Supplemental: "What fools we mortals be," Shakespeare said!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016

He didn't say we conservative mortals: This time next year, will President Trump be in charge?

We'd have to say it's entirely possible. With a nod to Shakespeare—details below—let's consider how it could happen.

Candidate Clinton could still win the Democratic nomination. So could Candidate Sanders, of course. At this point, we wouldn't want to bet either way.

Let's suppose that Candidate Clinton ends up getting the nod. Consider the way we liberals are trashing her reputation, largely by reciting decades-old right-wing narratives, cons and canards.

How are we setting her up for the kill? For starters, consider today's piece by the new Salon's Jack Mirkinson.

Mirkinson—Yale 2009!—is much brighter than the norm at the pitiful new Salon. But good God! Midway through his new piece, he authors the highlighted claim, offering a link:

MIRKINSON (2/10/16): Clinton’s biggest hurdle—beyond the specific hurdle that comes with being a woman and carrying around 25 years of toxic political baggage—is that the very world she occupies is suddenly a deep liability for her. The Clinton who casually took reams of money to shower Goldman Sachs with praise was a woman who likely never assumed that any candidate or voter would hold that against her so vehemently.

As it turns out, it was very dumb for the future Candidate Clinton to take money from Goldman Sachs.

That said, did she "casually take reams of money to shower Goldman Sachs with praise?" Did she "shower Goldman Sachs with praise" at all?

Mirkinson says she did. As evidence, he links to this horrific piece by Politico's Ben White. Despite an early reference to multiple sources, White quotes exactly one (anonymous) person who says Clinton "was pretty glowing about us" in one of her three Goldman speeches.

That one (anonymous) source actually does make it sound like Clinton "showered Goldman Sachs with praise." But given the "25 years of toxic political" war conducted against both Clintons and Gore, it would take an absolute fool to credit the claim of that one (anonymous, unsubstantiated) source.

You'd really have to be off your gourd to credit that one anonymous source. In fact, the piece by White is a classic example of the way Politico has managed to take our journalistic standards even lower than they already were.

But so what? At the new Salon, Mirkinson rushed to credit the piece. Liberal readers are exposed to the latest trashing of Clinton.

White's Politico piece is a joke; Mirkinson's piece should be an embarrassment. That said, we liberals have spent 25 toxic years refusing to understand the nature of the right-wing wars against both Clintons and Gore. A new generation is now hungrily gulping the cons.

Mirkinson, class of 2009, is the latest high-IQ kid to swallow the bullshit whole. To understand where this sort of thing leads, consider the horrific news in a new Daily Beast piece by Betsy Woodruff, a 25-year-old (former) movement conservative who now appears on the Chris Hayes show in the guise of whatever we're supposed to take her to be at this point.

Woodruff—Hillsdale College, class of 2012!—was reporting from a Sanders event. She quoted some of the true believers who won't vote for Clinton if she gets the nod because they believe all the talk they've been hearing from Sanders:

WOODRUFF (2/9/16): Numerous Sanders supporters flatly stated that they would under no circumstances back Clinton, citing the criticisms of her that Sanders brings up on the stump every day.

Ashley Bays of Quincy, Massachusetts, who came to New Hampshire to volunteer for Sanders, said she would “absolutely not” back Clinton, ever.

“It would be completely against my ideals,” she said.

“Hillary is obviously not thinking about the best interests of the people,” she continued. “She’s thinking about the corporations that fund her, Goldman Sachs.”

Peggie Greenough, a New Hampshire voter who came to the party along with her husband and three sons, said she wouldn’t vote for Clinton if she’s the nominee.

“I don’t trust her,” she said. “I don’t trust her at all.”

Marilyn DeLuca, of Londonderry, New Hampshire also said Sanders is “the only candidate out there” with integrity. And she wasn’t exactly enthralled by Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem’s goofy arguments that women are obligated to back Clinton.

“They’re irrelevant,” DeLuca said. “Their time has come and gone.”

Thank God for the deadly "ideals" of those who are easily conned! Aside from the drumbeat from Sanders, they keep reading pieces by the Mirkinsons, who tell them, absent any actual evidence, that Clinton "casually took reams of money to shower Goldman Sachs with praise."

He read it at Politico! That's how he knows it's true!

A few weeks back, the New York Times' Amy Chozick got involved in the endless con again. She wrote a lengthy report about the way young women are turning against Clinton because they keep hearing that, back in the 1990s, she "discredited women who said they had had sexual encounters with or been sexually assaulted by former President Bill Clinton."

Thanks to overt hustlers like Chozick, those young women aren't being told about the groaning credibility problems involved with some of those ancient accusers. When it comes to credibility, Gennifer Flowers is a world-class train wreck. Then again, we still owe you the depressing backstory on Kathleen Willey.

Making a horrible story short, remember how Ken Starr's successor, Robert Ray, formally reported that he had considered indicting Willey for perjury? You can bet you aspic that Chozick's young women don't!

Even more horrifically, remember how Willey went on Hardball in early 1999 and, at the urging of Chris Matthews, accused journalist Cody Shearer of killing her pet dog in service to the vile and murderous Clintons?

Luckily, Shearer was able to prove that he'd been three thousand miles away at the time of the alleged crime. In the meantime, though, an armed man had been arrested at Shearer's home, thanks to the grossly irresponsible conduct of the horrific Willey and her horrific cable news boy friend, who was a massively overpaid Jack Welch thug at the time.

Is there anything Matthews hasn't done over these many long years? At any rate, thanks to overt hustlers like Chozick, the young women to whom she referred aren't being exposed to the disappeared facts about the craziness and credibility of some of the famous accusers who Hillary Clinton may have dared to disbelieve.

"What fools we mortals be," Shakespeare thoughtfully said. Please note that he didn't say we conservative mortals.

How foolish do we the liberal mortals tend to be? Just read this new post by Kevin Drum to learn how Candidate Trump may reach the White House if Clinton gets nominated.

(Drum's post concerns another liberal who is too morally pure to vote for a person like Clinton. Plus, she's sure that Trump could never win. As Drum asks, a bit more politely, how do we liberals manage to get this arrogant and this dumb?)

Four cycles ago, we mortals followed the lead of the hopeless Frank Rich and gave our votes to Candidate Nader. (Rich had insisted, again and again, that Bush and Gore were just alike, two phony peas in a pod.)

People are dead all over the world because we decided to do that. But so what? We the liberals seem to be ineducable. This time around, things are likely to turn out much worse if we, with our high moral standards and our attraction to cons, kick the door to the White House open for the ludicrous Candidate Trump.

Final point:

Come November, we'll be voting for Candidate Sanders or for Candidate Clinton, whichever one gets the nod. That said, we'd have to say that Candidate Trump may have a pretty good shot at the White House, thanks to the way we liberals tend to pamper our exquisite morals.

What fools we mortals turn out to be! We swallowed the crap about Candidate Gore, can't wait to do it again.