She’s Not Misunderstood — Some of Us Just Don’t Believe Her (“Qualified” or Not).

I appreciate the care with which this essay states its initial position. Much of what follows actually wanders quite a bit into essentially psychological concerns. But be that as it may, the fundamental problem here is: it’s quite possible not to agree with any of this essay’s assumptions. And I do believe this essay is rigorous enough that those assumptions must be held to agree with the conclusion. But the assumptions themselves are fatally flawed.

First, the writer assumes that Hillary is simply misunderstood: ‘rebutting the case against her.’

Second, the writer assumes that the only relevant criterion for being the Presidential nominee for the Democratic party is being “the most qualified.”

The first assumption avoids the very simple fact that some of us Democrats just don’t believe Hillary is fully honest about what her positions and political actions are and were. There is entirely too much explaining that she needs to do to make past statements go away or to ‘square’ them in a way that’s uncomfortable and incompatible with an honest narrative of who she is.

I’m not talking about the Bengazi and email claptrap, which seems to me entirely ginned-up and vaporous. I’m talking about health care, Wall Street, marriage equality, sentencing, and more.

Second, Barack Obama was not voted into office because he was “the most qualified.” So there’s no good reason to assume that the primaries or the general election will be about who’s most qualified. The author does not sustain that claim, and frankly, I don’t see how we can.

What is truly unpleasant about this kind of ‘defense’ of Hillary is the presumption that she is some kind of heir apparent, and that malice or ignorance prevent people from seeing how she needs to take her rightful place which has been fore-ordained — by whom, I cannot say. I understand the appeal of framing the heroine as a victim, but it also smacks weirdly of paranoia, and that is a pretty unpleasant odor to bring into the political process.

Finally, rhetorical attempts to delegitimize substantive debates by trying to reduce them to errors or by narrowing the putative criteria for successful election or leadership do not do any favor to the democratic process.

Instead of reducing real differences of opinion to ‘errors’ or secret attack campaigns, I think Hillary’s supporters would do far better to engage the substantive disagreements which motivate many of us to find Sanders’ ideas more appealing.