I know people who know her. They all say she is funny and warm and caring in person - and all admit she comes off as a bitch with a stick up her ass as a public personality.
I’ll believe the people I know.
I don’t think she’s a bad person. No saint, either. As many have said, she’s your typical politician. She plays the game. Nothing wrong with that. You can argue how well she plays the game, but doesn’t make her a bad person.
Not that I agree with the person who made the statement, but this is some fine cherry picking.
I see a lot of myself in Hillary Clinton: intelligent, ambitious, well-educated, professional, and conscientious. She’s been libeled for years for being so. Because every single one of the complaints against her has been without merit, at this point I assume any criticism of her is motivated (perhaps indirectly or unconsciously) by partisanship or bigotry. The lies said about her of have greatly increased my cynicism and opened mine eyes to systemic biases against others.
I disagree with this part of your post. While agenda matters, a leader needs to be an ethical and moral person as well. There’s no shortage of potential leaders; those people who can’t uphold standards of decency need to get out of the way of others with same agenda who can.
For those asking for a definition of “good person”: I think everybody who’s not a sociopath has an internal moral compass. Not to speak for the original poster, but use that.
No, I don’t like Trump. I really, really don’t like him. Especially now. I only voted for him on a lark as an “FU vote” to Clinton because 1) I live in a rock solid blue state and knew it wouldn’t count anyway and 2) I thought Clinton was going to win. If 1) was not the case, I probably wouldn’t have stayed home, as I did when McCain was running.
Hillary Clinton is an execrable human being though. I would never vote for her in a million years.
Why?
These are legitimate policy issues. I agree with much of it, particularly about Honduras. Hillary’s legacy as Secretary of State is not one that we can universally admire. John Kerry was much better and had an actual result to point to- the Iran nuclear deal. In Libya, the US was faced with the choice of allowing Khadafy’s troops free rein to massacre the rebels or to step in. Had the US allowed Khadafy to annihilate the opposition, Libya would not have descended into anarchy. But it would still be a thugocracy. There weren’t any good options available. Ditto in Syria. When options A and B both suck ass, what are you supposed to do? We’ve seen what monsters Khadafy and Assad were and are, in Assad’s case. I don’t think helping rebels to overthrow either makes one a bad person.
Hillary has been the target of a relentless smear campaign for over two decades. If I was such a target, I imagine I’d assume a more defensive posture and perhaps come off as cold. Certainly the logical response to endless attacks is not to display vulnerability and become more open. With people that she knows, she is reportedly very warm and caring and with a great sense of humor. She has a record of public service. So yes, I would call her a good person. Good people sometimes make mistakes. She’s human. The person she lost to is not. He is an existential threat to democracy and is a genuinely evil person. To say that Hillary is not good compared to him is completely nonsensical.
I’ll let Norm MacDonald count the ways.
That crude bit of right-wing “humor” is your reason to hate her?
Pathetic.
“But… but… Benghazi.” Of course, when you ask them what about Benghazi, none of them can actually tell you what she did wrong, only that apparently, she personally murdered people (They probably don’t even know how many people died there, but they rest assured that somehow she sat in an ivory tower cackling over their deaths.) The more knowledgeable might say her wrong-doing was not calling in ‘the military’ which has been proved to have been impossible. The real ‘wrong-doing’ she committed was thinking that a small consulate would ultimately lead to more safety and security in Libya than a huge overarmed one. That’s a fair criticism, but hardly an example of a moral failure.
“But her emails!” Cry those who have don’t have the slightest idea where or how their own emails are stored. Nor do these people know exactly how Hillary’s emails actually contained anything wrong or how they actually resulted in a security breach. Again, a poor decision? Perhaps. A moral failure? Come now.
This isn’t to say that she has no moral failures, but they have largely been exaggerated into being far more egregious than they actually were. So, is she a bad person? No. She’s flawed as we all are, but hardly the demon she is made out to be in some corners of the internet.
I think John McCain was a good person despite political disagreements with him. I bet most Dopers do also. So it is not that hard to put political disagreements aside.
Now, can Republicans do that? Do you think Obama is a good person?
I bet Hillary would be considered a saint if she was a Republican.
I think Hillary has flaws and I find her arrogant. But since the wording of the OP invites a comparison to Trump. Trump is not even in the same league in the brains department. Although she has shown occasional lapses of judgement, Trump has lapses of judgement daily. I don’t trust everything she says but I don’t trust anything that Trump says, who has shown to be a habitual liar.
So “good” is all relative. Mother Teresa, no, but high on the scale for politicians.
Nah, just reminiscing about when SNL had the balls to air things that weren’t lockstep left-wing viewpoints.
I simply enjoy Norm calling her a lying, corrupt, opportunist rape apologist whose values spin in whichever way the political winds blow, which she is. She’s just better at hiding it than Trump is. They’re both absolutely terrible. I am extremely disappointed that of 300+ million people, those two are what we got. Sickening.
Yeh, you go with that. “They both the same!!!” is a great excuse to not bother to do any actual research. :rolleyes:
I never said they’re both the same. In an ideal world, neither would be president right now. But if i HAD to choose, I’d choose the person I expected to win in the first place, Hillary Clinton.
They were both horrible people. I chose one over the other, but it was close enough that I can’t really fault someone who came to the opposite conclusion.
Hillary is 71 and already had two failed runs. Her time has passed. The Clinton brand has too many controversies .
It’s time to look at up and coming potential candidates.Kirsten Gillibrand and Tammy Duckworth are two that I’ve been watching. I’m not sure about 2020 but possibly in 2024.
- People are criticizing the OP’s lack of specificity about what defines a “good person,” but I don’t think that’s the problem with the OP. “Do you think …?” makes it clear that this is asking for opinions based on individual criteria, and implies the possibility of doubt or uncertainty, as well.
So, for example, I think that Hillary Clinton is, all-in-all, probably a pretty good person, as I define that – very fuzzily. So I felt comfortable voting “yes.” Why? To begin: she often (but not always) speaks and acts with empathy in instances I’ve heard about, and sometimes does so selflessly. Yadda yadda. You can disagree, based on different criteria or based on different weight given to specific actions she’s taken, and that’s fine with me.
- This part of the OP is bogus because it doesn’t acknowledge the possibility of difference of opinion: “This will show how good you are at judging someone while putting your political affiliation aside. Let’s see if you can.” I wouldn’t have voted if I’d read that before clicking. (My fault.) That’s where specific criteria might make this exercise defensible.
Anyway, I’ll offer up an anecdote that makes me feel like Clinton might be a sincere person – which is part, IMHO, of being a good person, usually. Fred Clark tells it here. You can read the details at the link – I’ll just quote Clark’s last paragraph, emphasis mine:
I don’t know if Clark’s friend’s story is true, but I think it’s pretty plausible. Which makes me think that I think Clinton’s probably a good-ish person, underneath it all.
I found her aggressively political, but as others have pointed out she’s been judged more harshly on that aspect because of being a woman. It wouldn’t even have registered if she was a man. She’s done things I’ve disagreed with, but nothing that would make her seem a bad person. Trump, on the other hand, tells bald-faced lies on a daily basis. He’s using the presidency to forward his nepotism and narcissism.
Wwll, excluding that very few career politicians are “good people”, but since we *are *talking politicians and not social works or first responders or saints- Yes, Hillary is a good person.
Both of these accusations are simplistic and one seems to be parroting Trump.
The sitrep in both nations is complicated to a extreme, and altho Hillary was Secretary of state, she wasn’t in charge. OBama and Congress also bear responsibility. It is also unsure that the sitrep would have been worse.
So- yes, the US government has some possible culpability in both nations, altho we can’t be sure whether we made it worse or better. Hillary as Secy of State does bear partial responsibility.