Hall of Shame Induction

Although the year is not quite over, here are the nominees for induction this year into the Weekly Bystander Hall of Shame.

First: Hillary Rodham Clinton. She earns the nomination not for her second failed attempt to become President of the United States. That can happen to anyone. She earns the nomination this year for her refusal to accept the outcome of the election, even after conceding on election night. 

With a word she could have put an end to all the recount nonsense and just accepted the verdict. She could have dissuaded Democrats from supporting Jill Stein’s recount attempts, or the even more nonsensical attempts to persuade members of the Electoral College to ignore the will of the voters in their states.

In 2000 Al Gore wisely acted for the good of the country when he accepted the decision of the Supreme Court in the Florida recount dispute. Forty years earlier in 1960 Vice-President Richard Nixon also acted in a very statesman-like manner when he refused to contest the election results in Illinois where the Daley Democrat machine in Chicago was believed to have stuffed the ballot boxes to win the State and the election for John f. Kennedy. However, Hillary Clinton has steadfastly refused to step forward and help to unite a deeply divided country.

Second: John Kasich, the current Governor of Ohio. Kasich earns the nomination not for his failed campaign to win the Republican nomination nor for his refusal to support the party’s nominee to the bitter end. He is nominated because on Election Day he wouldn’t even vote for himself. He chose to cast a write-in vote for Senator John McCain. After spending all that time and effort asking people to vote for him, he couldn’t even vote for himself. The people in Ohio voted for Donald Trump despite their Governor. Kasich began the campaign as a man of dignity, experience, and accomplishment but ended looking like a foolish has-been.

Third: Anderson Cooper of CNN, the so-called Cable News Network. Actually, Cooper gets the nomination on behalf of all those political commentators who got it wrong in 2016. They are nominated for the Hall of Shame not because they failed to predict the outcome. Anyone can make bad predictions. They get the nomination because of their refusal to open their eyes and actually report on what was happening in the country.  It is amazing to consider how shocked these pundits were when Trump in one of the debates declined to say that he would accept the result of the election.

Now that the election is over and Trump has won, where is the shock and amazement of these same commentators over the Democrat refusal to accept the outcome of the election?  Such hypocrisy. Who blames Jill Stein, a candidate who got 1% of the vote for demanding recounts? Who blames demonstrators in front of Trump Tower? Who blames those politicians still plotting to overturn the election results by manipulating the electors in the Electoral College? Do these people actually think the country will accept peacefully an overturn of the election result?

Fourth: Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Supreme Court Justice. RBG gets the nomination not so much for threatening to leave the country in the event of a Trump election, but for failing to follow through on that pledge now that the election is over. Actually, this is also a group nomination since RBG represents all those celebrities who have said that they would depart from the USA in protest against Trump.

And the winner is: Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is fitting that she gets to join her husband, William Jefferson Clinton, in the Hall of Shame. They deserve each other. I’m sure this year’s award will not tarnish Hillary Clinton’s reputation or damage her in any way. Like her husband, she will eventually rise from the ashes.  

The Clintons have always reminded me of Monsieur and Madame Thenardier, the sleazy, conniving innkeepers from the hit Broadway show, Les Miserables. The show was based on Victor Hugo’s famous novel of the same name. In both the book and the theatrical adaptation, the Thenardiers play leading roles. No matter how often they get exposed, knocked-down, or humiliated for their nefarious behavior, they always get back up again and rise to new heights.

Here is a link to a 5 minute clip from the concert performance of the play featuring the Thenardiers singing the hit song, "Master of the House." At the four minute mark we can see what Madame Thenardier thought of the scoundrel she married.The video can also be viewed below.

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