According to science, there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. Nothing can run forever with no input. There are laws of thermodynamics that prevent it.
But the American media is not composed of scientists.
You start with the assumption that Hillary Clinton is corrupt. …
And if she's corrupt, then we definitely need to investigate her. Virtually everything she does is suspect. Any mistake she makes can't simply be an accident or a lapse in judgment; there must be some criminal intent behind it. It doesn't matter how many millions of taxpayer dollars or thousands of man-hours it takes in FBI investigations and congressional hearings. No price is too high.
And when you investigate endlessly, you find evidence. ...
And with all that suspicious evidence, the conclusion is clear: Hillary Clinton is corrupt. And if she's corrupt, we have to investigate her. And if we investigate her, we'll uncover evidence. And if we find evidence, it must be suspicious. So she must be corrupt. So we have to investigate her.
How much information did the FBI release on Friday related to Hillary Clinton? None. How much media energy did it unleash? Enough to shove the planet out of orbit. What will it take to do it again? Nothing at all.
With zero information about what is in those e-mails, zero information about any connection to Clinton, zero new allegations of wrongdoing, the Times and much of the media treated this story with the kind of wall-to-wall coverage usually reserved for the first moon landing.
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As I’m writing, CNN is on telling me that “the emails are still voters’ highest concern.” And the reason would be … what? Can anyone name a way in which the nation, the State Department, or a single individual was harmed by Hillary Clinton’s having a private email server? Was a single policy disturbed because Clinton failed to spot a ‘c’ lurking in the text of an email? It’s an important and terrible thing because it’s an important and terrible thing.
Meanwhile, we have a candidate for president who is actually under investigation, right now, today, for his possible collusion with the Russian government. A candidate who has scheduled court dates for fraud and deception related to his fake university. A candidate who, a month after the election, will appear in court to face allegations that he raped a 13-year-old child. That same candidate repeatedly broke the law with his fake charity, while cheating workers, stiffing contractors, and sneering at tax payers. That same candidate bragged—bragged—that his wealth and fame gave him the power to treat women however he wanted, including engaging in sexual assault without consequences.
There are real issues in the election. Issues of the economy, of immigration, and education. Issues of just how willing this nation is to veer toward a white nationalist who every single day of the campaign has waved a banner of racism, bigotry, and misogyny.
But all of that … is barely a whisper. A whisper. Because the machine is running. Still running. Ever running.
If you start with the assumption that Clinton is corrupt, then of course Comey's letter is the biggest story of the election. After all, even if the FBI hasn't reviewed the e-mails (the agency only just obtained a warrant to do so), there must be something in them: They're e-mails, and we know there's something wrong with Clinton's e-mails, because we keep hearing about how her e-mails are connected to some grave scandal. If nothing else, it raises questions. Certainly a shadow is looming over her campaign.
Donald Trump's campaign rallies are full of (deplorable) people shouting "lock her up," but none of them seem able to describe exactly what she's done to deserve a prison term, beyond conspiratorial nonsense. Clinton should be in jail because she's corrupt, and we know she's corrupt because we keep investigating her for corruption, the thinking goes.
There must be a pony. Dig! There must be a pony. Dig! There must be ...
This is how the Clinton Outrage Cycle works: assumption follows intimation follows accusation, and then it starts all over again. If only the facts – the sometimes boring but very real facts – of these scandals got half as much attention.