Last week, Jay Nordlinger wrote:

I was once at a Hillary press conference — this was when she was preparing to run for the Senate. As far as I know, I’m the only person who has asked her, “Do you stand by your assertion that the charges against your husband stemmed from a ‘vast, right-wing conspiracy’?”

She said, “I’m not going back, I’m going forward,” as she jabbed her finger at the next questioner. No journalist ever followed up, to my knowledge. And Hillary took very, very few questions during that 2000 campaign. Nor did reporters seem all that eager to ask them.

And you recall what George Stephanopoulos did in Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. The Clintonites would duck tough or awkward questions, and, if reporters persisted, Stephanopoulos would say, “That has been asked and asked. We have dealt with that over and over. This is old, tired material. Do you want to embarrass yourself? Do you want to be a laughingstock?”

And the reporters would generally shut up. Stephanopoulos was right on one thing: The question — whatever it was — had been asked. It had just not been dealt with. I understand that George Stephanopoulos now works in journalism.

Consider 1998, 1999, when the Monica Lewinsky scandal was in bloom. President Clinton essentially decided not to meet the press. When he did meet with them — the very few times — he would have some other head of state alongside him. This would be a joint press conference, or photo-op, or what have you. The thinking was that reporters wouldn’t dare ask about a sex-and-perjury scandal in the presence of another head of state — especially a super-dignified one, such as Nelson Mandela.

And has Clinton ever been asked about his anti-terror policies? I recall that Chris Wallace did: and Clinton merely exploded at him, and pretended to be persecuted — pretended that Wallace was acting as a Republican tool. Also said something about Rupert Murdoch and global warming.

It was the most bizarre episode — but classically Clintonian.

Before the blogosphere, Bill Clinton's "I opposed the Iraq war from the start" would have gotten limited coverage from a press corps not eager to point out his... well, lies. Today, with the Clintons taking flak from both the left and the right, his statement becomes a much bigger story. It ain't 1992 anymore, or even 2000; it's not clear Team Hillary understands that.