John Kass’s column in Sunday‘s Tribune touched me as greatest hits collections often do—as a reminder of good times past and a melancholy concession that the artist has nothing new to say.
My own view is that Dwyer has it wrong. Four years of show trials by rabid Republicans would allow Clinton to demonstrate again what the interminable Benghazi hearings already demonstrated: an inexhaustible capacity to smile pleasantly for hours on end and not give an inch to foaming inquisitors. Those trials would be a lot more likely to humiliate than gratify the GOP.
So should President Barack Obama pardon her, preempting the GOP’s plans for four years of show trials?
Rudolph Giuliani, mentioned as a possible attorney general [this was written before Donald Trump said he’d nominate Senator Jeffrey Sessions to that post], has already warned Obama off a pardon, while revealing to Fox News his firm belief that Obama and Clinton “have completely corrupted the Justice Department and the State Department” and predicting her inevitable indictment.
To assess the wisdom, legality and politics of a pardon, this is where to begin: The incoming administration already has its mind made up that she committed crimes and should be prosecuted. Given that, Obama shouldn’t hesitate to pardon her—even if she says she doesn’t want him to.
Another fake news hoax that General Flynn helped promote, according to the Times: Clinton controls a ring of child sex slaves centered on Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. The complete lack of any evidence that such a ring exists is interpreted by adherents as proof of its sophistication and of the treachery of debunkers. Over the weekend a “concerned citizen” from North Carolina drove six hours to Comet Ping Pong and opened fire with an assault rifle, hoping to free the children he didn’t find there.
