In the least surprising development of the 2016 presidential campaign, the New York Times on Sunday endorsed “Hillary Clinton for President.” The last Republican the Times endorsed was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. What wasn’t as expected was a follow-up anti-endorsement of Donald Trump, “the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history.”
The NYT bravely tried to make a positive case for Clinton, while dismissing her classified documents scandal as "a matter for the help desk."
Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience and courage.
In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate -- our choice, Hillary Clinton -- has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway. (We will explain in a subsequent editorial why we believe Mr. Trump to be the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history.)
But this endorsement would also be an empty exercise if it merely affirmed the choice of Clinton supporters. We’re aiming instead to persuade those of you who are hesitating to vote for Mrs. Clinton -- because you are reluctant to vote for a Democrat, or for another Clinton, or for a candidate who might appear, on the surface, not to offer change from an establishment that seems indifferent and a political system that seems broken.
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Over 40 years in public life, Hillary Clinton has studied these forces and weighed responses to these problems. Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience, toughness and courage over a career of almost continuous public service, often as the first or only woman in the arena.
The Times editors lamented how her “occasional misstep” (!) have caused people to have an unfavorable view of a former first lady with “astounding resilience.”
Similarly, Mrs. Clinton’s occasional missteps, combined with attacks on her trustworthiness, have distorted perceptions of her character. She is one of the most tenacious politicians of her generation, whose willingness to study and correct course is rare in an age of unyielding partisanship. As first lady, she rebounded from professional setbacks and personal trials with astounding resilience. Over eight years in the Senate and four as secretary of state, she built a reputation for grit and bipartisan collaboration. She displayed a command of policy and diplomatic nuance and an ability to listen to constituents and colleagues that are all too exceptional in Washington.
No mention of how this inspiring women helped smear Bill Clinton’s sexual harassment accusers to preserve his (and by extension her) political career.
The paper’s accounts of Clinton’s foreign policy achievements only make sense through a liberal lens.
As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was charged with repairing American credibility after eight years of the Bush administration’s unilateralism. She bears a share of the responsibility for the Obama administration’s foreign-policy failings, notably in Libya. But her achievements are substantial. She led efforts to strengthen sanctions against Iran, which eventually pushed it to the table for talks over its nuclear program, and in 2012, she helped negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
The editors implied that Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky caused the news media to take their eye off the ball on the terror threat. In other words, shame on us for pursuing Clinton’s Oval Office affair!
Mrs. Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, governed during what now looks like an optimistic and even gentle era. The end of the Cold War and the advance of technology and trade appeared to be awakening the world’s possibilities rather than its demons. Many in the news media, and in the country, and in that administration, were distracted by the scandal du jour -- Mr. Clinton’s impeachment -- during the very period in which a terrorist threat was growing. We are now living in a world darkened by the realization of that threat and its many consequences.
And the Times pleaded that Clinton’s handling of classified documents was a dead nothing of a controversy, “a matter for the help desk.”
Mrs. Clinton’s service spans both eras, and she has learned hard lessons from the three presidents she has studied up close. She has also made her own share of mistakes. She has evinced a lamentable penchant for secrecy and made a poor decision to rely on a private email server while at the State Department. That decision deserved scrutiny, and it’s had it. Now, considered alongside the real challenges that will occupy the next president, that email server, which has consumed so much of this campaign, looks like a matter for the help desk. And, viewed against those challenges, Mr. Trump shrinks to his true small-screen, reality-show proportions, as we’ll argue in detail on Monday.
The Times bookended its pro-Hillary gush with anti-Trump vitriol in a strange anti-endorsement on Monday: “Why He Should Not Be President.”
When Donald Trump began his improbable run for president 15 months ago, he offered his wealth and television celebrity as credentials, then slyly added a twist of fearmongering about Mexican “rapists” flooding across the Southern border.
From that moment of combustion, it became clear that Mr. Trump’s views were matters of dangerous impulse and cynical pandering rather than thoughtful politics. Yet he has attracted throngs of Americans who ascribe higher purpose to him than he has demonstrated in a freewheeling campaign marked by bursts of false and outrageous allegations, personal insults, xenophobic nationalism, unapologetic sexism and positions that shift according to his audience and his whims.
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Whatever his gyrations, Mr. Trump always does make clear where his heart lies -- with the anti-immigrant, nativist and racist signals that he scurrilously employed to build his base.
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Voters attracted by the force of the Trump personality should pause and take note of the precise qualities he exudes as an audaciously different politician: bluster, savage mockery of those who challenge him, degrading comments about women, mendacity, crude generalizations about nations and religions. Our presidents are role models for generations of our children. Is this the example we want for them?
Well, that should surely convince the many Trump supporters that take the opinion of the New York Times editorial page seriously.
