Yesterday, the editors of the Washington Post gave away the game in the opening sentence of an unsigned editorial titled “A porous ethical wall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department“:
IN ANOTHER election year with an opponent who is not so obviously unqualified, last week’s revelations about connections between Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation would have been bigger news.
Bold emphasis added, just to raise the odds you read that carefully.
Our question is the obvious one: Who, other than the editors of the major news organizations, is going to determine whether or not a story is “bigger news”? The editors of the WaPo are, effectively, confessing that they have decided not to make big news of this story because Hillary Clinton’s opponent is “so obviously unqualified.”
We are of course not surprised, and indeed all is proceeding as we have foreseen: Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s get-out-of-jail-free card. The national political establishment, whether the “editors” of the mainstream media or the formerly principled leaders of our law enforcement agencies, are pulling out the stops to stop Trump. For good reason, they will say to themselves in those quiet moments when they know they have compromised what they claim to be their most cherished beliefs. Or at least what remains of their professionalism.
We wonder, however, whether this will not backfire, insofar as it makes Donald Trump’s invidious claim that the election is “rigged” seem true. We are confident that many Americans know quite well that it is going on, and that this heavy-handed partiality will register, unconsciously if not explicitly, as another example of cultural and political elites stiffing the average Joe.
Donald Trump is beating himself soundly, and will not be the next president. That is no reason to give Hillary Clinton a free pass, or manufacture for her what will be an entirely unearned mandate to govern.
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