Forget the words of TV sponsors, because no pitchman—not even a person from a fifth dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity, not even a host and narrator in the prime of his life—could convince a prime-time audience to enter the imagination of a political hack, who also coughs like a smoker, without telling viewers to drink beforehand.
In this land of shadows and no substance lurks a loser who sees conspirators everywhere, who sees the very people she says have popped up in other settings now conspiring with Russia to groom their latest asset, while she, the eulogist of a congressman she conflates with a prophet, compares the president to King Ahab and the first lady to Queen Jezebel.
Imagine the irony, then, of this woman (not that woman) being asked about a real news story on a fake news show.
Imagine the question as a chance to dispel notions of a setup. Imagine the guest answering the question by explaining the power of conspiracy theories, that suspicions of a cover-up often correspond to the reputation of the accused, that the accused does not have to be a criminal suspect to be a source of suspicion.
Imagine the guest also saying she is no more a murderess than she is an adulteress, that her answer is no, that some questions are wrong because they are too speculative, diversionary, and out of bounds.
Imagine the guest answering the question with the prudence of a head of state and the poise of a secretary of state.
Now, imagine Hillary Clinton laughing instead.