In a spectacular ballet of aggressive misogyny, attacks on Clinton's femaleness masquerading as critiques of Clinton's policies and campaign failures (separate altogether from legitimate critiques of Clinton's policies and campaign failures), and indifference to the former, the liberal blogosphere - once a proud conglomeration of feisty challengers to Republican memes - embraced as its own one of the most pernicious strategies of the 1990s anti-Clinton conservatives.

And they didn't stop there.

In a complete 180-degree turn, the same members of the left who had once defended Clinton against the attacks of the right wing - the trumped-up scandals and dug-up dirt that led to endless hours and millions upon millions of dollars wasted in fruitless investigations of the Clintons, their business dealings, their friends, not to mention the peculiar features of Bill's twig and berries - adopted the frames of those attacks as their own. Everything old was new again. Call it political retro chic.

All obvious, to anyone who lived through it.