Cue the all-out media assault on Hillary Clinton

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What else is new?

As of course you know, if you pay even the slightest attention to American politics, and probably even if you don't, Hillary Clinton is running for president. She just hasn't announced it yet.

But the announcement is coming soon. Perhaps very soon.

And so you know what's coming, right? Not just an escalation of the Republican assault on Hillary, Bill, and all things Clinton, but a media hit job as well.

And I'm not just talking about the usual suspects over on the right-wing noise machine. No, it's the "lamestream" media, so much itself the target of cynical right-wing attacks, that will be right in the middle of this all-out assault, aiding and abetting Republicans and their own media mouthpieces as they do everything they can to bring the Clintons down and derail Hillary's frontrunning campaign, much as they did back in the '90s when they did everything they could to derail Bill's presidency.

Not that this will be much of a change. The anti-Clinton campaign has been in swing for some time now, and one could argue that it's been going on for many years now. But the swing will turn full.

And, indeed, it has already begun. Cue Politico, of course:

The Secret Lives of Hillary and Bill in the White House

Broken lamps, shouting matches, sneaking away to the pool—and other scenes from the Clinton residence during the Lewinsky scandal.

Read it for yourself, if you must, but I assure you it's a shameless piece of sensationalistic gossip and hearsay, mostly quoting anonymous "domestics," household staffers, that seeks to tear down not just Bill and Hillary but Chelsea as well (who apparently called Secret Service agents "pigs," explaining that that's what her parents called them -- the article actually ends with that, as if there's nothing else to say, as if there's no other side to the story, as if there's no doubt that that happened and that the Clinton's are awful).

But I would recommend avoiding it, because it's nothing new, this hit job, and if you pay even the slightest attention to American politics leading up to the 2016 election you'll no doubt hear much more just like it, such is, and will be, the seeming ubiquity of the effort to destroy Hillary.

It may be the surest thing, even surer than Hillary winning the Democratic nomination, of the 2015-16 Crazy Season.