ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Through the years one of my favorite sallies against the Clintons has been to refer to Hillary Clinton as “Bruno.” At times readers have asked, “Why do you call her Bruno?” It is because there has always been an atmosphere of thuggishness about her. Another way of putting it is that time and again she acts as though the rule of law does not pertain to her. For instance, on the matter of the many women who have willingly or unwillingly been pulled into her husband’s lubricious ambit. How many times have you read or heard a quote attributed to her where she vows to “crush” a woman whom Bill rutted with or to “crucify” her. One even reads such quotes in the mainstream media (MSM). Yet she is portrayed as a champion of women.

Just last week I read quotes full of menace from Hillary in The Washington Post and this week in the venerable New York Times. Were similar quotes ever attributed to Nancy Reagan or to any other first lady? But then none of those first ladies was married to Bill.

Now, of course, today the matronly Hillary is long past her prime as a plausible Bruno. As she breaks out in coughing spells, and has to be propped up at the lectern in her heavily cushioned pantsuits, it is easy for us to have forgotten the intimidating specter she struck for such woman as Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, the young Monica or even Juanita Broaddrick, who allegedly was raped by smiling Bill. Yet in decades past she was a highly volatile figure and, in fact, posed a threat to White House personnel. There are all those witnesses who have reported seeing her bean her husband or members of the Secret Service with a book or a lamp. I think even the loyal George Stephanopoulos reported her aggression.

As a matter of the public record, there is a catalogue of private investigators employed by her, and some of their exploits are even recorded. In fact, if elected, she will be the first presidential candidate ever to have hired private investigators to serve her ends en route to the White House. In the past weeks, both The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that she employed the services of a San Francisco private investigator, Jack Palladino, to harass and vilify Gennifer Flowers when she appeared on the scene in the early 1990s. But there were others.

I have listed the names and adventures of three more private investigators employed by Hillary in my 2007 book, “The Clinton Crack-Up; The Boy President’s Life After the White House.” I find it curious that neither newspaper mentioned these fellows. Maybe the mistake is innocent. Possibly, the newspapers put too much trust in Carl Bernstein, whose book on Hillary they both cited. For some reason he only mentions Mr. Palladino, though I know from my sources that he was aware of the other investigators and even called one or two of them. People cut a lot of corners when covering the Clintons, eh Carl?

Yet maybe it is not so innocent. Based just on what I have written about the employment of these investigators, Hillary’s claim to be a champion of women is very much in doubt. In fact, their employment makes it evident that she has enabled Bill’s goatishness.

In the early 1980s in Arkansas, Hillary hired Ivan Duda to collect the names of Bill’s women, not to prepare for a divorce as some thought. Rather it was to prepare, as Mr. Duda told me, “for any charges that might come up” regarding scandal in Bill’s forthcoming election campaign. Then there is the Los Angeles investigator, Anthony Pellicano, who helped the Clintons in their efforts at intimidation in the 1992 election and was tapped again to quiet down Monica in 1998. Hillary is particularly skittish about Anthony because he is spending time in the big house for possession of military-grade plastic explosives and hand grenades. Finally there is Mr. Palladino, who has been paid handsomely for his duties, and also Terry Lenzner, about whom I know very little, save that I think he was a football player.

I can well understand why Hillary would want to keep hidden away all these sleuths and their unfortunate targets. Her complicitous MSM might, too. Yet why did she bring forward at her debate with Donald Trump the name of Alicia Machado, and why was her campaign so eager that Alicia be booked all over television ever since? Possibly, Donald did make an unseemly reference to her weight 20 years ago when she was in his Miss Universe contest. Or possibly, that was his job. But since then, Alicia has been engaged in criminal behavior, soft porn and possibly hard porn. Now she is a spokeswoman for Hillary. I guess having a porn queen representing Hillary’s campaign is just one more sign of the Clintons’ debasement of America. Apparently, the MSM does not mind being part of this debasement.

• R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is author of “The Death of Liberalism,” published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

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