Brooks: Having a Clinton ‘Reign’ Without ‘A Lot of Scandal’ Has No Precedent

On Friday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that “Having a reign of Clinton without a little — a lot of scandal bubbling around side” is something without historical precedent and “this election has descended into the realm of Kardashianville.”

Brooks said, “[W]e’re not going to know the substance of it by Election Day. Whatever emails were in there, whatever they’re investigating, it’s hard to believe we’ll have some actual knowledge. But it brings ]former Representative] Anthony Weiner (D-NY) back to the surface. And the argument that Republicans could make with a lot of justices, welcome to the next four years of your life. Having a reign of Clinton without a little — a lot of scandal bubbling around side is just not something we have any historical precedent for. And so, this is just another. And who you hang around with and who you associate with is going to come back to haunt you. And it’s almost perverse, in the way we’ve come down to sex scandals, and the way this election has descended into the realm of Kardashianville. But we’re here. And so I do think a lot of voters will think, there’s just scandal on both sides. It’s just all sleazy. And that is not the substance of what we have learned today, but that’s the atmospherics of it.”

He added, “[T]his gets to ‘Entertainment Tonight.’ It gets to every comedian. It gets to the National Enquirer. It gets out to the group of people who are, as they say, not information-rich voters, who are the ones who are actually deciding. And a lot of their decision is, I really don’t like this Donald Trump guy, but — so I’ve got to vote for Clinton. But then they get this news about Clinton. And they’re just going on their moral instincts, and it begins to look like parity of sleaze.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett