In May of 1871, William M. (“Boss”) Tweed ruled New York City through Tammany Hall, a Democratic Party Political Machine. (Some things never change.) His daughter had a lavish wedding that showcased his wealth.  Some estimate the value of the wedding gifts to be as much as $750,000 which would be over $14 million today.  Tweed began wearing a 10 ½ carat diamond stickpin.  Although Tweed was hopeless corrupt and everyone knew he was hopelessly corrupt, no scandal seemed to touch him.  That was about to change.

It all started with an event that meant almost nothing at the time.  The man who kept the books for Tammany hall was killed in Central Park.  Tammany Hall was too slow to realize the threat and under cover reporters managed to get their hands on crucial documents.  The main stream media began to report on this and the corruption became too well documented to ignore.  But even this wasn’t enough to take down Tweed.  What finally turned the tide was a parade.  New York City had a lot of Irish, most of which were Catholic but there were also a lot of Irish Protestants.  They didn’t exactly like each other.  In previous years when the Orange (Protestant) Irish tried to have a parade the Green (Catholic) Irish attacked them.  The Orange wanted to have another parade and Tammany Hall reluctantly agreed.  It was a hot mess with over 60 people killed.  That ultimately was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.  It turned out that the Democrats of the time were willing to overlook some corruption, but they weren’t willing to overlook riots and chaos.  In other words, it was the incompetence, not just the corruption that brought down Boss Tweed.

Keep this in mind when evaluating Hillary Clinton.  There is a parallel here.  In May 1871 everyone knew Tweed was hopeless corrupt but no one thought it would matter. They were wrong.  It is increasingly obvious that Hillary Clinton is hopelessly corrupt.  She is not only a pathological liar; she is a bad pathological liar.  For example the real question is not whether or not she is lying about trying to join the Marines.  It is why she would tell such a stupid story in the first place.

Democrats sure appear to be ready to ignore all this.  But corruption is not the only issue.  Our foreign policy under the Obama administration is a complete mess.  Now we have an airliner allegedly brought down by an ISIS bomb.  If the incompetence of this administration results in a significant terrorist attack in this country, Hillary could find herself floating to jail on the newest version of the River Tweed.  The River Tweed is very real and it can move faster than you think..

TDM