ANALYSIS/OPINION:

In a remarkably shameless appearance Sunday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told ABC News that “real questions are being raised” about whether Donald Trump “is just a puppet for the Kremlin in this race.” Young Mr. Mook, like many of his generation ignorant of the history of his country, should be in serious trouble. Accusing an opponent of treason would once have been an invitation to the dueling oaks at dawn, where Mr. Mook would be at fatal disadvantage. If you expect to return from the dueling oaks you should be able to shoot straight.

The reckless allegation recalls Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, another Democrat, standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate four years ago to accuse Mitt Romney of having paid no taxes for a decade. The political correspondents dutifully printed the Reid charges, without asking to see his evidence, of which Mr. Reid had none. All the “evidence” he had was that he had not seen Mr. Romney’s returns. He had made the whole thing up. He never apologized and continued to be a party hero, blinded by hateful partisanship.

Mr. Mook cannot produce evidence of treason by Mr. Trump, either, because there is none. All he has is more reckless accusation: “There’s a web of [Mr. Trump‘s] financial ties to the Russians that he refuses to disclose,” he says. “We now need Donald Trump to explain to us the extent to which the hand of the Kremlin is at the core of his own campaign.”

Mr. Mook and his candidate are swinging wildly at Mr. Trump. The Clinton campaign charges on one day that he’s dangerously unhinged and might get the nation into a war with Russia, and argues the next day that he’s actually an agent of Mr. Putin and the Kremlin. But Mr. Mook does not accuse Mr. Trump of being either unhinged or dangerously naive, but that he is a traitor. Sen. Joseph McCarthy established the standard of dirty politics in an earlier day, and he was eventually humiliated by Senate censure and driven from public life.

Mr. Mook is much smaller potatoes, but Hillary is not. He would hardly have made such an accusation without her knowledge and permission; perhaps it was Hillary’s own idea. If his only evidence is the sound of his voice, Hillary should sack him forthwith and send him to a job more suitable to his abilities, perhaps to empty wastepaper baskets or wash cars at the campaign motor pool. She should apologize for herself.

This will be a nasty campaign without Hillary making it nastier with wild accusation. The Clintons long ago established themselves as connoisseurs of the shabby and the shameless, collectors of operatives who will do anything to put the Clinton interests above decency, but this one is beyond the pale.

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