It’s worth checking in, now and then, on developments in the criminal investigation of Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, if only for the fun of imagining how the story would be playing differently if Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice were in the exact same situation as Clinton for an election coming up at the end of the Bush presidency.  Here’s Andrew McCarthy expressing a sort of disbelief at the details of the scandal:

So egregious have the scandal’s latest developments been that a critical State Department admission from last week has received almost no coverage: Eighteen e-mails between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama have been identified, and the government is refusing to disclose them.

The administration’s rationale is remarkable: Releasing them, the White House and State Department say, would compromise “the president’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel” from top government officials.

Think about what this means. Not only is it obvious that President Obama knew Mrs. Clinton was conducting government business over her private e-mail account, the exchanges the president engaged in with his secretary of state over this unsecured system clearly involved sensitive issues of policy. Clinton was being asked for “advice and counsel” — not about her recommendations for the best country clubs in Martha’s Vineyard, but about matters that the White House judges too sensitive to reveal.

The idea that Clinton is even considered a plausible candidate for the highest office in the country by many in her party’s establishment — including Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo — is mindboggling.  The idea that the news media isn’t constantly after the president to explain himself on this issue and (from what I understand) didn’t even bother to bring it up at a presidential debate is unbelievable.  Truly, it must be that nothing matters to these people more than power.