self-proclaimed strong modern woman was, yeah, well whatever. Way to put a crack in that glass ceiling.]
After a rather undistinguished turn as First Lady she parachuted in to New York and spent eight years as that state’s junior senator. What was she able to accomplish? She can proudly point to the three bills she sponsored that actually became law. First was S. 1241 in 2004. This was the bill to establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site in New York. Next up was S. 3613 which was a bill to name a post office in Averill Park, NY the “Major George Quamo Post Office Building.” That became law in 2006. And finally, her true crowning moment as a member of the United States Senate came when she introduced S. 3145. That momentous piece of legislation became law in 2008. What was it? A bill to designate a stretch of Route 20A in Orchard Park, New York as the “Timothy J. Russert Highway” . I’d like to go on, but seriously that is it. Three naming bills in eight years. Amazing to say the most.
I think that her stint as Secretary of State can best be addressed by looking at her own answer when she was asked what her major accomplishments were while serving in that post. On March 11, 2014 she said, “My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I’m glad you asked! My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know, the remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused on a manner whereby they may have been overlooked, the bigger picture, and we didn’t do that and I’m proud of that. Very proud. I would say that’s a major accomplishment.”
And there ya go! How can anyone possibly ignore such an incredible record of achievements and accomplishments? Ready to proclaim that you’re with her? Send her an email and let her know.
Jeff Katz is a former police officer. He has won multiple Associated Press awards as Best Talk Show Host. He can be heard on iHeartRadio’s Jeff Katz channel.