RUTHFULLY YOURS

They’re not kidding when they say it’s difficult to hold the White House for three terms in a row. So much depends on the incumbent: Is he deemed a success or a failure? Is he loved or derided? The candidate seeking to replace a president of his own party is betting the country doesn’t want to change. Bush 41 bet correctly — in 1988. Al Gore and John McCain did not.

Hillary Clinton? Her problem was on display Thursday when she presented her anti-ISIS war plan to the Council on Foreign Relations. For ideological and political reasons, she is unable or unwilling to distinguish herself from Obama. If the war against ISIS were going well, her decision would be smart politics. But the war is not going well. The war is a disaster. A growing one, as the Paris attack made clear.

The president is quite the neoliberal — mugged by reality yet refusing to press charges. His approval rating on foreign policy is consistently underwater. Two-thirds of the country say it’s headed in the wrong direction. And yet Clinton’s ISIS strategy is essentially the same as Obama’s. Fierce airstrikes. An “intelligence surge.” Special forces. Pressure the Iraqi government to be nice to its Sunnis. Agree on a diplomatic resolution to the Syrian civil war. “Increased support from our Arab and European partners.” Accept Syrian refugees. Above all, no major deployment of U.S. troops. On ISIS, Clinton is Obama’s prisoner. A willing captive to his strategy. Where it goes, she’ll go.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.

Dear Reader (Including those of you stunned by the news that Charlie Sheen has a sexually transmitted disease. Not since Jim J. Bullock announced he was gay have I been more shocked),

If you Google “Christian terrorism,” you’re probably a jackass to begin with. But if you do — bidden not by your own drive to jackassery but by the natural curiosity inspired by this “news”letter — you’ll find lots of left-wing trollery about how the worst terrorist attacks on American soil have been committed by Christians. Much of it is tendentious, question-begging twaddle. But I really don’t want to waste a lot of time on whether Tim McVeigh was a Christian or not (he really wasn’t).

What I find interesting is that many of the same people who clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that Islamic terrorism has anything to do with — oh, what’s the word again? — oh right: Islam, seem to have no problem making the case that “Christian terrorism” is like a real thing. Remember how so many liberals loved — loved — Obama’s sophomoric and insidious tirade about not getting on our “high horses” about ISIS’s atrocities in the here and now because medieval Christians did bad things a thousand years ago? They never seem to think that argument through. Leaving out the ass-aching stupidity of the comparison, it actually concedes the very point Obama never wants to concede. By laying the barbaric sins of Christians a thousand years ago at the feet of Christians today, he implicitly tags Muslims with the barbarism committed in their name today.

Now, I see no need to wade too deeply into the theology here, but I think I am on very solid ground when I say that Islamic terrorism draws more easily and deeply from the Koran than Tim McVeigh drew from the Christian Bible. Of course, you’re free to disagree. In a free society, everybody has the right to be wrong in their opinions. (But don’t tell anyone at Yale that.)

As has been made abundantly clear by his incessant mewling and pathetically thin skin, Donald J. Trump is not in fact an unwaveringly resolute tough guy of the type you would hope to find standing next to you in the trenches, but an insecure attention seeker who cannot help but pander to his audiences’ prejudices. In the past few days, Trump has been asked variously whether, if elected, he would use his power to close mosques; whether he believes that Muslims should be registered in a special government database; and whether or not it would be a good idea to suspend the Fourth Amendment for anybody who prays to Allah. In all cases he has either demurred completely or eschewed the more traditional “yes” and “no” categories in favor of some choice hedging. “That may have to be done,” Trump says. “There’s no doubt.” “We’ll look at that.” “We’ll consider all the options.” “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely.”

So painful has this tendency become that I have begun to hope his interviewers will get a little surreal, just to see what he says:

“Will you replace your hair with spaghetti and your fingers with soup spoons?”“Sure. We’re going to look at everything.”

A Washington Post investigation reveals how Bill and Hillary Clinton have methodically cultivated donors over 40 years, from Little Rock to Washington and then across the globe. Their fundraising methods have created a new blueprint for politicians and their donors.

LITTLE ROCK — Over four decades of public life, Bill and Hillary Clinton have built an unrivaled global network of donors while pioneering fundraising techniques that have transformed modern politics and paved the way for them to potentially become the first husband and wife to win the White House.
The grand total raised for all of their political campaigns and their family’s charitable foundation reaches at least $3 billion, according to a Washington Post investigation.
Their fundraising haul, which began with $178,000 that Bill Clinton raised for his long-shot 1974 congressional bid, is on track to expand substantially with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 White House run, which has already drawn $110 million in support.
The Post identified donations from roughly 336,000 individuals, corporations, unions and foreign governments in support of their political or philanthropic endeavors — a list that includes top patrons such as Steven Spielberg and George Soros, as well as lesser-known backers who have given smaller amounts dozens of times. Not included in the count are an untold number of small donors whose names are not identified in campaign finance reports but together have given millions to the Clintons over the years.
The majority of the money — $2 billion — has gone to the Clinton Foundation, one of the world’s fastest-growing charities, which supports health, education and economic development initiatives around the globe. A handful of elite givers have contributed more than $25 million to the foundation, including Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra,who is among the wealthy foreign donors who have given tens of millions.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign thought it was okay to order a comedy club not to make fun of her, which is obviously a totally normal thing to do.

That is, if this if this were China.

In case you haven’t heard, Hollywood’s Laugh Factory posted a three-minute video of comedians telling jokes about Hillary Clinton on its website.

Yes . . . comedians making fun of a public figure. How outrageous! And by outrageous, I mean something that any presidential candidate should not just accept but expect because that’s the way it works.

But apparently, the way the world normally works just doesn’t apply when you’re Hillary Clinton — because her campaign called the club demanding that it take the video down and give them the personal contact information of every single comic who appeared in it.

I mean, what in the hell did the campaign plan to do with that? Call them and tell them they were mean? Threaten to end their careers? What possible reason could her campaign have for wanting that information, and what possible reason could they have for thinking they had any right to ask for it in the first place?

While in Los Angeles last week for fundraising, Hillary Clinton felt like updating her humor protocols by stopping off at the famed Laugh Factory. The roster of comedians that have performed at the renowned Los Angeles venue is no laughing matter: Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Dave Chappelle, Jay Leno, Damon Wayans, and George Carlin, to name a few.

But when a former secretary of state enters a comedy club and makes her presence known, she is apt to become as much of a target for the performers as the middle-class club-goers she is hoping to champion.

Result: Hillary isn’t laughing anymore.

As reported by Judicial Watch, Hillary’s campaign is working to have a short video of her visit removed from the Laugh Factory’s website, featuring highlights of the comics that night and the pot shots they took at Hillary. Judicial Watch’s report is based on a statement by club founder Jamie Masada, who claims the campaign has threatened him legally if he doesn’t remove the clips from his website.

“They threatened me,” Masada said. “I have received complains before but never a call like this, threatening to put me out of business if I don’t cut the video.”

Judicial Watch’s report goes on to state:

Masada told Judicial Watch that, as soon as the video got posted on the Laugh Factory website, he received a phone call from a “prominent” person inside Clinton’s campaign. “He said the video was disgusting and asked who put me up to this,” Masada said. The Clinton staffer, who Masada did not want to identify, also demanded to know the names and phone numbers of the comedians that appear in the video. Masada refused and hung up.

Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah), who rode a wave of Tea Party support into the House last year, said the Paris terror attacks were the deciding factor in her presidential endorsement.

Love told Fox News today that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who recently paid a visit to her home state, will get her support.

During that visit, she said, “for the first time in a long time, I felt someone who really loves this country and doesn’t take advantage of, take for granted the benefits that this country has and also willing to put himself and take on responsibilities of being a citizen in this country.”

“I saw him inspire people, but this [terror attack] just solidified things for me,” Love said. “He’s been talking about these threats from the very beginning. He talked about the threat with ISIS. He’s very strong when it comes to foreign policy and national defense, and this is a time when we need a president who is going to make sure we are strong.”