If you thought the reboot of the events leading up to the Great Penis Hunt of the 1990s was going to be incomplete, you can rest easily. With Captain Kangaroo in the House gearing up for his summerlong close-up, one might think that the buffet of nothingburgers would be somewhat limited. Surely, a prolonged examination of Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! would be enough to monkeywrench the presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton, as well helping to paralyze the adminstration sufficiently to slide past the midterms. Ah, but you have forgotten the ironclad rule of shiny phony scandals, established twenty years ago, and enabled by the important journalistic principle of Hey, It's Out There. After Whitewater, there is always Castle Grande. After Castle Grande, there are always cattle futures. After the cattle futures, there are always the billing records. After the billing records, there is always TravelGate. After TravelGate, there is always Vince Foster. After Fast and Furious, there's always the IRS. After the IRS, there is Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! After Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI!, there is...this.

(And what are you hiding, anyway?)

It's beginning again, because the next big scandal is going to be about the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria, and what will be framed as the allegedly inadequate response of the administration to the rising threat of the Boko Haram terrorist group, especially the allegedly inadequate response of the Department of State, Hillary Clinton, Secretary. And here it comes, from the Daily Caller, the scarecrow on which Tucker Carlson has hung the bloody entrails of his career.

(This is based on a somewhat more judicious account from the Daily Beast, which nonetheless is partly a farrago of anonymous backstabbing. "The one thing she could have done, the one tool she had at her disposal, she didn't use. And nobody can say she wasn't urged to do it. It's gross hypocrisy," said a former senior U.S. official who was involved in the debate. "The FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department really wanted Boko Haram designated, they wanted the authorities that would provide to go after them, and they voiced that repeatedly to elected officials." A former senior U.S. official who was "involved in the debate"? Really? Do better than that. There also are denunciations from "multiple GOP lawmakers," so that settles that. )

Newt Gingrich was so giddy about this new line of attack that he was merrily tweeting his demand for yet more "congressional hearings" into Clinton's handling of Boko Haram. And, of course, this also means that any future Democratic assertions of a "war on women" are hypocritical because na-na-na-boo-boo, no backsies. The flying monkeys are gathering thickly in the western sky. I put the odds of Newt's getting his wish at better than 50-50, especially since Darrell Issa's had his primary platform hijacked by Captain Kangaroo and his superfriends. (Of course, Issa's been busy criminalizing the Fifth Amendment, so he's probably grateful for a lighter workload.) Once the committee on Boko Haram is empaneled, we will be asked to believe that two simultaneous "investigations" into non-criminal conduct and into policy debates, both of which would seem to harm the unquestioned frontrunner for the 2016 presidential campaign are pure coincidental. That sells if you already have created the feeling that something is Out There. That's where we are now. The process is in full gear.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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