"If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit." William J. Clinton
May 25, 2016
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Camelot is over and Bill Clinton hasn't been in the White House since 2001. Even though Bill left with a bang, there comes a time in every man's life when he is no longer relevant.
The same thing happens to a woman.
Wake up one day, and the game has changed.
Some things simply age out sooner than others: The Edsel, Pet Rocks, and Hillary and Bill.
It's time the Clintons found something else to do with their time.
Bill was lucky the American people "forgave" him after he made a travesty of the office of the president. With Hillary firmly attached to his coat tails, at this stage in their lives, they both could retire into "Elder Statesmanship" like Ted Kennedy.
Kennedy, despite his philandering and lying ways, lived long enough to be crowned "The Lion of the Senate." He was lucky. The American people "forgave" him.
But, as we have seen, the Clintons just can't quit, even when they're under indictment.
They absolutely refuse to change and move on. As long as there is a dollar to be made, the best way they know how to make money, is to hold public office.
But now they are both old and unable to keep up. And it shows.
It is physically painful watching them out there on the campaign trail, again, doing do all the things politicians are taught to do: Pointing out into the audience, as if they see someone they know, then grinning, laughing and laughing.
They shout louder when softer doesn't work, and pander. Hillary pulls out the "I'm your abuela" card (grandma in Spanish) to Latino crowds and thinks they don't realize she's pandering to them. And Bill plays the grandpa card.
But this isn't something Hillary can cure by carrying hot sauce in her purse to garner black votes when she visits Harlem.
Or by telling environmentalists what they want to hear, then telling miners in West Virginia that she "misspoke," that she's really not going to close down the mines, or scuttle their jobs, just because that's exactly what she said she would do.
And "retrain" them out of being miners.
So when Bill says, "I'm not angry. I have a grandchild now," it goes over like a phony, lead balloon. A lot of Americans are angry, and they want to elect someone who feels their pain.
People are not as stupid as they were eight years ago. After years of Obama as president and Hillary as secretary of state, Americans can sniff out lies like beagles on a drug bust. And their noses are tired of sniffing.
After years of lying and bending our laws to their wills, Hill and Bill can't get away with it anymore, but they still are trying, using their War Room Dirty Tactics.
In 2008 Obama outfoxed Hillary. He snagged Super Delegates, squelching Hillary's chance of being the Democratic nominee, even though she had won the popular vote.
Nasty.
Did Hillary learn from her mistakes? Did she call for a reform of a biased system in the Democratic Party, one which ignored the will of the people?
Yes and no.
Yes, she learned she could use that same system this year to bury Bernie Sanders. And no, she didn't call for reform of a biased system, because she is part of the biased system.
It was the tactic Mitt Romney borrowed from Harry Reid in an attempt to derail Donald Trump. It was the Harry Reid "Mitt Romney hasn't filed a tax return in ten years; there's probably a bombshell in there," tactic.
Mitt never learns, either. In fact, it is rare for these types of people to ever use the, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" approach.
So stop hoping these "same ol', same ol's" will change, and start throwing them out of the game.
Hillary and Bill could act like elder statesmen of the Democratic Party. But they won't.
Hillary, as a public servant and attorney, could disclose errors of judgment she made in Benghazi, and apologize to the American people.
She misplaced an entire ambassador when she didn't answer the 3 o'clock phone call from Benghazi, so the American people and his family don't, to this day, know what happened to him that fatal night. And she never explained.
She misplaced the president the night of Benghazi and never told the American people where he was.
And she never will.
It doesn't look like the woman who wants to be president, who claims she has the right stuff, knows what the words, "Top Secret" and "Confidential" mean when she's supposed to be protecting the American people. That doesn't look good on her resume.
If she insists on her coronation this presidential cycle, she could have spoken out, candidly, against the destructiveness of Obama's policies as president, and what harm they have done to our country.
But politicians like her won't. Bill doesn't. George Bush won't. And neither will Hillary.
Leopards don't change their spots. And elder statesmen don't fade away. They just run for office one more time.
Happy Memorial Day.
Hold the line, America.