This announcement actually came out almost a week ago, arriving with little fanfare or notice, given all the other global events which were unfolding. The archivists for the Clinton Library sent notice that they were preparing to release a “huge trove or records” (as Politico put it) relating to Hillary Clinton’s policy work during her time as First Lady in Bill Clinton’s White House. The descriptions here beggar the imagination and probably overshadow the fact that they will just coincidentally be coming out just when Hillary’s expected POTUS run is kicking into high gear.

A massive collection of documents related to Hillary Clinton’s policy work as first lady is set to go public this spring, just as her expected campaign to return to the White House could be ramping up.

The more than 180,000 pages of records come largely from the files of Clinton’s policy advisers in her husband’s White House and cover topics such as welfare, equal pay, family leave, civil rights, race, poverty and health care reform.

While many Clinton Library records have been released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the massive new batch was reviewed on the initiative of the library’s professional archivists as part of what the National Archives calls “systematic processing.”

Specific documents which are obtained through a FOIA request may, on occasion, prove interesting. When the library voluntarily sifts through everything they have, selects all the goodies which pertain to Hillary and then dumps them out into the public just in time for her campaign kickoff, that’s just part of the political circus. None of that, however, is why I am bothering to even note this “news item” today.

This has been a thorn in my paw for roughly a quarter of a century and it’s not going away any time soon. From 1992 until 2000, it is very true that Hillary Clinton’s address was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. Her “position” (if we must use that term) was as the First Lady of the United States. This is a strictly ceremonial “position” which American’s tolerate as part of our ancestral love of a certain amount of pomp and circumstance, likely a genetic memory hangover from our forebears in England. The First Lady has no official “duties” when it comes to legislation or policy, foreign or domestic, and the running of the United States government. There is a very simple reason for this.

Nobody has ever cast a vote to elect the First Lady.

The fact that Hillary Clinton was ever involved in what became known as “Hillary-care” back int he 90’s was offensive in every sense of the word. No matter how “unofficial” you choose to describe it, when it became obvious that she was exercising any measure of influence or control in the process of crafting United States policy in healthcare, somebody should have been going on trial. The First Lady can not be allowed any place in such a process because the American people have no recourse to remove her from that “job” if we don’t like her performance. I might mention this again:

Nobody has ever cast a vote to elect the First Lady.

And now we are to be treated to tens of thousands of documents – of unspecified classification – which deal with “Hillary Clinton’s policy work” as it relates to subjects of presidential debates including welfare, equal pay, family leave, civil rights, race, poverty and health care reform. I’m sorry, but precisely what “policy work” are you talking about? There was no policy work to be done because the woman had no job and had no authority to be in any way involved in any “policy work” on behalf of the American people.

Nobody has ever cast a vote to elect the First Lady.

If the Clinton library wants to release a bunch of Hillary’s personal letters sent to friends, excerpts from her diary or recordings of her gabbing with her friends at parties, by all means feel free. They are her opinions and she was entitled to them at the time just the same as any other citizen. But if there are any documents in there which include letters, memos or other correspondence back and forth with legislators, staffers or cabinet members providing instructions – direct or indirect – regarding American policy and legislation, then by all means get those out to us as soon as possible. (You can see a general description of the list of these documents in Attachment A of this document.) And if they exist, hearings should begin at once to get to the bottom of exactly how deeply involved the First Lady was in these processes, and somebody had better be dragged before the wheel and held accountable. Why?

Because nobody has ever cast a vote to elect the First Lady.