Whitewater, Part Deux
Here we go again.
This is what the alleged scandal about Hillary Clinton's e-mails are all about: Whitewater. It's all about finding some dark, evil and damning piece of evidence that only a dark, powerful and malignant entity like Hillary Clinton could hide from people because she has no other motivation than something nefarious. She can never make any mistakes because she's too cunning, too diabolical for that. It's all secrecy and coverups with her.
How do we tie this to Whitewater? You may not remember than when Bill Clinton was elected, alleged misdeeds about Whitewater were resurrected from their 20-year old grave to haunt both him and Hillary. This witch hunt continued until an obscure woman named Linda Tripp recorded conversations with an intern named Monica Lewinsky about her affair with the president. Clinton was later impeached for lying under oath about his sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, though acquitted by the Senate.
But a sexual affair was not the point of the Whitewater investigation led by special prosecutor Ken Starr. Not by a long shot. The investigation had been dragging on for some time, until a series of improbably small events led him to Linda Tripp and almost derailing Clinton's presidency. Yet in the end, the Whitewater investigation had produced nothing. Some lower level players went to jail, but that was because they refused to cooperate with Starr or were guilty of things that were in no way connected to the Clintons. No laws were broken by Bill or Hillary, and no dark secrets were unveiled. Even the widespread libel that the Clintons had something to do with former counsel and law office partner Vince Foster's death eventually petered out.
Here we are twenty years after Clinton's second term, and this time, Whitewater is called Benghazi. There have been five investigations into the terrorist attack in Benghazi that culminated with the deaths of four American diplomatic personnel, most notable among them U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The Republican Party has been obsessed with finding some malfeasance on the part of the Obama Administration, especially from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Five investigations that have resulted in: no conspiracy, no cover up of any facts, no bad actions on the part of the Administration or Mrs. Clinton. And the final sign off? The Republican controlled House Intelligence Committee. You can't get more official than that.
Undeterred though, this new generation of Ken Starrs is determined to find something, anything no matter how tangential to hang on Hillary. The revelations that she used a private e-mail server set the wheels in motion with ferocity. Republicans were demanding that she turn over her e-mails, and want to know why thousands were deleted. Never mind that, apparently, using a private e-mail account seems to be a widespread practice: see Jeb Bush and Colin Powell, for starters. Trey Gowdy, who is heading this sixth investigation of Benghazi, is demanding that Hillary's server be turned over to "a neutral third party" so that it can be studied. But studied for what? What we are looking for? Well, that doesn't matter, because as we mentioned, everything Hillary does is nefarious and treacherous, so after several years, Mr. Gowdy and his crew are looking for their Monica Lewinsky moment. Some small thing that will, according to their hopes, derail or seriously compromise Hillary's potential candidacy for president.
Mr. Gowdy tried very hard to look impartial on a recent "Meet the Press" interview, but it wasn't impressive. He claimed to host Chuck Todd that his committee's investigation was to "corroborate" the findings of the previous five investigations, a claim that rings hollow when an official report has exonerated all the Administration's actions from conspiracy charges. Now, it's just a fishing expedition and he was quite disingenuous when claimed that he didn't want to be talking about this next year. Perhaps we're being too diplomatic: he was probably lying about it, because the GOP has convinced ordinary people that the private e-mail account and server are proof of malfeasance on the part of Hillary Clinton no matter what her reasoning is. By imputing to her such evil intentions, they can make people believe there is a "there" there. Tying this to Benghazi is just for appearance's sake, to make it look like some evil calculations on Hillary's part has been there all along and she should never be president.
Just like Whitewater. It's the same sad show all over again and the same gullible people are falling for it once more.