She did this without the public hand-wringing of Barack Obama when he reluctantly embraced his super PAC, which happened at a later point in his 2012 re-election effort.

She did this because Jeb Bush and other potential Republican rivals were either doing or poised to do this.

And she did this, no doubt, because of the Koch brothers and their political network’s stated goal of raising and spending nearly $1 billion on behalf of Republicans during this election cycle. For Democrats, “the Koch brothers” is at once a wholly legitimate motivation and an all-purpose exoneration, a boogeyman both real and handy, permitting all manner of mischief by everybody else. True, I’m vacuuming up money like an Electrolux on Adderall. But in a Koch-ian context, I’m a sputtering Dustbuster.

Democrats tell themselves that they have a ways to go before they sink as low as Republicans do. Republicans tell themselves that none of their machinations rival the venal braid of conflicting interests and overlapping agendas in the Clintons’ messy world.

The Clintons tell themselves that their assiduous enrichment since the end of Bill’s presidency still doesn’t put them in a league with the fat cats whom they’ve met and mingled with, and that they earned their wealth rather than inheriting or shortchanging shareholders for it.

Other politicians tell themselves that if the Clintons are lapping at the trough so rapaciously, surely they’re entitled to some love and lucre of their own.

When it comes to money, almost everybody looks up — not down or sideways — to determine how he or she is doing and what he or she might be owed. There’s always someone higher on the ladder and getting a whole lot more, always someone who establishes a definition of greed that you fall flatteringly short of.