FBI’s Clinton smear campaign is no surprise — and has weird echoes of the ’90s

[DonViejo]

It's disgusting that the FBI is trying to tilt the election to Trump with sleazy tactics; it's also nothing new

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

For those who have been following the fraught relationship between the FBI and Hillary Clinton for a couple of decades, the revelations that rank-and-file agents are selectively leaking like a sieve in hopes of derailing her campaign in favor of Donald Trump comes as no big surprise. If there is such a thing as an institutional memory, then the FBI has one with an antipathy for Hillary Clinton that’s downright pathological.

The fact that the selective leaking for maximum effect hadn’t started earlier should have tipped us old-timers off that they were planning a late surprise. Having the FBI director himself send a vague letter filled with innuendo and suspicion to GOP House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz was a nice touch, though. It got the final week’s smear campaign off to a roaring start.

It’s now taken as a given by a large portion of the country that Hillary Clinton will be indicted for … something. But again, what else is new? During the witch hunts of the 1990s, the right’s goal was to drive Bill Clinton from office one way or the other. They first planned to destroy his reputation and turn him out of office after his first term, which didn’t work. Then they tried to get him to resign and finally impeached him over a consensual sexual affair. but failed to convict him, mostly because his approval ratings were sky-high. Then the American people punished the Republicans at the polls instead of the president. Throughout all that, theyalso pursued the First Lady with a shocking viciousness. From the moment she came to Washington, Hillary Clinton was loathed by the right with such intensity it was frightening. While they fully intended to chase Bubba out of town, their intention from the beginning was to throw Hillary Clinton behind bars.

Then, as today, there was a Republican FBI director, Louis Freeh, allowing his agents to run wild whispering in the ears of willing reporters that an indictment was imminent. And there were always reporters willing to breathlessly report the scoop. Take for example, New York Times columnist and former Nixon henchman William Safire, in January 1997:

BATON ROUGE, La. (CNN) — Hillary Clinton will be indicted on Whitewater charges but not convicted, according to a prediction by the first lady’s preeminent press antagonist. New York Times columnist William Safire, who last January called the first lady a “congenital liar,” conjectured Thursday in a speech before the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry that Mrs. Clinton would face charges but that the president “will not give her a pardon. Instead, he will let the wheels of justice turn and sit by her in the courtroom, holding her hand when appropriate.”

That was just one of many occasions when Safire “reported” erroneously that the indictment was coming down any day.

-snip-

http://www.salon.com/2016/11/04/fbis-clinton-smear-campaign-is-no-surprise-and-has-weird-echoes-of-the-90s/

[C_U_L8R]

1. It's had a long time to simmer

and certainly has that over-ripe stink of Republican mendacity