Donald Trump’s fury over the Russia investigation has been channeled of late into a time-tested diversionary tactic, the “what-about” excuse. Even more time-tested is his use of the Clinton as the “what-about.”

If it’s not e-mails or the Clinton Foundation as a diversion, it’s never too late to talk about the Whitewater investigation by Special Persecutor Kenneth Starr, a dry hole until the Federalist elves put together the trap that caught Bill Clinton lying about sex after he’d become president, FOUR YEARS into Starr’s probe.

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Clinton and his supporters criticized Starr, no doubt. So, the story goes today, that’s just like Trump is criticizing his investigators. This laughable phony comparison is advanced today in draw-dropping fashion by Peter Baker of the New York Times,. More of the familiar story told by Gene Lyons. The Times served s Starr’s press agent because he so avidly pursued the shoddy work of the Times’ Jeff Gerth and others on what years of investigation proved was millions of ado about nothing. Until Monica came along.

Not that it matters to anyone whose mind is made up on either side — including the Clinton-obsessed New York Times, which found far greater significance in the wild speculation about some Hillary Clinton e-mail than about the manifest failures and corruption of Donald Trump’s career. Nonetheless, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has addressed the Starr-Mueller comparability issue in good fashion.

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Says Marshall:

The comparison between Trump-Mueller and Clinton-Starr is quite simply lazy, baseless and stupid.

He offers plenty of specifics. For example:

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Presidents never like prosecutors who investigate them. This is obvious and unremarkable. Republicans despised Lawrence Walsh in the 80s. Democrats villified Ken Starr in the 1990s. Neither President publicly threatened either man. Indeed, even President Nixon, who is considered by all today as the prototypical presidential malefactor, only demanded the firing of Archibald Cox well into his investigation. As much as his actions were illegitimate, he could at least point to specific and highly consequential actions and say they crossed some line. Mueller has not actually even done anything yet

.The writer James Fallows succinctly made the same point with his Tweet shown at top of the page. He added the one below for good context on the Times. Perhaps you can see why Trump still tries to curry their favor. (though he does himself no favors with his incoherent interviews.)

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