I utterly fail to understand the hatred of Hillary Clinton endemic among her fellow Democrats who support Sen. Bernie Sanders.

An April 2 letter to the Press Herald calls her “a liar” and “a rapacious … narcissist” who “has no moral compass” and is “evil.”

An April 18 Press Herald report about the political opinions of Portland High School students quoted a Clinton supporter as saying that Sanders backers ask him, “Why do you support her? She’s evil.” I know of no Sanders supporter who’s said that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz is “evil.”

A difficulty in answering charges against Clinton is that they are often nonspecific name-calling, as above. For the “liar” charge, we can consult Politifact’s ratings of candidates’ truthfulness. It gives Clinton a truth rating of 23 percent and Sanders a rating of 14 percent (Sanders has a greater percentage of “mostly true” statements). Both have higher truth ratings than either Cruz or Trump.

Narcissism in an occupational disease of politicians, and Clinton is far from the outer limit set by the likes of John Edwards.

If she has “no moral compass,” what steered her to register black voters in Mississippi after law school rather than seek a partnership in a Wall Street firm? What steered her to work for the Children’s Defense Fund? And why did she work to impeach Richard Nixon?

Hillary Clinton has been the victim of a quarter-century of smears by organizations like Citizens United, whose notorious film about her was regarded by the Supreme Court as political speech protected by the First Amendment. Are some of Sanders’ supporters suckers for partisan Republican propaganda?

And isn’t it the responsibility of Sen. Sanders, given the near certainty that Clinton will be the Democratic candidate, to speak up against the character assassins who have seduced too many of his supporters?

Meredith N. Springer

Scarborough

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