Clinton falls short as most-qualified candidate

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This election cycle has been one of hyperbolic language intended to make one candidate look like the least terrible and the other as the worst person to ever run for the land’s highest office.

Every American should be able to recite the records of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton with ease, since this election cycle has lasted a year and a half. We have also seen them repeat the same things every chance they get.

Throughout this time, we’ve heard a certain phrase uttered again and again, “Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to ever run for president.” Now, while Clinton has done a lot — she’s been in the national spotlight circa 30 years at this point — it’s a little questionable to call her the most accomplished person running for president.

All you really have to do is look at President No. 1 (he led and won a revolutionary war against the most powerful nation in the world at the time, for goodness’ sake) and you’ll realize this claim is a little audacious. You’ll find it’s even harder to give Clinton this title after going through the list of the last 44 presidents.

For my disclaimer — so I can anger both sides — Trump is not that qualified either. It’s pretty easy to admit that Trump hasn’t done very much either; Paris Hilton is legitimately a better businessperson.

I’m not at all arguing that Trump is a more experienced choice; that’s laughable. Nothing I bring up in this column against Clinton is me saying that Trump is better in any way, but the narrative that’s being pushed is a little annoying.

While Clinton has held a lot of different offices throughout her public-service career, she hasn’t made much impact. Here are a few of her accomplishments.

Clinton and her campaign love to trumpet the fact that she “heroically” decided to stand up in front of the United Nations and declare that “women’s rights are human rights.” Clinton also talked about how the U.S. government tried to stop her from speaking since the topic was controversial.

This is a wholly good thing to say as it’s always good to stand up for those who can’t. Let’s call a frog a frog — this was just a speech. It didn’t change anything; It wasn’t the rallying cry she said it was.

Every president has given a speech. This is not some great accomplishment that qualifies Clinton more than any other president.

Clinton also claimed that she helped restore U.S.’standing in the world during her time as secretary of state. I find that incredibly laughable, seeing as we’re not doing so well at the moment (someone owes Mitt Romney an apology, but that’s another column for another day).

Libya is a failure and it’s due to Clinton. Russia likes us even less than they did during the George W. Bush era, and the country is possibly ramping up their military operations.

These are not the only examples. This does not demonstrate accomplishment.

Finally, Clinton loves to talk about her accomplishments concerning health care — most importantly Clintoncare. That’s not entirely true. She didn’t really do anything, but she decides to take credit.

Past presidents do not need to bow down to the sheer awesomeness of Clinton’s record. This line of love for Clinton is entirely wrong, and quite irksome given what former presidents had accomplished before their time in office — one helped win World War II.

Stop using this line, Clinton campaign and Clinton supporters. It’s just tiresome.

Senior staff columnist Jorden Smith is a political science junior and president of the College Republicans. He can be reached at [email protected].