Gerson in Good Op-Ed Shocker

Though someone should have redlined this doozy —

Obama is the soaring candidate — the candidate of idealism and aspiration. Clinton’s only hope is to bring him down to earth, then bury him in flying dirt.

— the better to focus on stuff like this:

It is Clinton who carries the heaviest burden of the past — who must defend her years of service as a golden era. She is the most backward-looking candidate of either party — the closest there is to an incumbent in the 2008 election. This could allow a smart Republican to wear at least a portion of the mantle of change. […]

Clinton prefers a war of attrition — blow for bloody blow — because her team is better at the tactics of politics. Unable to inspire, Clinton chooses to destroy.

It continues to stun me how increasingly okay everyone is with the status of remarks like these as facts. Which indeed they are. Yes, Republicans — of any and every stripe — say them out loud out of reflex. But Democrats know it too. And they’re starting to talk. But, disturbingly, the rotten truth about the Clintons actually seems to have moved from being “just, like, your opinion, man” to being merely factual, something else people can put “Hey, just because” in front of before endorsing Hillary Clinton. Gerson’s work against that kind of derangement deserves a cheer, regardless of whether someone can be trapped under the ground by dirt that flies above it.