Did you even know, dear reader, that the U.S. bombed portions of Libya in the middle of February this year? The Obama administration is trying to contain the continuing disaster created by the Clinton-led intervention in Libya five years ago. Republicans, however, are plunged into their own civil war over The Donald, and have no time to point out that President Obama is still cleaning up after the mess Secretary Clinton made of his foreign policy. The Libyan state has crumbled, ISIS has moved in, gobbling up untold materiel from the ruins of the Gadhafi regime, neighboring countries like Mali have been severely destabilized, and the refugee crisis in Europe has been exacerbated by Libyan disorder…

Republicans could have had a lot of fun in this election cycle, pointing out how Hillary Clinton is now constantly rewriting the history of her husband’s administration on topics like same-sex marriage or financial reform. Republicans could be setting her up for fights with the intersectional left on gender politics. For a moment it looked like audience members at New Hampshire town halls were going to flambé her on the incredibly shabby treatment meted out to her husband’s paramours and those who claimed he had sexually assaulted them.

Hillary Clinton is still an astonishingly weak campaigner and candidate for president. And the supposedly “deepest field” in the history of Republican nominating contests should have produced a nominee capable of transitioning toward the case against Clinton by the middle of this month. In 2008, John McCain faced a Democratic nominee in Barack Obama who excited people’s hopes for the country, who had a short political record, and ran on high idealism. It was a near impossible task to defeat him given the record of George W. Bush. But this time Republicans had the chance to run against a nominee who can be easily covered in the muck of two Democratic administrations, someone who gives off the stench of high-handed corruption and unprincipled ambition.