November 10, 2016

Well, It Is Over

Well, it is over! The most poisonous, slanderous, hate-filled American election of all time is now history, and the pity is that there is no historian living in this great Republic who is capable of doing it justice. At least, Donald Trump was entertaining and usually right. Moreover he has only been a practicing politician for a little over a year and a half. Hillary Clinton has been perpetrating politics for her entire adult life, and in the end we discover that she could not even properly maintain classified documents on her server.

Well, it is over! The most poisonous, slanderous, hate-filled American election of all time is now history, and the pity is that there is no historian living in this great Republic who is capable of doing it justice.

At least, Donald Trump was entertaining and usually right. Moreover he has only been a practicing politician for a little over a year and a half. Hillary Clinton has been perpetrating politics for her entire adult life, and in the end we discover that she could not even properly maintain classified documents on her server. (FBI Director James Comey said she was “extremely careless” in handling intelligence.) Her foundation is equally lax, and her housekeeper was regularly imposed upon to print out her correspondence — including classified documents. It is now clear that she has been a crook for most of her life. She came across as a schoolmarm, with all the grace of a schoolmarm, but unlike most schoolmarms she is a consistent liar. How did America get into such a mess?

I would date it from Feb. 12, 1999. That is when the United States Senate failed in its duty to convict President William J. Clinton at the end of his impeachment trial. The impeachment had been initiated by the House of Representatives when it voted for two charges, one of perjury, the other of obstruction of justice. The House sent the charges over to the Senate. The charges stemmed from Clinton’s mendacious testimony before a grand jury regarding Monica Lewinsky, his White House paramour or should I say one of his White House paramours? She was 22 years old when it started.

There is no doubt that he lied under oath or that he obstructed justice, but the Senate decided, to quote a phrase popular at the time, “it was only about sex.” Presumably if Clinton lied and obstructed justice to cloak some graver wrong the Senate would have adjudged him guilty, though I have my doubts. We were entering the first stages of the age of lawlessness that we have now become inured to.

Thus Clinton became only the second president in American history to be impeached. The other was President Andrew Johnson after the Civil War, and Johnson at least had the excuse of being inebriated. He was a famous drunk, though there is no record of him imposing his will on a 22-year-old intern or even on a barkeep. The only other president who came close to impeachment was President Richard M. Nixon. Yet he had the grace to resign from office before putting the country through the uncertainties of an impeachment process. To Clinton it did not matter.

If the Senate had found Clinton guilty, presumably Bill and his lovely wife, Bruno, would have disappeared from our public life. As it was, their tawdry, grasping antics began almost immediately after impeachment with the selling of White House pardons and commutations and the pocketing of White House furnishing as they absconded from the premises. Shortly thereafter the New York Observer editorialized on Hillary Clinton, “Had she any shame, she would resign” from the Senate, and many of the hierarchy in the media and the Democratic Party hurled invective at the hunkering couple. Their fury lasted hardly a year, and then the Clintons could count on the media to forgive and forget their intemperance. For a quarter of a century I have noted this historically unparalleled development, the arrival in politics and media of the episodic apologist.

Nor is the arrival of this poisonous political atmosphere unique to this side of the Atlantic. A week ago, my friend Algy Cluff, for 25 years the chairman of the board of The Spectator of London, wrote to tell me that he was very much looking forward to attending The Spectator’s annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards dinner. He wrote that it is “usually fun, one of the rare occasions when the Left and the Right get together with humor.”

Alas, Algy reported back to me over the weekend that though “the Tories poked fun at each other … this time the prize winners from the left were ill-tempered and uncivil. In particular Diane Abbott (surly and rude), the Mayor of London (snarling and rude), and Hilary Benn (high-minded and pompous). But that is the world we live in.”

Yes, politics on both sides of the Atlantic are in a poisonous state, and on the U.K.‘s side, Labour is practically in a state of collapse.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.