Don’t for a minute think the Clinton Email Scandal is all about Clinton

Nope.  This is not something that is Right or Left, it is modern.  This is about us.  It’s not as if corruption from on high is something new.  Read ancient histories.  Heck, read the Bible.  The powerful squeaking by where the little people would be crushed is as old as human government.

The big difference today is that we live in a Democratic Republic, where we the people have the ability to do something about this sort of thing.  And yet, we don’t.  In fact, we do less and less about it as the years move on.  Take Watergate.  For a scandal not much worse than this, other than the assumption of deliberate intention, Nixon was forced to resign.  Nonetheless, he didn’t go to jail.

Fast forward to the 1980s.  Nobody doubts that the Iran-Contra scandal was a politically partisan attack on Reagan following his second landslide victory and his triumph at Geneva.  Nonetheless, there was also at least proof that Reagan had lied to the American public about dealing with terrorists.  If the nuances of legalities were found to be beyond the ability of most people to grasp, it was clear that he broke his promise to Americans about negotiating with terrorists.  And yet, we let him off the hook.  In fact he left office with the highest approval rating ever.

Next, the infamous Lewinsky scandal.  Not just about sex, it was based on charges that Bill Clinton was a man who used his position of power to pressure women into sexually compromising positions.  Given the fury of the Clarence Thomas hearings, you’d think that would have been enough to rally feminists around the scaffolding along with Republicans.  But it wasn’t.  In fact, feminists who only a few short years earlier made sexual harassment almost akin to murder were strangely supportive of Bill.  What’s more, Clinton’s supporters made it clear that they didn’t care.  Lying, perjury, false accusations, character, morals – none of these things matter.  What ultimately matters is our side winning.  Unlike Reagan, we knew Clinton had done wrong, legally and morally.  But now we openly proclaimed our apathy.

With the Iraqi invasion, we launched a destabilizing invasion of a sovereign nation based on evidence that turned out to be false.  Not only were there no weapons of mass destruction pointed at New York, but it appeared as if there hadn’t been a weapon’s program for years.  Not that Hussein was a good guy, or that replacing him wouldn’t have been good down the road.  But you do not invade a country because the country poses an immediate threat when, in fact, it doesn’t.  I realize that there were other factors involved, and I realize that partisanship was by now covering everything we were doing in the post-9/11 years.  But still.  You don’t do it.  You don’t invade countries based on false evidence.  If you do, someone has to pay.  And yet, to date, nobody has paid.  Well, except for the dead and wounded.  They paid.  But that’s it.  And there are plenty who are irate about Hillary Clinton and the bungled mess of Benghazi, or now this, who seem to have no problem just shuffling their feet and saying the Iraq conflict intelligence was a darn shame, but let’s move on.

The same here.  Suddenly, many who wanted Bush or Cheney with a rope around their necks are quite tolerant of Hillary’s role in the Benghazi debacle, or are quite fine with her security compromising stupidity.  For that is what the FBI said it was.  In so many words, it was stupidity of a mind-boggling level.  A criminal level of negligence that the FBI made sure we understood could send someone else up the river.  And yet, how many who screamed at Reagan in the 80s or stormed Washington over the Bush years admit that some died and our security could be compromised, but nonetheless are just waving their hands and saying it’s time to move on?

You see, the powerful have been getting away with this sort of thing for eons.  In the history of powerful people, this is an oft repeated story.  The difference this time is that we the people could unite to do something about it.  But we are so deep in the partisan swill that not only do we enable such corruption, we are to the point where a growing number of Americans support it, as long as their side wins in the end.  Which is the joke.  By openly supporting this level of corruption, the only ones who won’t pay the ultimate price will be the same powerful elites that are supported by the little people who will do the paying.