Good grief.
Over the last few days we’ve seen one former Clinton aide and acolyte after another come out of the woodwork to defend yet another Clinton from yet another series of scandals.
It’s like a tired, awful syndicated series that’s been cancelled but just won’t go away.
In one corner, it was Lanny Davis being methodically taken apart by Fox News’s Chris Wallace. In another corner was the Ragin’ Cajun, James Carville, whining about “cockamamie right wing talking points” being responsible for this story. (The New York Times is well known, of course, for writing its stories based on right-wing talking points.) And what would Old Home Week be without the man Jon Stewart once pounded to dust, the always classy Paul Begala, insisting that voters “do not give a sh*t. They do not even give a fart” about the story that Mrs. Clinton set up a private email account while she was Secretary of State. If those three weren’t enough, there was the right-wing-hit-man-turned-left-wing-hit-man, David Brock, appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to defend Mrs. Clinton.
Watching these men react like trained seals is pathetic, causing a wave of Clinton Fatigue to once again wash over America. But it’s also poignant, at least to this degree: The Clintons have a long history of pulling people, including some undoubtedly decent people, into their orbit–and once having done so, sending them out to defend the Clintons’ various and sundry corruptions. And that, in turn, has a corrupting effect on the Clintons’ defenders. By that I don’t mean they become personal corrupt. But they often do become intellectually corrupt. If you think that judgment is too harsh, I’d urge you to watch Mr. Davis, an intelligent man, get all tripped up in his effort to defend what Mrs. Clinton did. (His inability to explain why setting up a personal email account would be preferable to having a government email account is almost painful.)
Messrs. Davis, Carville, Begala, and Brock begin with a supposition: The Clintons must be defended at all costs, regardless of the facts, come what may. Doing that for some people would be easy; doing it for Hillary and Bill Clinton is impossible. Their entire political lives have involved crossing ethical lines and destroying their opponents. Eventually, though, they end up destroying their defenders as well.
