Flash back to September 2016, and let’s revisit a rumor that circulated widely in certain circles. It has been recounted so many times that it serves almost as a bedtime story for the Right. The scene: it’s the first joint appearance between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton—the Commander-in-Chief Forum sponsored by NBC—and it has just finished. Backstage, the now-disgraced moderator Matt Lauer is waiting to shake hands with the former first lady— but, instead, he is confronted by a furious Clinton and her entourage.
What faux pas had he committed? Apparently, Lauer had asked Clinton a question about her illegal email server that she was not prepared to answer, a question that she had not pre-approved.
According to the NBC insider who witnessed the scene, Clinton “proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and threw it at the face of her assistant and the screaming started.” She then lost her temper and began shouting at her staff. “You f —ing idiots, you were supposed to have this thing set up for me and you’ve screwed it up! If that f—ing bastard wins we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished…and if I lose it’s all on you ass—-s for screwing this up.”
This is a fantastic scene, one which would be hard to believe, if Clinton had not spent most of 2017 whining about her loss in assorted public forums, and blaming everyone but herself. The American public now understands that profanity-laced displays of manic rage are perfectly in keeping with the character of the former first lady so aptly nicknamed “Lady Macbeth” by a portion of the press. What makes this tirade so interesting, of course, is the dire prophecy that a Trump presidency would see Hillary and her gang not just humiliated or defeated but hanging by nooses—that is, presumably executed for treason.
Our Dumb Intelligence Community
Fast forward to 2018, and the scene now makes perfect sense. A growing segment of the American public now knows that the country’s intelligence community was spying on the Trump campaign, and then attempting to sabotage the Trump Administration with false allegations of “Russian collusion.” That’s #Spygate in a sentence.