“It’s never as simple and humdrum as being for or against the Clintons”

…it’s different from politics as usual. It’s politics as a peculiar form of psychological torture, because the Clintons have a way — it’s their trademark — of being the best, most exciting vessel for people’s hopes even as they make those people feel icky about their investment in the couple.

It’s never as simple and humdrum as being for or against the Clintons. And while countless other politicians force supporters to make special allowances, stomach imperfections and come to terms with a tangle of good and bad, few do so on the Clintons’ operatic scale.

Frank Bruni, “Hillary the Tormentor”, The New York Times (7 June 2015), SR3.