How Secret Is Hillary's Secret?

Nate Silver had her at 50/50.

Specifically, he thought that Hillary Clinton’s chances of being the next president were about 50%.

For my part I thought the likelihood was considerably less, though that might very well have been wishful thinking.

After Jonathan Chait declared that Hillary was likely to win, Megan McArdle wrote a detailed analysis, showing why Hillary was anything but inevitable.

Like Silver, McArdle suggested that reading the present as a mere recurrence of the past was a mistake.

One understands that pundits like Chait are not merely reporting the news. They are trying to influence public opinion. People like to side with winners. If more people believe that Hillary will win they will be more likely to vote for her.

But, hold the presses. The National Enquirer has just published a story suggesting that Hillary wanted her emails on a private server because they contained potentially embarrassing information about her lesbian lovers. (Via Instapundit)

Having to choose between revealing the names of her lovers--and even the content of their correspondence-- and taking a public relations hit for deleting the emails, Hillary chose the latter.

Anyone who feels tempted to dismiss the Enquirer as tabloid trash should first put in a call to John Edwards.

According to The Enquirer everyone knows that Hillary prefers women to men as love interests. Of course, it’s one thing to know in the abstract. It’s quite another to know the specifics, beginning with the names.

The Enquirer writes:

Hillary Clinton isn’t just caught in a political scandal over her missing emails from her stint as secretary of state – she’s also terrified of personal revelations about a secret lesbian lifestyle!

Now a world-exclusive investigation by The National ENQUIRER reveals that some of the presidential candidate’s famously “deleted” emails are packed full of lesbian references and her lovers’ names.

“I don’t think she’s so concerned about emails referring to her as secretly gay,” said a Clinton insider. “That’s been out for years – her real fear is that the names of some of her lovers would be made public!”

The ENQUIRER learned the list of Hillary’s lesbian lovers includes a beauty in her early 30s who has often traveled with Hillary; a popular TV and movie star; the daughter of a top government official; and a stunning model who got a career boost after allegedly sleeping with Hillary. 

Even though stories about Hillary’s sexuality have been widely reported, how many people really know them? How many people really want to think that Bubba is Hillary’s beard?

One suspects that many people dismiss these stories as malicious gossip, planted by the vast right wing conspiracy. If the stories have not appeared in the mainstream media—and they have not— most people are more likely to remain skeptical.

When the nation was forced to face the details of the sexual predations of Bill Clinton, people tended to blame the messenger. Most people did not want to know what Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were doing. Their revulsion at having to think about the details trumped any concern about his lies.

More strangely still, when Juanita Broaddrick came forth on NBC to claim that Bill Clinton had raped her, most people did not believe her or did not care.

If one is inclined to say that the mainstream media buried the story, the truth is that NBC, a major media outlet, ran an hour’s worth of Broaddrick telling what happened to her.

On the other hand, those who have granted themselves the power to speak up for oppressed women—the feminist sisterhood—had nothing to say about Bill Clinton’s history of abusing women.

If the feminists didn’t care, why would anyone else?

Perhaps Americans were feeling prosperous and believed that such behavior was understandable, given who Bill Clinton was married to. Or perhaps, in an increasingly decadent culture, they were willing to grant him what the French call: droit de cuissage.

The question is: are they willing to grant the same rights to Hillary Clinton?

Or would they prefer not knowing?

But, if the stories are true, why hide them? Haven’t we all learned by now that there is nothing shameful in loving whomever you please? If the media hides the stories, doesn’t that suggest that it ought to be hidden?

Obviously, Hillary’s defenders will say that she needed to keep it all a secret because of the nation’s rampant homophobia.

On the other hand, making the emails you exchange as a government official private and then destroying them is a larger problem. After all, should a government official have the right to delete the historical record in order to erase her amorous exchanges with Huma Abedin?