Andrea Mitchell's interview with Hillary Clinton last week did an important thing for me: after watching it for fifteen minutes I knew I'll never vote for her.  I won't vote for the Republican nominee, either, so that'll put me in the position I was in back in 1996 and 2000 when I voted for Ralph Nader.  I was criticized by some, including family members, for "throwing my vote away."  Somehow, voting for a candidate, rather than settling on someone because they're less horrible than the other major party alternative, is a bad thing to do if the preferred candidate, Nader in those years, will draw votes away from the Democrat.
     Nader was blamed for supposedly sucking votes from Al Gore in 2000, giving us Bush and Cheney, the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, and other foul characteristics of recent history.  Blamed for the Bush administration's existence, I pointed out that the key culprits in making that shitstorm happen were Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Governor Jeb Bush, and five Conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Let's blame Al Gore, too, for not being a stronger candidate, and not pressing the counting of Florida votes after Harris ordered stoppage of that tally, in effect handing the election to George W. Bush.
      As was said a lot in the 1990s: "Whatever."
     Andrea Mitchell spent a good deal of her interview asking Clinton about the e-mail scandal.
     Clinton's pseudo-apology ran like this: "I'm sorry for the confusion this has caused."
     When someone isn't really sorry, but feels more contempt for those getting on her case than anything else, she'll say something with the low sincerity value of "I'm sorry you feel that way."  It's a lame, insulting way to apologize--it illuminates what this politician is like as a person.
     Mitchell brought up Donald Trump's castigation of Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin.  Clinton said that Trump has attacked "many people, including myself."  This, more than anything else in the interview, really showed her character.  Abedin has been Clinton's aide for a long time.  She's married to Anthony Weiner, whose embarrassing scandal Trump exploited recently, questioning Abedin's judgment in marrying the "perv" and "sleazebag," an indirect but obvious hit on Hillary Clinton, guilt by association-wise.  Instead of speaking like a decent human being, Hillary Clinton didn't defend Huma Abedin in her vague answer to Mitchell's Abedin-specific question about Trump's shitty slanderous tendencies.  She could've said, "Mr. Trump should be ashamed of himself for going after my aide in an unprovoked slander, but then, he's proven his modus operandi is to demean people, focusing with particular viciousness on women."
     Trump would loudly, and twitteringly, object to that, of course, but so what?  Bullies don't respect those who curl up on the ground and receive the kicks.  I don't want to see the political race turn into candidates verbally attacking each other on a personal level all the time, but this cycle, with an uncivilized rich creep leading the pack, calls for verbal viciousness directed his way.  Hillary Clinton's method, so far, is to be frosty and dignified--an indication she doesn't know which century she's in.

                                                                                 Vic Neptune