The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Upright: “Already wealthy by any reasonable standard and unbelievably famous, the Clintons only had to conduct themselves with some modicum of respectability the past several years to avoid creating further obstacles on Hillary Clinton’s path to the White House. … Hillary wants to define political change as embodied by Donald Trump as unacceptable, but she has gone almost as far in rendering the status quo — as represented by her high-handed politics of cronyism and corner-cutting — intolerable. … In only one sense does Hillary Clinton perhaps match the political moment. She may be boring, unlikable and untrustworthy, but she is stolid. Her argument against Trump is based on character and temperament more than anything else, and she is making a bet that if she can define Trump as dangerous, then plodding and predictable will look alluring by comparison. It is a bold gambit to win a personality contest by having none. As a candidate, Hillary is the emptiness at the center of her otherwise formidable campaign.” —Rich Lowry

Food for thought: “If you’re rooting for [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange now that he says he’s got ‘significant information’ that ‘pertains to Hillary Clinton’s campaign,’ you’re admitting that you’re okay with hacking and stealing information, as long as the hacks and theft target people that you don’t like.” —Jim Geraghty

The BIG lie: “I was outraged by the stories that came out about the VA. And I have been very clear about the necessity for doing whatever is required to move the VA into the 21st century, to provide the kind of treatment options that our veterans today desperately need and deserve.” —Hillary Clinton last night (“It’s not been as widespread as it has been made out to be.” —Hillary, Oct. 2015)

Alpha Jackass: “That message — I’ll give you America great again — if you’re a white southerner, you know exactly what it means, don’t you?” —Bill Clinton

Blind arrogance: “While Rs insisted on vacation, Zika spread in the U.S. mainland. Because of Republican inaction, our entire nation is exposed to this scourge.” —Harry Reid, whose party rejected for the third time a proposal to allocate funding for Zika research

And last… “The truth is that the American people chose the two worst candidates for the position during the major-party primaries, and we have been left with the most stark ‘lesser of two evils’ choice in my lifetime.” —Ed Morrissey