Democratic contender Hillary Clinton has accused her rival, Barack Obama, of playing fast and loose with facts on some of his past statements and political positions, especially about the Iraq war. Hillary’s husband Bill, the former US president, joins her chorus, at times describing Obama as a teller of “fairy tales”.

An odor of hypocrisy sprinkled with bovine droppings wafts from the Clintons. Maybe not everyone sniffs it, but it’s there and turning more pungent.

Think back to a decade ago. Then the most memorable aspect of Bill’s presidency was his repeated dishonesty as reflected by prolonged failure to tell the truth to Americans, to the media and to investigators about his activities with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

Flashback to January 26, 1998: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” Bill Clinton tells a nationally televised news conference at the White House. That statement, like many others he made, soon became badly discredited. For a long time, lying and misleading passed as daily routines for the Clinton team.

At the peak of the credibility problems, Hillary tried to blame her husband’s problems on “a vast right-wing conspiracy”. Her fanciful theory quickly crumbled onto its foundation of wishful thinking and deception.

Surely, the Clintons stand among the least credible players in US politics. Why don’t most voters realize as much? Millions need to clear their nostrils and breathe in a good whiff of the political atmosphere.

ARCHIVES