Paul Waldman's Hillary Derangement Syndrome?

     Wow, he's a great friend to have around. He seems to think that, yeah, the GOP scandal mongering about the Clinton's has been appalling over the years but for some reason, in some way deserved as they fail to 'take responsibility' when the GOP tries to create a mountain out of a molehill. His prescription seems to amount to the feeling that they ought to apologize for the molehill that starts it all. 

    "Watching the story of your State Department emails emerge last week, liberals were possessed by an old familiar feeling. It's the one that makes them say two things at once: "This seems ridiculously overblown," and "What the hell is wrong with her?" It was like reliving a trauma, one they got through in the end, but nevertheless left its emotional scars."

   "When I talk to liberals about the endless scandal wars of the 1990s, the word that comes up most often is "exhausting." It's true that it's been pretty exhausting arguing for six years about Barack Obama's birth certificate and whether he loves America. Every Democratic presidency will bring its own flavor of Republican obsession. But the Clinton years were something unique."

      "It wasn't just that Republicans went on a binge of hearings and conspiracy theorizing and faux outrage. It was that at the heart of every scandal, no matter how disproportionate or ridiculous the Republican response, there was a kernel of truth. Again and again, we suffered through a pseudo-scandal in which Republicans made grandiose charges for which there was little or no evidence. But every one started the same way: with some questionable decision on your part, your husband's, or both. You may not have broken the law, but you screwed up, in ways that gave your opponents enough material to crank up the calliope of scandal-mongering. Then you inevitably fought the release of information, which may have seemed like smart strategizing at the time but had the effect of dragging everything out interminably."

       "Liberals defended you and President Clinton not only against the false charges and the wildly exaggerated ones, but against claims that had some bit of merit, whether it was the White House sleepovers or the travel office or the cattle futures or any of a hundred other controversies. Even if your opponents made mountains out of molehills, liberals were the ones who found themselves again and again around watercoolers and dinner tables, arguing that the molehill itself was nothing to be concerned about, culminating with impeachment."

        "Yes, it was insane to impeach President Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, but every liberal who defended him during that year felt like they were in some indirect way justifying the fact that the most powerful man in the world was screwing a White House intern 27 years his junior. It was not a good feeling."

        "You are not responsible for your husband's behavior, of course. But you played a key role in dealing with the fallout from it, just as you did on every other controversy. We can't rerun history, so we'll never know whether a different set of decisions could have prevented George W. Bush from becoming president in 2000, with all the catastrophic consequences that ensued. But even that possibility should have kept you up nights."

     http://prospect.org/waldman/open-letter-hillary-clinton

     I don't buy for one minute that Bush's election had anything to do with Whitewater or Monica. Gore did everything to distance himself from Clinton in 2000 and it didn't exactly work out for him. 

    I don't get his point. Regarding Lewinskygate, he acts as if HIllary herself wasn't a major victim-indeed, the biggest victim there. She had to defend her serially adulterous husband against the GOP's absurd sexual McCarthyite machine. What was it that she had to apologize for here?

   Listen, I'm sorry if he found it 'exhausting' but I'd rather that than simply conceding the field to the GOP. Why he wants to blame the victim here I don't know. What it comes down to, I think, is this: he doesn't like Hillary. He's another with fantasies of the Saint Herself, you know. Saint Elizabeth-who's much more Saint than Senator. 

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-difference-between-hillary-clinton.html

   Regarding Much Ado about Email, why is she somehow guilty of something sinister in breaking a law that wasn't written yet?

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/hillary-is-bad-for-breaking-email-law.html

   For some reason, why clearly Waldman seems to get that this may well turn out to be a 'nothingburger' he still seems to think Hillary has done something that she needs to prostrate herself for before the GOP and the nation. My trouble with this argument is it dignifies absurd GOP fantasies with a response. 

   My trouble is that Waldman seems to want to dignify them. 

   "There's no question that government officials, especially those at the highest levels, should have a .gov email address through which all official business is conducted. Since she used a personal account, we have to rely on Clinton's word that what she passed along to the State Department is complete. While I'm not an expert on these regulations, according to Josh Gerstein of Politico, it wasn't until last year, after Clinton had left the government, that a law was passed requiring officials to forward any official business conducted on personal email accounts. If she wasn't breaking any laws or even breaking with previous practice, it still might not have been the right thing to do, but it wouldn't be scandalous either."

    "Now let me be clear about one thing, because we have a long campaign ahead of us. My personal feelings about Clinton are complicated, to say the least. Defending her from legitimate criticism is about the last thing I have any enthusiasm for, and there are plenty of people who actually get paid to do that."

     http://prospect.org/waldman/latest-clinton-story-scandal-nothingburger-or-something-between

    No, I guess he'd rather not defend her in the face of illegitimate criticism. 

    P.S.  What I don't know is where all this legitimate criticism is supposed to be-I remember the 90s and there was very little legitimate criticism. You'd need a microscope to find it among all the illegitimate refuse. 

    Waldman doesn't sound like the kind of fair weather friend I want in a foxhole. 

    P.S.S. In what way is Waldman claiming that Hillary 'screwed up' in Benghazi? I just don't follow him here at all.