Supplemental: The children are beautifully trained!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015

The Clinton “scandals” through the eyes of Duke 2009: The children are beautifully programmed, what with their spotless minds.

The latest such player is David Graham, Duke 2009. At the Atlantic, he apparently was assigned to compile “The Clinton Scandal Primer,” which he chillingly says he’ll “update as new information arrives.”

To call this “more prejudicial than probative” is like saying it’s dark and cold inside young Graham’s head. At the Atlantic, this one candidate will be honored with a tabulation of her scandals or pseudo-scandals, including those of her husband.

No one else will have such a tab! She’ll be the only one!

Almost anyone could see the problem with this idea. Still, the children have been beautifully trained, so David plowed right ahead.

The children are eager to please, if not real sharp. This is the way the current child presents his overview:

GRAHAM (7/1/15): The Clinton family has been in politics for a long time. Bill Clinton’s first run for office came in 1974. And for almost as long as they’ve been a force, there have been controversies about what they were or weren’t doing, whether they were following laws, and whether they were disclosing what they ought to. Even today, the repercussions of a failed real-estate investment Bill and Hillary Clinton made in 1978 can still be felt. No other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated by partisans as George W. Bush—has fostered the creation of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.

Clinton defenders insist that it’s all just—to borrow a phrase—a vast right-wing conspiracy. The members of the alleged conspiracy insist that Hillary and her husband are shockingly corrupt. The truth is likely somewhere in between: Many of the hyped controversies have turned out to have little substance, but in several cases it has become clear that Bill or Hillary Clinton fell short of rules or laws. The Whitewater investigation, despite years of effort and millions of dollars spent, found almost nothing out of line, but that doesn’t mean Bill Clinton’s extramarital escapades weren’t real.

Now, with Hillary Clinton favored to win the Democratic nomination for president, every Clinton scandal—from Whitewater to Clinton’s State Department emails—will be under the microscope. Keeping track of each controversy, where it came from, and how serious it is, is no small task, so here’s a primer. We’ll update it as new information emerges.

“The truth is likely somewhere in between!” This is a good, well-trained boy.

Note the way this hopeless child treats the Whitewater matter, which gave its name to a decade of pseudo-scandals whose promulgation still goes largely unexamined.

In his second paragraph, he says the investigation of same “found almost nothing out of line, despite years of effort and millions of dollars spent.” Just for the record, let it further be noted that this all happened twenty years ago.

To a youngster with a critical mind, those facts might raise a few questions about the reasons why that investigation went on for so many years. They might even suggest that, twenty years later, the matter shouldn’t be found in a tabulation of some candidate’s “scandals.”

That said, this is the MSM, and Graham is nicely trained. In his third paragraph, he tells us that all the scandals, Whitewater included, “will be under the microscope” moving forward. He doesn’t say why that would happen with Whitewater, since it was exhaustively probed and next to nothing was found.

Nor does he explain his first paragraph, in which he tells us, right out of the gate, that “the repercussions of [Whitewater] can still be felt.”

Why are the repercussions still felt if almost nothing was out of line? Readers, please! Which part of “went to Duke” don’t you understand?

At the nation's top finishing schools, the children who plan to be “journalists” receive their laborious training in promulgation of script. On their diplomas, this motto is found:

“Narrative never dies”

Graham turned out to be a good boy. In recent decades, we’ve all paid the price for these, the folkways of his guild.

When youngsters begin to tire: At the end of his tabulation, Graham discussed all the “scandals” from the period which he called “THE BAD OLD DAYS.”

It may be that he was starting to tire. This is what he typed:

What is it? Since the Clintons have a long history of controversies, there are any number of past scandals that continue to float around, especially in conservative media: Whitewater. Troopergate. Paula Jones. Monica Lewinsky. Vince Foster.

When? 1975-2001

Who? Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; a brigade of supporting characters

How serious is it? Almost none. Some are wholly spurious (Foster). Others (Lewinsky, Whitewater) have been so exhaustively investigated that it’s hard to imagine them doing much further damage to Hillary Clinton’s standing. In fact, the Lewinsky scandal famously boosted her public approval ratings. But that doesn’t mean you won’t hear plenty about them.

“Almost none.” That’s how the youngster answered the question, “How serious is it?”

In this passage, David continues describing Whitewater as a “past scandal,” even though an exhaustive investigation “found almost nothing out of line.” He also seems to tell us that we’ll “hear plenty about it.”

Schoolboy, please! Thanks to you, we just did!