[Wash Times] They were untouchable, having created a cult of personality rivaled (and surpassed) only by President Obama. Until now.
And surprisingly, the issue that is currently unraveling their Wizard of Oz illusion isn't the allegations of massive fraud at the Clinton Foundation or her mishandling of classified material on her private email server. (More on both fronts to come, courtesy of the FBI).
No, the issue posing the greatest risk right now to a Clinton Restoration is the public's voiding of the deal it made with the Clinton Devil in 1992.
The conventional wisdom has long been that Mr. Clinton's lewd, abusive past is itself a thing of the past. His serial extramarital affairs, including the one with the barely legal intern, Monica Lewinsky, his textbook sexual harassment of subordinates like Paula Jones, his alleged assault of Kathleen Willey and the rape alleged by Juanita Broaddrick, were considered old news, episodes litigated in the court of public opinion and dismissed for three reasons: 1) His piggery was already widely known; 2) a strong economy absolved many of his sins; and 3) the public took cues from his wife. "Hey, if she's OK with his piggery, who are we to judge?"
This cleverly constructed protective shield is now crumbling because Mrs. Clinton, after enlisting her husband on the campaign trail in a retread of 1992's "two for the price of one" deal, is oblivious to the political ground shifting beneath her.
Republican candidate Donald Trump does not play by anybody else's rules, least of all Clinton-enforced ones, but apparently no one has informed Mrs. Clinton. So she gleefully and blindly launched an attack on his "penchant for sexism."
You could almost see Mr. Trump's rhetorical gun turret turn slowly toward her before he opened fire. "Be careful," he warned on Twitter. And then, on MSNBC, he blasted her husband as "one of the great women abusers of all time," adding, "I think Hillary is an enabler." He then released an Internet ad tying her to the sex scandals of her husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner (husband of her closest aide, Huma Abedin) and Bill Cosby.
He dared to go where no traditional politician would -- hitting the Clintons' grotesque hypocrisy -- and made it acceptable to question both Clintons' character and judgment on women's issues. Suddenly, Mrs. Clinton -- self-styled champion of women and girls -- came under criticism, particularly from news organizations such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, MSNBC and others that have long protected both Clintons.