Hillary Clinton, Sociopath
John Gorman, JNS, September 20, 2016
For a long time, I thought Hillary Clinton a normal person who had been corrupted by her proximity to her sociopathic husband and by having been given so much power. (Power does have a corrupting influence.)
She didn’t seem to have a full complement of sociopathic traits. She lacks the glib salesman’s charm that characterizes so many sociopaths. When Barack Obama characterized her in 2008 as being “likable enough,” that was in fact being generous. Her strident, grating personality does not cast a spell.
It also seemed less likely that Hillary was a sociopath simply because she was married to one. Sociopaths are rarely drawn to each other as spouses: they usually prefer someone they can dominate and manipulate, not an “equal.” But, that marriage appears more and more to be a rare case of two partners in crime.
And ever since Hillary ran for Senator in 2000, she has more or less escaped Bill’s shadow. This has put her own personal qualities in high relief. And it’s hard to escape the conclusion that she, too, is a sociopath.
Dishonesty is one of the main hallmarks of sociopathy.
Hillary has lied, in some way, about practically every aspect of her life that has come to public notice. The bribe she got via the cattle futures trading (which, in all fairness was for her husband, and merely funneled through her) was something she claimed she achieved through having studied the Wall Street Journal. (If she was so good at it, why would this famously money hungry woman suddenly quit trading?) She lied about Travelgate when she claimed that the longtime White House employees had committed embezzlement, which was not true. (Hillary wanted to install her friends in the job.)
Hillary has lied about Benghazi (claiming it was a spontaneous reaction to an internet video), her email setup (which she initially claimed was in accordance with all regulations), and countless other episodes. But these are the types of lies which non sociopaths might utter, if their backs were against the wall and their political survival were dependent on it.
What’s far more telling, personality-wise, is that Hillary lies even when she doesn’t have to. All of the small lies she’s told about her own life have had no impact on policy. But while they seem to matter little, they do speak volumes about Hillary.
Hillary has claimed that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest. But she was born in 1947, six years before that event, when Edmund was only an obscure beekeeper in New Zealand.
Hillary has claimed that all four of her grandparents were immigrants. Only one of them was.
Hillary has said that she tried to join the Marines in 1975, but was turned down. While this claim hasn’t been definitively debunked, it seems highly, highly unlikely.
Hillary has famously claimed that as Secretary of State, she once landed in Bosnia under sniper fire, and had to run for cover on the tarmac. No such thing occurred. Here is a CBS clip debunking Hillary’s account, with footage of her actual arrival.
(These last two lies are a little reminiscent of a male sociopath who claims to have been a Navy SEAL, or to have worked for the CIA, when he hasn’t. These types of lies are generally referred to as “stolen valor.”)
Hillary has also famously claimed to have been “dead broke” when she left the White House in 2001.
These are all “sport lies,” a specialty of sociopaths, who will use any occasion to falsely burnish their resume.
Hillary’s lying predates her political career. There are conflicting reports about whether she was technically fired from her job as a young 27-year-old lawyer on the Watergate Committee for her unethical behavior. But her boss at the time, lifelong Democrat Jerry Zeifman, has been quite public about his opinion of her dishonesty.
Another characteristic of sociopaths is that when they lie, they do so straightforwardly, with no hint of shame or embarrassment. Can you think of just one occasion when Hillary came across sheepish, rather than brassy?
Some sociopaths will even get angry when rightfully accused, just the way non sociopaths do when wrongfully accused. Think of that famous video of Hillary at the Benghazi hearings, angrily crying out, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
(That is not dissimilar in spirit to the time her husband, wagging his finger angrily at his accuser, thundered “I did not have sex with that woman!”)
Yet another sociopathic hallmark is to think one is fooling others when one is not. A sociopath would lie, then lie again, then deny the previous lies, expecting to be believed every step of the way. Just as Hillary has done with her email scandal.
One revealing sign of character is how one treats people you outrank, whether that’s people down the ladder in the organization you work for, or waiters, or delivery people, or taxi drivers. Or, the Arkansas State Troopers assigned to protect you.
Here are a couple of Hillary quotes from people who witnessed her behavior in private:
“F**k off! It’s enough that I have to see you shit-kickers every day, I’m not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut.” (From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 – Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with “Good morning.”)
“Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f***ing do as I say, Okay!!!?” (From the book “Unlimited Access”, by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 – Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)
The men assigned to protect Hillary once she was in the White House all considered it hardship duty, according to Ronald Kessler, author of First Family Detail. Excerpts from the NY Post article on that book: “Hillary was very rude to agents, and she didn’t appear to like law enforcement or the military,” former Secret Service agent Lloyd Bulman recalls. “She wouldn’t go over and meet military people or police officers, as most protectees do. She was just really rude to almost everybody. She’d act like she didn’t want you around, like you were beneath her.”
Within the White House, Hillary had a “standing rule that no one spoke to her when she was going from one location to another,” says former FBI agent Coy Copeland. “In fact, anyone who would see her coming would just step into the first available office.”
Sociopaths always punch down, not up. And spewing bile at people whose job it is to protect and help you is a particularly low form of punching down.
Vindictiveness and spitefulness are two other sociopathic traits.
White House usher Christopher B. Emery unwisely called back Barbara Bush after she phoned him for computer troubleshooting. Emery helped the former first lady twice. Consequently, Kessler reports, Hillary sacked him. The father of four stayed jobless for a year.
As Kessler wrote, “When in public, Hillary smiles and acts graciously. As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident.”
Hillary’s corruption is probably best illustrated by the way she made herself available as Secretary of State to donors to the Clinton Foundation, which basically serves as a slush fund for the Clinton lifestyle. The list of corrupt transactions are detailed here, and have been extensively cited elsewhere as well.We all like money. But once you’ve known a sociopath or two, you realize that sociopaths worship mammon in a way that normal people do not. They lust after money with an intensity that is hard to imagine. And they will do anything to acquire more of it. Anything. Even selling out their own country, in acts that areessentially treasonous.
Hillary’s cupidity extended to whom she would take money from. Hillary lambastes any political opponent who isn’t fully onboard with the LGBTQ agenda, or the feminist platform. Yet she accepts money via her foundation from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Morocco, Kuwait, Brunei, and Oman, all of which put severe restrictions on women and persecute gays.
The love of money fits with Hillary’s writing off of Bill’s used underwear for four dollars (and long johns for twelve dollars) each while First Lady of Arkansas. It fits with taking money for pro-business speeches from Goldman Sachs, the quintessential Wall Street firm, even though she claims to stand against big money. (Did Goldman really think her speeches were worth a quarter million dollars to hear, or might they have been paying for future access?)
Hypocrisy, another hallmark of sociopathy, is closely related to the inability to feel guilt, or shame. (It’s a lot easier to be hypocritical when you’re immune to embarrassment.)
In September of 2015, Hillary said, “To every survivor of sexual assault…You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed. We’re with you.”
Contrast that to Hillary’s behavior with Juanita Broaddrick, right after Bill Clinton had allegedly raped her. According to Broaddrick:
“She came directly to me as soon as she hit the door. I had been there only a few minutes, I only wanted to make an appearance and leave. She caught me and took my hand and said: “I am so happy to meet you. I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for Bill.” I started to turn away and she held onto my hand and reiterated her phrase–looking less friendly and repeated her statement–“Everything you do for Bill.” I said nothing. She wasn’t letting me get away until she made her point. She talked low, the smile faded on the second thank you. I just released her hand from mine and left the gathering.”
In 2003, in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Broaddrick repeated the story, adding: “I could have passed out at that moment. . . . Cold chills went up my spine. That’s the first time I became afraid of that woman.”
Or contrast Hillary’s statement to the way she treated Monica Lewinsky and Lewinsky had claimed an affair with Bill: Hillary called her a “narcissistic loony tune.”
As Political Insider put it:
During Clinton’s campaigns, Hillary Clinton ran her own “war room” against the so-called “Bimbo Eruptions”… The name given to the endless list of women who were harassed, assaulted, and even raped by Bill Clinton. Hillary’s job was to discredit, smear, and ruin the lives of these women who happened to speak out about her husband’s shameful treatment of women.
Discrediting, smearing, and ruining lives. No one is better at these things than a sociopath. And running a war room to quell “bimbo eruptions” hardly fits with a statement that all rape victims “have the right to be heard” and “the right to be believed.”
When a politician flip-flops, it’s usually viewed as evidence that he can’t be trusted, and that he’s the type who will say whatever it takes to be elected. (Telling people what they want to hear also happens to be a characteristic of sociopaths.)
Hillary always has one finger up to the wind. She was against gay marriage, and then she was for it. She fervently supported the Trans Pacific Partnership, and then she was against it. She was against illegal immigration, and now she supports Obama’s controversial executive orders on that. She voted for the War on Iraq, but now says it was a mistake. When she was first Secretary of State, she was all for a “reset” with Russia; now she accuses Trump of cozying up too much with Putin.
The list of Hillary’s flip-flops is too long for this post; but they are all indicative of someone who will say anything to gain power. And a sociopath’s lust for power is similar to their lust for money.
Sociopaths are also all about secretiveness and subterfuge. Hillarycertainly showed these traits when she was in charge of that ill-fated attempt to reform the nation’s health care system in 1993. And really, that is what her alternate email system was all about in the first place: keeping her Clinton Foundation transactions hidden from public view.
More recently, she’s been keeping her health status a secret.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Hillary has kept her love life a big secret, too. A number of Bill’s former lovers have said that he told them that Hillary had been with a number of women. (And why else would Hillary have appointed the 24-year-old Huma as a “personal advisor” back in 2000 if not to hide her real role?) There’s certainly no sin in being a lesbian; and maybe Hillary deserves a pass on this one since she’s running for President. But, as always, secrecy rules.
Sociopaths are grandiose: remember all that “two for the price of one” talk? Has there ever been another First Lady in history who saw herself as co-President?
Another sociopathic trait is an inability to love.
According to Sally Miller, one of Bill Clinton’s former lovers:
“She had several abortions before she had Chelsea and it was only because Bill convinced her that if they were ever going to move up in politics that they had to have a child because that is what the political analysts had said.”
Another hallmark of sociopathy is lack of self-control. Hillary’s explosive temper is a perfect example. Former Secret Service agent Gary Byrne wrote a book about what he saw in the White House during the 1990’s. The NY Post reviewed it:
Hillary Clinton has a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality that left White House staffers scared stiff of her explosive–and even physical–outbursts, an ex-Secret Service officer claims in a scathing new tell-all.
Gary Byrne, who was posted outside the Oval Office when Bill Clinton was president, portrays Hillary as too “erratic, uncontrollable and occasionally violent” to become leader of the free world….The book claims she repeatedly screamed obscenities at her husband, Secret Service personnel and White House staffers–all of whom lived in terror of her next tirade.
Secret Service agents had discussions about the possibility that they would have to protect Bill from his wife’s physical attacks, Byrne writes, and the couple had one “violent encounter” the morning of a key presidential address to the nation.
This behavior shows the complete lack of inhibition characteristic of a sociopath.
Another sociopathic trait is a complete unwillingness to accept blame. Hillary has always been willing to point to a “vast right wing conspiracy” or whatever other scapegoat she can think of to explain away her mistakes. Benghazi was the fault of an obscure internet video. More recently she blamed Colin Powell for her email troubles.
And when an interviewer brings up a sensitive question for her, she will often attempt to laugh it off. (This is a remarkably consistent behavior for her, as you’ll see if you look at the linked video.)
Try to imagine Hillary, head in hands, shaking her head, red-faced, ruefully thinking, I really screwed up, and I’m so ashamed.
It’s an image that’s impossible to evoke.
Often the “Early life” section of a Wikipedia bio will give clues as to how a sociopath became that way. Hillary’s doesn’t. It describes a fairly normal middle class upbringing in Chicago suburb Park Ridge, in an intact family.
The earliest clue to her emerging character came at Wellesley. Much has been made of the fact that Hillary became the first student in Wellesley history to give a commencement speech, in 1969. Hillary’s followed that of US Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who was the Commencement Speaker, and her speech was critical of the Senator.
Imagine that scene for a moment. A United States Senator gives a speech to your graduating class, and then, while he is sitting on the podium, you, a graduating senior, give a speech critical of him. That takes an incredible amount of nerve–or maybe gall–for a 21-year-old. Maybe Hillary’s criticisms were on target; maybe they weren’t. But what kind of 21-year-old feels comfortable doing something like that?
With Hillary, there’s no one big revelation that reveals her character. It’s just the constant drumbeat of lies, hypocrisy, greed, entitlement, anger, secretiveness, and shamelessness that make her what she is.
These are not separate, unrelated qualities. It’s the same shamelessness that informed her lying about her emails, her hypocrisy about rape victims deserving to be believed, and her venality with the Clinton Foundation. It’s the same dishonesty that informed her behavior on the Watergate committee, her secretiveness about her attempt to overhaul health care, and her excuses for her misbehavior. It’s the same contempt for other people that informed her treatment of the Secret Service, her expectation that the public would believe her lies, and her treatment of Senator Brooke. It all fits.
The public has gotten so used to her behavior that the only surprise would be if she ever changed.
But she never will. Once a sociopath, always a sociopath.
