There’s a key point missing from all the discussion over Hillary’s illegal email arrangement. No, it’s not Hillary. She’s readily available if you are a rich celebrity willing to handover a five or six figure donation and not an impoverished person of color living in say, Detroit. Check it out: how many times has an article or a pundit mentioned “State Department policies” pertaining to her email scandal?
What was Hillary’s job?
She was Secretary of State, right?
As Secretary of State, she was in charge of the ENTIRE FRIGGIN’ State Department, right?
Since those “policies” were “State Department” ones – as in the same State Department Hillary Rodham Clinton was in charge of in its entirety – what does that tell us?
Hillary Clinton’s leadership philosophy on the one hand seems to be “don’t do as I do, do as I tell you”. She’s the type of leader that issues mass emails reminding employees to strictly adhere to the dress code while she arrives late every single day wearing yoga pants. Because in her view, she’s allowed to get away with what others can’t because she believes that through her, social salvation is right around the bend. She’s better than everyone else, her inside voice informs her.
If “don’t do as I do, do as I tell you” was all that was going on in Hillary’s character, she’d be flawed but perhaps reparable. There’s a bigger problem though: how many times has Hillary herself, her inner circle, or her media apologists blamed the scandal on her “staffers”?
When they say “staffers” they don’t mean Cheryl Mills or Huma Abedin. Those staffers, Hillary’s inner voice tells her, are also better than everyone else. When they say staffers they mean nameless, faceless, probably millennial technocrats fresh out of college and newly hired at the State Department. Hillary has no problem hiding behind them, allowing them to absorb the blame, and potentially wrecking their professional lives when stuff hits the fan.
She’s the kind of leader that, when confronted with an angry client, promptly calls some lowly employee over to take the brunt of it – even if that lowly employee had nothing to do with the problem at hand. In Hillaryland, never ever can anything be Hillary’s fault. Hillary can be hapless. She can be helpless. She can be misinformed or out of the loop. She can even hide behind a head injury she sustained in December 2012. But Hillary can never be wrong.
If she led by “don’t do as I do, do as I tell you” because I’m blameless and pure Hillary while at the State Department, what’s her leadership philosophy going to mean in your day to day life?
photo credit: post-DNC rally via photopin (license); neverbutterfly
