Americans of a certain age who follow politics and policy closely still have vivid memories of the 2000 election — bad memories, and not just because the man who lost the popular vote somehow ended up in office. For the campaign leading up to that end game was nightmarish too.
You see, one candidate, George W. Bush, was dishonest in a way that was unprecedented in U.S. politics. Most notably, he proposed big tax cuts for the rich while insisting, in raw denial of arithmetic, that they were targeted for the middle class. These campaign lies presaged what would happen during his administration — an administration that, let us not forget, took America to war on false pretenses.
Yet throughout the campaign most media coverage gave the impression that Bush was a bluff, straightforward guy, while portraying Al Gore — whose policy proposals added up, and whose critiques of the Bush plan were completely accurate — as slippery and dishonest. Gore's mendacity was supposedly demonstrated by trivial anecdotes, none significant, some of them simply false. No, he never claimed to have invented the internet. But the image stuck.
And right now I and many others have the sick, sinking feeling that it's happening again.
True, there aren't many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it's hard to escape the impression that he's being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he's being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn't round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he's moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention.
Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.
Step back for a moment, and think about what that foundation is about. When Bill Clinton left office, he was a popular, globally respected figure. What should he have done with that reputation? Raising large sums for a charity that saves the lives of poor children sounds like a pretty reasonable, virtuous course of action. And the Clinton Foundation is, by all accounts, a big force for good in the world. For example, Charity Watch, an independent watchdog, gives it an "A" rating — better than the American Red Cross.
Now, any operation that raises and spends billions of dollars creates the potential for conflicts of interest. You could imagine the Clintons using the foundation as a slush fund to reward their friends, or, alternatively, Hillary Clinton using her positions in public office to reward donors. So it was right and appropriate to investigate the foundation's operations to see if there were any improper quid pro quos. As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the foundation "raises questions."
But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, "no."
Consider the big Associated Press report suggesting that Hillary Clinton's meetings with foundation donors while secretary of state indicate "her possible ethics challenges if elected president." Given the tone of the report, you might have expected to read about meetings with, say, brutal foreign dictators or corporate fat cats facing indictment, followed by questionable actions on their behalf.
But the prime example The AP actually offered was of Hillary Clinton meeting with Muhammad Yunus, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who also happens to be a longtime personal friend. If that was the best the investigation could come up with, there was nothing there.
So I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo, and urge the public to read with a critical eye. If reports about a candidate talk about how something "raises questions," creates "shadows," or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.
And here's a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate's character are to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she is proposing. Trump's record of bilking students, stiffing contractors and more is a good indicator of how he'd act as president; Hillary Clinton's speaking style and body language aren't. George W. Bush's policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Trump's policy incoherence and Hillary Clinton's carefulness speaks volumes today.
In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can't afford another election tipped by innuendo.