By Editorial Board
Chicago Tribune
For months, Democrats have been watching the GOP presidential primaries with a mixture of amazement and glee, as Republicans went through the process of chaining themselves to an egotistical bully with a disdain for facts and a penchant for statements seemingly designed to alienate major voting blocs. Victory was assured. Democrats only had to ponder how big their triumph over the unelectable Donald Trump would be: Big enough to capture states that have been Republican strongholds, such as Arizona and Georgia? Big enough to deliver Democratic control of the Senate — or even the House? Big enough to cause a fatal splintering of the Republican Party?
Now, Democrats are waking up to the possibility that they are the ones flirting madly with disaster. Hillary Clinton‘s flaws, once considered politically inconsequential, have been steadily magnified by campaign scrutiny and official investigations. Those flaws now loom bigger than Mount Rushmore. Last week’s report by the inspector general of the State Department made clear that in relying exclusively on a private email server as secretary of state, she violated department policy, put security in danger and lied about what she had done.
It is a thoroughly damning document — all the more so because the inspector general who submitted it, Steve Linick, was appointed by President Barack Obama. Anyone groping to excuse Clinton’s conduct eventually has to face the stark, infuriating fact: What she did served no purpose beyond letting her selfishly evade the rules and accountability demanded of everyone else. Her failure to cooperate with the inspector general’s inquiry, at the department she led, iced the cupcake.
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