ANALYSIS/OPINION:

If Hillary Clinton and hypocrisy are not exactly synonymous, they share the same web address. The WikiLeaks cache of emails containing excerpts of her paid speeches to private donors and organizations demonstrate that every time she opens her mouth, out comes cant. Some of it is simply the usual blah blah blah that blankets Washington like the fog on a rainy day. But she betrays a blatant disregard for “everyday Americans” and their often difficult lives. That should be a deal-breaker.

In a speech to the Jewish United Fund Of Metropolitan Chicago, for example, Hillary acknowledged the difficulties in dealing with the turmoil in the Middle East, made worse by the civil war in Syria: “There might be common ground to deal with the threat posed by extremism, and particularly with Syria, which has everyone quite worried — Jordan because it’s on their border and they have hundreds of thousands of refugees and they can’t possibly vet all those refugees. So they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.”

Nothing to quibble with here. As secretary of State, Hillary understood better than most the vulnerabilities that nations face when terrorists hide among refugees to infiltrate targeted countries. Her words of warning to a small, private group were prophetic. Hungarian security officials have said that seven of the nine Islamic fighters responsible for the November attacks in Paris entered Hungary with phony Syrian passports, posing as refugees. From there, they traveled on to France, where they proceeded to kill 130 persons and cripple and wound hundreds more.

On the stump, Hillary tells a far different version of the immigration crisis. She endorses President Obama’s goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States this year, with 65,000 to come next year. In the second presidential debate, she vowed, “I will not let anyone into our country that I think poses a risk to us,” and reminded everyone of the photograph of a little Syrian boy sitting dazed and alone after he was pulled from the rubble of his home. “There are children suffering in this catastrophic war,” she said, “and we need to do our part.” Hers is not the only heart that was broken by that photograph. But it’s not dazed and forlorn children that Americans rightly fear, but cold-stone killers, like those who have already infiltrated Europe.

If Hillary knows how to vet Syrian immigrants to weed out the jihadists, she should ring up FBI Director James Comey. He told Congress that his 35,000 special agents can’t do it with current resources. Besides her hollow assurances, there’s no indication that a President Hillary would be more inclined than President Obama to guard Americans from evildoers.

Donald Trump calls her refugee plan “the greatest Trojan horse of all time,” and proposes establishing “safe zones” in Syria, where displaced persons can find shelter until the war subsides. “I don’t want to have … hundreds of thousands of people coming in from Syria when we know nothing about them, ” he says.

It’s a shame that Hillary won’t speak to voters with the same sober assessment of jihad that she shares with her donors and friends. It’s why the Donald can’t stop calling her Crooked Hillary. “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue,” in the ancient folk wisdom, and it’s the graceful way of saying that even while deceiving, the wrongdoer understands his lie, and everyone beware. Hillary’s duplicitous Syria policy demonstrates that Hillary and hypocrisy are two sides of the same coin.

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