Quickies: And Therefore?

     “And therefore?” is one of my favorite skull-crushers. He who presents a chain of evidence and logic to you, a vector clearly pointed at a preferred conclusion, and then waits in silence for your reaction, is often awaiting something specific from you: that you draw a particular inference from his representations and act on it. Yet he refrains from stating that implication overtly, which you might think would be a harmless “assistance” to those a bit slower on the uptake than is he. Why?

     There are two common reasons. The first is that should you succeed in reaching his implication on your own, you’re more likely to invest in it emotionally than if he were to present it to you fully formed. People are like that: we trust the products of our own minds more than those of others. The second one is of greater import: he may have presented an incomplete or slanted case to you, and is hoping that you’ll act before you can discover what he’s omitted or distorted. In the aftermath he’ll have some justification for self-exculpation: “It’s not my fault that you weren’t diligent enough.”

     So I like to compel such a speaker to “complete the journey” with a casual “And therefore?” It has a good record for forcing hidden motives out into the light. Also, the sputtering it produces can often be quite amusing.

     Which brings us to this piece cited at Doug Ross’s place. It’s quite compact, so please read it to the end. It’s as pointed as any prosecutor’s case for the deliberate anticipatory obstruction of justice could be. The facts it asserts are all well verified. Nor can I differ honestly with its “intermediate implications,” such as the one it invites us to reach in step 6:

     And what definition of "personal" did Clinton employ? Did it include emails with foreign actors regarding donations to the Clinton Foundation? Were those purged as "personal"?

     However, when we get to the end, we’re left hanging. What should follow from the above? What would the unnamed author like us to do? Indeed, what is possible under current legal and political circumstances?

     Is it even imaginable that the Obama Administration's Justice Department would pursue a case against Hillary Rodham Clinton? The Democrat Party’s sole hope of continuing its hold on the White House for another four years?

     The case the unnamed author presents has been in public view for many months. There’ve been Congressional inquiries into them, and threats of Congressional subpoenas to Clinton and anyone else plausibly involved in the actions described. Nothing has happened. The passage of time has allowed the steam to leak out of the affair, such that there’s little public sentiment with which to propel further investigation or action. The Obamunists’ tactic of “running out the clock” with delays and deflections has worked once again. Scant surprise in that; it worked for Eric Holder, too.

     And therefore?