The collective shock on political blogs this week over the Hillary Clinton’s reemergence has been high comedy. This piece over at Huffington Post is pretty typical:
She has no idea how many times I defended her. How many right-leaning friends and relatives I battled with. How many times I played down her shady business deals and penchant for scandals — whether it was Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, Cattle Futures, Web Hubbell, or Norman Hsu. She has no idea how frequently I dismissed her husband’s serial adultery as an unfortunate trait of an otherwise brilliant man. For sixteen years, I was a proud soldier in the legion of “Clinton apologists” — who believed that peace and prosperity were more important thcsan regrettable personality traits.
And then she ran for president.
[SNIP]
Many Clinton apologists like me — [have] watched Hillary’s descent into pettiness and fear-mongering with the heartbreak of a child who grows up to realize that his beloved mother has been a terrible person all along.
Are the conservatives right about the Clintons? Will they do and say anything to get elected?
I don’t know.
All I know is…I’m through apologizing.
The Clintons placing their own ambition over the interest of their party, and that of the country? Heaven forfend! How could we have seen this coming?