Hillary Clinton: officially skipping the foreplay

Hillary Clinton will, barring an unprecedentedly massive collapse, almost certainly be the Democrats' 2016 Presidential nominee. Usually at this point candidates, even prohibitive favorites, are still doing the little kabuki dance for the rank-and-file and the media boosters (for Democrats) to maintain the illusion that they really want to honor what those people want in order to get their support.

But Hillary isn't doing that. Hardly at all.

Sure, she's mouthing Lefty pieties about how the system is rigged, but she's not even trying to hide how much she and Bill have been involved in rigging it.

This past Friday, Hillary's campaign dumped a bunch of documents that show how much Hillary has been enriching herself personally -- not enriching herself indirectly through "donations" to the Clinton Foundation, but accepting six-figure gifts directly -- through massive gifts from companies that have pressing business before the government.

It's so bad that even Vox -- as reliably defensive a Liberal rag as there is -- can't stand it.

During Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, Corning lobbied the department on a variety of trade issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The company has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to her family's foundation. And last July, when it was clear that Clinton would again seek the presidency in 2016, Corning coughed up a $225,500 honorarium for Clinton to speak.

In the laundry whirl of stories about Clinton buck-raking, it might be easy for that last part to get lost in the wash. But it's the part that matters most. The $225,500 speaking fee didn't go to help disease-stricken kids in an impoverished village on some long-forgotten patch of the planet. Nor did it go to a campaign account. It went to Hillary Clinton. Personally.

The latest episode in the Clinton money saga is different from the others because it involves the clear, direct personal enrichment of Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate, by people who have a lot of money at stake in the outcome of government decisions. ...

There's a reason government officials can't accept gifts: They tend to have a corrupting effect. True, Hillary Clinton wasn't a government official at the time the money was given. But it is very, very hard to see six-figure speaking fees paid by longtime political boosters with interests before the government — to a woman who has been running for president since the last time she lost — as anything but a gift.

But Hillary knows the Dems have no other legitimate options. She's their only hope. So, no foreplay this time. No whispering sweet nothings to voters to maintain the illusion that she really respects them, and isn't using them at all. No wining and dining the media to help them pretend they aren't whoring themselves out for the Democratic candidate. She's taking their support for granted, and she isn't remotely ashamed of doing so.

"Straight to the action, please, sweetheart," you can almost hear Hillary saying. "I'm in a hurry."