The overwrought e-mail scandal involving U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was always a flimsy rationale for trying to derail her historic candidacy.
Now the best hope her Republican opponent had of a summer surprise – a federal criminal indictment – has vanished. On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey took the unusual step of announcing that, after a probe of 30,000 Clinton e-mails, searching for breaches of government secrecy, the agency is not recommending charges.
It doesn't mean sanity is about to return to American political discourse. Those who live to despise Ms. Clinton – i.e., most of the Republican Party – screamed conspiracy. "The system is rigged," Donald Trump predictably proclaimed.
The truth is that the e-mails, like the manufactured Benghazi controversy, amount to far less than what Hillary haters choose to believe. Has any political family inspired as much irrational, white-hot loathing as the Clintons? Each failure to discover that Ms. Clinton is an international criminal mastermind merely inspires a new witch hunt.
Mr. Comey, a Republican appointed by a Democratic president, did say the investigation found evidence of "extremely reckless" behaviour on the part of Ms. Clinton and her aides, who used private e-mail servers. It might be a meaningful liability if the GOP candidate were anyone other than a man who redefines recklessness.
Polls show the American people view the election as a choice between two historically unpopular and distrusted candidates, the dissembling lifetime politician versus the race-baiting populist and serial stretcher of truths. Ms. Clinton has her faults, but in only one of these cases do the facts fully justify the reputation.