Tulsi Gabbard may win lawsuit against Clinton over 'Russian asset' smear. But establishment Dems will still take Hillary's side

The gloves came off this week in the United States as Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced she would sue Hillary Clinton for suggesting she was a 'Russian asset.'

Clinton’s conspiracy theory that Gabbard was in the employ of the Russians went something like this: somewhere deep behind the walls of the Kremlin, the Russians, trembling at the prospect of having to play 4D chess against the likes of old Joe Biden, came to the conclusion that Donald Trump would never emerge victorious in 2020 without a third-party candidate to play spoiler. Thus, as the story goes, the Russians began “grooming” one of the Democratic candidates for the role.

"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they [the Kremlin] have got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said in an interview with the Campaign HQ podcast. "She's the favorite of the Russians... They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her."

Ironic how Hillary, who once used her home computer when sending classified government emails, is now an expert on a “bunch of sites and bots.” But I digress.

While never actually mentioning Gabbard by name (as she did with Jill Stein, by the way, whom she branded a “Russian asset”), the allusion was more than obvious. Out of the field of five female Democratic contenders, only the Hawaii lawmaker has been accused of kowtowing to Russia, based on her 2017 trip to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Apparently nobody ever warned Gabbard that America should never resort to diplomacy with 'bad guys', when launching a crack-of-dawn cruise missile strike is so much more expedient. After all, something horrible like peace might break out.

In any event, what made Clinton’s accusation so outlandish – aside from the total lack of evidence, of course, and the fact that it wasn’t being leveled against a Republican – is that Tulsi Gabbard’s resume could not be any more ‘all-American’ if it were written on Town Talk bread with peanut butter and jelly and washed down with a Diet Coke. 

Two years after becoming the youngest state legislator in the US at the age of 21, Gabbard briefly took the path least traveled and signed up for military service. In July 2004, she was deployed for a 12-month tour in the battlefields of Iraq, serving as a specialist with a medical unit. Her list of military awards and honors would put me way over my word limit. 

It is no small irony or footnote that Gabbard’s one fatal character 'flaw' is that she espouses an anti-interventionist foreign policy, which sounds about as attractive to the Democratic Party as sunlight does to vampires.

The question now is how Gabbard’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton will play out. The short answer is that it couldn’t get any worse. Although Gabbard probably stands little chance of emerging victorious in any court battle against the Empress Queen of the Swamplands, it will force the US political establishment, not least of all the media, to stop pretending that she doesn't exist.

After all, this is not the first time the soldier candidate has been compelled to take legal action against the establishment. In July 2019, she accused search giant Google of damaging her campaign when it briefly suspended her advertising following the first Democratic presidential debate. Meanwhile, when she is not being viciously attacked in the media, where her name appears regularly in the same lines as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘white supremacists,’ she is ignored altogether – often by her own party. 

Gabbard’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton – a powerful Democrat who is nevertheless losing support in the ranks – will finally force the spotlight upon her, and quite possibly in a favorable light. In fact, the influential Time magazine has already conjectured that Gabbard “could possibly win” her case against Clinton. 

Whether or not the Democratic presidential hopeful can win the case, however, is not the primary question. More important is that Gabbard’s lawsuit will send a powerful message to other Washington movers and shakers, letting them know that spreading slanderous fake news – even when it involves perennial bogeyman Russia – can have real legal consequences.

Is it reasonable to expect that Tulsi Gabbard will catch a wave from her battle against one of the biggest names in the Democratic franchise, possibly going on to win the Democratic nomination for a showdown against Trump in November? That would be expecting far too much. After all, the establishment gatekeepers, including the media and even Silicon Valley, are simply too powerful to let an anti-war politician anywhere near the Oval Office. Indeed, the fact that Clinton used the worn-out ‘Russia’ card against the soldier turned Democratic presidential candidate shows they wanted to deflect attention away from her.

Before long, however, news of Gabbard’s court battle against Clinton will be filed away in the Media Museum of Forgotten Stories as it continues to promote the ‘safe’ candidates to an unsuspecting public. The Democratic Party would rather challenge Trump with one of their tired war horses in the mold of a Clinton or Biden than with a candidate who understands the horror of war firsthand.

The door on the White House should bear a sign that says: ‘Anti-war candidates need not apply’. That would at least be more truthful than listening to anti-Russia conspiracy theories for another four years - or more.

@Robert_Bridge

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.