She's done.

The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary's history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther — and goes much deeper — than anyone realizes.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy's chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation — one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman's 17-year career.

Done? Well, no, not really. Were she a Republican she would be finished, and she certainly ought to be through, but the Clintons have the most remarkable ability to brush past scandal, to have their flaws overlooked. I can't think of anyone (with the exception of Ted Kennedy) who has more personal baggage and yet retains political viability.

If the story ever breaks into the mainstream media in a big way (and there's certainly no guarantee of that happening; Google News has five, count them, five listings for "Zeifman Clinton" at this writing — though the Obama Fan Club mainstream media might break it open, I suppose) some small number of people will be convinced to not support her, and many more will have their notions of her character confirmed... but the Democrat race to the convention will go on. She may be a liar, but she's not a quitter.

It's probable that Hillary!'s defenders will either declare this story to be old news and not relevant, or will call her former boss Zeifman a liar. Both tactics have been successfully employed before, having been swallowed — hook, line and sinker — by the Clinton partisans.

If, by some miracle, she gains the nomination, we can expect the story to be buried, or the Democrats' allies in the media will go on the attack on Clinton's behalf.

But then, I'm not telling anyone anything they don't already know.

Posted by Russ at 04:29 PM, April 2, 2008 in Politics