Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Cellophane

There was a minute this morning when it appeared Hillary Clinton may have gotte a reprieve from her rather commanding domination of the news cycle since deciding to keep on being her by using a private server as Secretary of State.

Alas, it was not to be, because the nail-chewing drama of potentially another Black Friday had abated a bit by lunchtime and they were back to the new narrative: are the Democrats just plain tired of the Clintons? Or, in the new speak, are they soooooo over Hillary?

I had a little Twitter slap fight recently over the fact that my answer to that question, and to the question of whether she’ll outlast calls to investigate the blatant violations concerning her private server, are no and yes, respectively.

I don’t love it any more than you do, fellow conservatives, but she, in the words of the great Gloria Gaynor, will survive. How do I know? Two reasons: 1. I’ve seen enough in my short time running around this town to know that scandals go away with enough money and influence; and if you know how to couch your language, you’re in good shape. (“I did not send or recive anything that was classified at the time.”)

2. The cleverly disguised talking-points-disguised-as-criticism have begun to filter out of the offical portals of message delivery. Conor Friedersdorf, as he so often does, provides the most attractive and lighthearted defense, even while kinda-sorta poking a bit of fun at the Diva in question for authenticity sake:

“But they’re not meant for people like me—powerful people who’ve paid their dues to rise in the ruling class. Like everyone else in that cohort, I’ve earned the right to leak when I deem it prudent; to use my discretion to take whatever work I want home with me; to keep classified documents in my personal files; I mean, hell, my Teflon husband had a former crony who smuggled classified papers from a secure room.”

Almost sounds critical, right? It’s not.

And Robert Creamer — who has an interesting bio — doesn’t even bother trying to reach across the self-deprecating aisle. Non-issues, he says. Silliness and weirdness and, presumably, lack of patriotism and good sense and love of God to think otherwise. (Okay I’m exaggerating. But only a little. You’re out of touch at best if you buy into any of this server nonsense.) He even handily dismisses the Benghazi investigation for good measure:

None of the emails on the Secretary’s personal account were classified at the time they were sent or received. That is not in dispute. There is an on-going controversy between various agencies of what ought to be classified in retrospect as the material is released to the public by the State Department, but that does not change the fact that none of it was classified at the time. In fact, one of the several emails at issue actually says the word “unclassified” in the upper left hand corner and can still be accessed by the general public on the State Department web site.

Finally, no one has ever pointed to an instance where the fact that something was on her server instead of a government server had any negative consequences whatsoever.

There is no issue here, period.

And as for the Benghazi “affair,” none of the many investigations that have already been completed concerning the events surrounding the death of the American Ambassador to Libya in the Benghazi attack has found a shred of evidence that that Hillary Clinton did anything wrong whatsoever leading up to or in response to that attack.

So, with apologies to my Twitter adversary who had some knowledge of classified documentation rules and what it might mean if those rules are violated, I stand by what I said.

As we say in the South, Hillary’s sticking to her plan to be the Dem nominee like white on rice.

But here’s what I didn’t say: I’m okay with it to a degree. Spotlights have a way of exposing flaws. The longer one stands in one, the more missteps can be seen. And the ultimate goal is to expose those missteps in the progressive philosophy so perhaps this kind of politician will become less and less attractive, at least for a little while on into the future.

So I say let her shine.