Monday, November 28th, 2016 @ 12:00PM

It is, perhaps, one of the greatest lines ever uttered in a Hollywood movie – “Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.” Spoken by Johnny Depp in the 1999 film, Sleepy Hollow, that one line describes the very essence of Hillary Clinton and her long, tortuous, and failed – thankfully – effort at becoming president of the United States.

What America, and the world, witnessed during Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was nothing less than the culmination of her 40-plus year assault on “truth, justice, and the American way” (to borrow a phrase). And it was all done in the name of virtue.

Yes, virtue. After all, Hillary Rodham Clinton has always claimed to be for the “little guy.” And what could be more virtuous than that? When it comes to Clinton, however, with regard to her being for the little guy, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, she has said so herself on numerous occasions, such as the time, while addressing the National Automobile Dealers Association in New Orleans in 2014, she explained that she hadn’t driven a car in the past 18 years, – not the smartest choice of venues to make such an admission.

No, Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t for the little guy. In fact, she probably doesn’t even know any, so long has she been isolated in her elitist, jet setting, $25,000-a-plate fundraising dinner world. Truth is, she can hardly tolerate little guys as she demonstrated so clearly during her White House years when she once openly berated a White House electrician, there to change a light bulb, by shouting at him that all work was to be done while the First Family was away.

As a paragon of virtue, however, Hillary should be allowed such excesses, right? In fact, the former secretary of state’s virtue knows no bounds according to her ever-present entourage of star-struck assistants, fawning reporters, and assorted sycophants, wanna-bes and hanger-ons. Consider her virtue as demonstrated in its many forms throughout the years. There was the dutiful wife, virtuously standing by her husband as he cheated on her again, and again, and again, when, in fact, she was actively targeting his accusers with threats and character assassination campaigns; there was the committed progressive, virtuously promoting gay rights while, at the same time, accepting millions of dollars in donations from the Saudi government – the same government that sanctions the execution of homosexuals; there was the exalted stateswoman, jetting around the world, virtuously defending America’s interests abroad while at the same time selling influence through her and Bill’s sham philanthropy, the Clinton Global Initiative.

And the list of her virtues goes on, and on, and on – Whitewatergate, Filegate; stolen furniture from the White Housegate; cattle futuresgate; I was shot at by a sniper on the tarmac in Bosniagate; I once attempted to enlist in the Marinesgate; I was dead broke when I left the White Housegate; all of my grandparents are immigrantsgate; I am of Jewish ancestrygate; I thought I was allowed to use an illegal, secret, unsecure, personal server to send and receive top secret government emailgate; the 33,000 emails I deleted were personalgate; and, last but not least, what does it matter that four Americans were killed in Benghazi because I was an incompetent U.S. secretary of stategate.

Ambition can be a virtue when the goal is to improve one’s life and/or the lives of others. However, when the goal is self-aggrandizement and the accumulation of power for personal gain, ambition can be one of humanity’s darkest and most dangerous vices. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Lord Acton. In Hillary’s case, she wasn’t corrupted by power. Her pursuit of power was the result of an original corruption, a darkness that began long before her assent to power. During that climb, she likely attempted to cover her dark motivations with many masks. In the end, Hillary chose the most dangerous mask of all, a mask of virtue.

Posted by Spencer Price
Categories: Latest Columns