Hillary Clinton's Accomplishments - Missteps, Failures, Errors, And Scandals

Carly Fiorina made an interesting comment during one of the Republican primary debates earlier this year. “If you want to stump a Democrat, ask them to name an accomplishment of Hillary Clinton.” That got me thinking...after some forty years as First Lady, a U.S. Senator, and as Secretary of State, what exactly has Hillary Clinton accomplished? Or, let me rephrase the question, what has Hillary Clinton accomplished on her own that has made this world a better place?

I'm not talking about personal accomplishments like being Chelsea's mom or being a grandmother, two things that Clinton often touts as her biggest accomplishments in life. No doubt both are notable things, but millions of grandmothers in the U.S. share those accomplishments and none of them are asking you to elect them President.

I'm also not talking about holding public office. While this looks great on a resume and is undeniably a feather in one's cap, holding public office is meaningless unless you actually do something while in office. There have been millions of public office holders in our country's history who served without distinction and without accomplishing anything memorable.

I guess the first thing we should do is go directly to the source. Let's find out how Hillary herself has answered my question when asked.

Hillary has had great difficulty wrestling with this question. For example, Diane Sawyer asked Hillary to identify her “marquee achievement” as Secretary of State. Unable to think of anything, Hillary did what Hillary does best - she changed the subject.

New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman asked Hillary the same question and this time Hillary finally came up with an answer. I kid you not, this is what she said:

“I see my role as secretary—in fact leadership in general in a democracy—as a relay race. You run the best race you can run, you hand off the baton. Some of what hasn’t been finished may go on to be finished. I’m very proud of the [economic] stabilization and the really solid leadership that the administration provided that I think now leads us to be able to deal with problems like Ukraine because we’re not so worried about a massive collapse in Europe.”

Huh? As if Hillary had a clue about how to deal with Russia.

Clinton and the infamous "Reset" button

Clinton's inept dealings with Russia led directly to Russia's overt military intervention in the Ukranian territory of Crimea and the not-so-covert military engagements in Eastern Ukraine. Russia then continued provocative military actions that had NATO members wondering what Putin might do next.

And let's not forget the thumb Russia stuck in our eye when a Russian Su-24 aircraft streaked by one of our Navy destroyers at an altitude of 600 feet in the Black Sea.

Yep, our gal Hillary naively believed that she could "reset" relations with Russia  and deal with Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel who had longstanding ambitions to restore Russia to its former stature. All she accomplished was becoming the laughingstock in the diplomatic community when she presented Russia's Foreign Minister with a “reset” button that was supposed to read "Reset" in Russian but actually read “Overcharged” (Peregruzka).

Then there's the European collapse that Hillary thought she could blow off. At last count, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus were in financial crisis mode and had to be bailed out by European Central Bank or the International Monetary Fund. By the time Clinton left office as Secretary of State, Europe was in its deepest recession since the 1930s and the EU's economy was projected to shrink by 4% in 2009, the sharpest decline in EU history. 

Oops, almost forgot. Ukraine teetered on the edge of solvency. The IMF had to provide the country $29 Billion to keep their economy afloat.

But let's not dwell on Hillary's inability to identify any accomplishments as Secretary of State. Let's take a stroll through time and assess what Hillary Clinton has accomplished over the last forty or so years as a public figure.

As First Lady

Soon after becoming First Lady, Hillary assumed the responsibility of health care reform. After all the shooting was over, she couldn't even get a Democratically controlled Congress to vote on her program. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for her as a consensus builder or an influential voice on anything.

Hillary was then delegated the responsibility of vetting candidates and identifying a suitable female attorney general. She first tabbed Zoe Baird, then Kimba Wood. Both were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. Her next pick was Janet Reno. Remember her? She's the Attorney General who made the decision to end the standoff with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians by gassing the compound. That resulted in Koresh torching it with dozens of of women and children burned alive.

According to Bill Clinton, appointing Janet Reno as his Attorney General was his "worst mistake.”

Hillary was also delegated the responsibility of filling other posts within her husband's administration, including the head of the Civil Rights Commission, the Director of White House Security, and key positions within the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury Department. She picked Lani Guanier, Craig Livingstone, Webster Hubbel, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy respectively.

• Guanier was forced to withdraw her name from consideration after her background was scrutinized; 
• Livingstone was implicated in Filegate and investigated for the improper access to hundreds of FBI files of Clinton enemies. 
• Hubbel was convicted of federal crimes stemming from the Whitewater scandal and served federal jail time; 
• Foster committed suicide; and 
• Kennedy was forced to resign in disgrace.

Orrin Hatch

Then came Bill Clinton's sexual harassment problems that eventually led to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. During the Grand Jury investigation,  Hillary avoided indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice by repeating, “I do not recall,” “I have no recollection,” and “I don’t know” fifty six times while under oath.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Hillary's claim that she "helped" provide millions of children
with health care. The story Hillary tells is that she worked to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program which reduced the rate of uninsured kids by 50% and thus allowing millions of uninsured kids to seek medical treatment. Unfortunately for Hillary, numerous legislative staff members and members of Congress have verified that Hillary Clinton had no role in authoring the CHIP bill.

Teddy Kennedy

The truth is that the real protagonists of CHIP were Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. Moreover, the Clinton White House fought the first CHIP effort tooth and nail. It seems the Clintons were afraid that CHIP would adversely impact the White House's budget bill so they did everything they could to kill CHIP. Bill Clinton even phoned lawmakers to kill the legislation when it came to the Senate floor. He succeeded.

Hillary Clinton publicly defended Bill's action, stating, "He [Bill Clinton] had to safeguard the overall budget proposal."

Kennedy and Hatch renewed their efforts after this defeat and eventually pushed the bill through Congress.

Senator Clinton
In 2016, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California was caught between a rock and a hard place when a reporter asked her to name one of Hillary Clinton’s accomplishments in the Senate.

Diane Feinstein

“As someone who worked with Hillary Clinton for nearly a decade in the Senate, what in your view was her signature accomplishment as a senator?" Feinstein was asked.

Feinstein noticeably hesitated and struggled to find any words with which to answer what was intended as a softball question. She continued to pause for a few seconds and finally said, "Golly, I forget what bills she’s been part of or authored. I didn’t really come prepared to discuss this. But she’s been a good senator. There are things outside of bills that you can do, and I know that she’s done them for her state.”

Realizing how embarrassing that response was, Feinstein committed the ultimate act of desperation - she instructed a staffer to "Google" Clinton's record. 

Allow me to come to Senator Feinstein's assistance. Here are Hillary's accomplishments during her eight year tenure in the U.S. Senate.

As Senator, a grand total of three, count 'em, three bills that Hillary Clinton sponsored or co-sponsored ever passed into law:

• Senate Bill 3145 – A bill to designate a portion of United States Route 20A, located in Orchard Park, New York, as the “Timothy J. Russert Highway”;
• Senate Bill 3613 – A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2951 New York Highway 43 in Averill Park, New York, as the “Major George Quamo Post Office Building”; and
• Senate Bill 1241 – Kate Mullany National Historic Site Act.

That's it. Three legislative accomplishments in eight years. And not just any legislative accomplishments. Monumental, earth shattering pieces of legislation that have changed life as we know it. She fought tooth and nail to pass a law that renamed a highway after a journalist, she renamed a Post Office building, and she designated a brick house as a national historic site to honor a 19th-century female union leader. 

Hillary has taken credit for securing federal relief funds for New York City first responders and others  after 9/11, but seriously, who wasn't on board with something like that? In light of the disaster's magnitude, those same funds would have been appropriated by Congress without Hillary's "help".

Clinton's Senate record was so abysmal that the ultra liberal website DailyKos described it by saying that Hillary was nothing but an “empty pantsuit”.

Madame Secretary

I touched on a couple of Hillary's failures while serving as Secretary of State in the beginning of this post but wasn't anywhere finished addressing the matter. Let's continue with the discussion, shall we?

In 2014, Politico asked Hillary to list her biggest accomplishments as Secretary of State. “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 in a manner whereby they may have 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.”

Rand Paul's note to Hillary after she sent
him a copy her book "Hard Choices"

Again....Huh?

The State Department has found it as vexing as many others when it comes to listing anything meaningful Hillary Clinton accomplished as our Secretary of State. Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was unable to name a single tangible accomplishment after the Department finished its audit of Clinton's tenure: “I am certain that those who were here at the time, who worked hard on that effort, could point out one,” Psaki said.

Lanny Davis, a former aide to Bill Clinton, gave us this pearl of insight into Hillary's accomplishments as Secretary of State. "Well, the biggest thing of all is goodwill around the world, which is what secretaries of State do."

Lanny didn't quite have his finger on the world's pulse when he made this comment.  Between 2009 and 2013 the Pew Research Center’s polling on global attitudes revealed that approval of the U.S. went down by the time Clinton left office. In France, Germany and the U.K., it dropped by 11 percentage points.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of what Hillary actually managed to accomplish as Secretary of State.

• Clinton was a vocal supporter of our 2011 intervention in Libya that led to ISIS taking over in the ensuing chaos. ISIS now uses Libya as its primary training and breeding ground for terrorism.
• Clinton failed in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. 
• Years of talks with the Taliban never bore fruit with no peace agreement in Afghanistan. 
• She tried to build a moderate Syrian opposition - a disaster. 
• Reset with Russia? Hah. 
• Benghazi? Clearly a huge debacle.  
• She backed the Muslim Brotherhood's takeover of the government in Egypt but that thankfully fell apart. 
• We pulled all our troops out of Iraq giving ISIS a second location to set up shop. 
• Our relationship with our closest Middle East ally Israel deteriorated. 

And, to top it all off, the State Department lost track of $6 billion while she was Secretary of State. Yep. according to a report by the Inspector General, the State Department lost $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State.

The Empty Pantsuit

So there you have it. Forty years in public office and no one can point to anything Hillary Clinton has accomplished that is worthwhile and was truly her work. On the flip side, what she has managed to accomplished from a failed, disastrous standpoint is significant. Yes, she's a mom and a grandmother. Yes. she's been elected Senator and appointed Secretary of State. Yes, she stood by her man as the dutiful wife and First Lady while Bill was sexually harassing and having trysts with scores of women.

But using this experience as a springboard for the Presidency is a bad joke. The DailyKos got something right for once. Hillary Clinton is just an empty pantsuit.