Credibility

A significant factor in Donald Trump’s electoral victory was his straight talking, blunt style and his successful portrayal of Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary.”   The revelations that classified emails turned up on her personal server despite her denials, her purposeful permanent destruction of 30,000 other emails, her denial that she was influence peddling through the Clinton Foundation (foreign donations immediately dried up following the election), her obvious  untruths about Beghazi all added up to a leader that could not be straight with the American people.

Likewise, Barack Obama himself or through surrogates mislead, prevaricated or asserted things that turned out not to be true on several important issues.  ISIS is the J.V.  ISIS is contained.  Bowie Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction.” The pallets of cash were not a ransom payment.   Iran will be subject to “snap back” sanctions and “anytime, anywhere” inspections.   Of course, Obama most famously declared that, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” and that the average family would save $2,500 when he peddled the [Un]Affordable Care Act.

George W. Bush waged a preventive war in Iraq that cost 4,000 lives and wounded 30,000 others and was a source of turmoil across the Middle East.  The basis of that action was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was actively expanding its capacity, possibly going nuclear.  Now, this judgment was not countered by the intelligence agencies of other countries, but it was still tragically wrong.  And it had far reaching consequences.  I cringed when George Bush, in an awkward effort to make light of it, pulled the skirt up at a table at a state dinner and said, “I know they’re in here somewhere.”   Not funny, George.

Bill Clinton famously declared, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Americans are a tough, resilient people that have great capacity to sacrifice greatly for a just cause.  But we have now had a series of presidents or candidates that declared things to be true that either were not true at the time those things were said or later turned out not to be.

Now Donald Trump, in a Twitterburst accused Barack Obama of wiretapping him without offering any hard evidence to support his claim.  I understand that Democrats have  accused him of colluding with the Russians without offering any hard evidence.  They were able to destroy Michael Flynn without any and have tried the same with Jeff Sessions.   

Trump, ever the counterpuncher, fired back with these accusations and Obama and those on the left reacted with their standard indignancy, calling on him to provide hard evidence to prove it.  The accusations, if true, would be the biggest scandal since Watergate.   Obama immediately issued a statement denying he had ordered a wiretap on Trump (but tellingly did not deny that a wiretap had occurred).  

Trump will have enormous obstacles to overcome, even if true.  Obama has learned how to deploy layered defenses from the Clinton camp.   First will come the denials, “Not a smidgen of corruption,” “just a guy in the neighborhood,” “I heard about it like everyone else—from the newspapers.”  When that doesn’t go away, blame the underlings, “it was a rogue office in Kansas City.”   Then, stall, stall, stall and resist the release of documents and emails until the public loses interest.   These defenses worked well with Fast and Furious and the IRS targeting of conservative groups (we are just NOW receiving admissions from the IRS that they have 7,000 relevant documents).

We can expect the same game plan this time.

But if Trump wants to lead, he HAS to be better.  After three straight presidents and a Secretary of State and presidential candidate that had severe credibility problems, Americans are hungry for leadership that will be straight with us.  We need someone that we can bank on and have a high degree of confidence that we are being told the truth.  Trump needs to back this up with at least some hard evidence, and soon.  The stakes are too high now.