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Jon Henke is justifiably irate about a bit of bad – actually, ‘abjectly piss-poor’ would be a better term – ‘reporting’ that Newsmax tried to foist off about Senator Hillary Clinton.

Here’s what Newsmax had to say for itself:

Sen. Hillary Clinton said this week that Iraqi women were better off under Saddam Hussein, arguing that when the brutal dictator ran the country women were at least assured the right to participate in Iraq’s public life.

In comments that went unreported by the mainstream press, the former first lady told the Brookings Institution on Wednesday that since Saddam’s removal from power, Iraq’s postwar governing councils had engaged in “pullbacks in the rights [women] were given under Saddam Hussein.”

Sen. Clinton noted that while Saddam had been “an equal opportunity oppressor,” women were at least assured certain constitutional guarantees.

While ignoring reports about the brutal dictator’s rape rooms and other forms of persecution that were routine for women under his regime, Sen. Clinton insisted: “On paper, women had rights.”

And for Iraqi women, those paper promises translated into real benefits, she claimed.

“They went to school, they participated in the professions, they participated in the government and business and, as long as they stayed out of [Saddam’s] way, they had considerable freedom of movement,” Clinton insisted.

This is the actual paragraph (Jon used MSNBC; I accessed the Brookings Institute speech that Newsmax grudgingly provided)

We also have to do more on women’s rights and roles. And I have been deeply troubled by what I hear coming out of Iraq. When I was there and met with women members of the governing councils and local–of the national governing councils and local governing councils in Baghdad and Kirkuk, they were starting to express concerns about some of the pullbacks in the rights that they were given under Saddam Hussein. He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper women had rights; they went to school; they participated in the professions; they participated in government; and business and, as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of movement.

Jon was unimpressed by this sort of egregious, barefaced nonsense: so am I. Clinton-bashing, like a great many other things, should have been discarded as yet another piece of pre-9/11 self-indulgence. This is the real world, the modern world, and in the real and modern world Senator Clinton has been demonstrating a responsible and influential Democratic voice in the field of foreign policy. Her recent activities have convinced me that she understands how to properly criticize the current Administration while remaining a member of the Loyal Opposition. She’s not the anti-Christ; she’s a politician with more than a hint of cold-bloodedness to her. I doubt I’ll ever have her over for tea, but evil she is not.

And, yes, I am aware that the Other Side’s throwing muck just as enthusiastically. That’s their moral dilemma, not mine.