It is now clear that a finely-tuned plan to soften-up opposition to Hillary Clinton rolling into the Oval Office is being executed through willing proxies. Last week saw the “ban bossy” campaign launched by Hillary enthusiast Sheryl Sandberg with the assistance of a duped Condoleeza Rice, a transparent effort to delegitimize any comment about the former first lady’s imperious demeanor and behavior (she once commanded that military personnel assigned to the White House not look her in the face).

This week’s propaganda operation is being handled by Life Magazine, which is featuring a series of photos taken when Hillary Rodham was a graduating senior at Wellesley College. The photos are being positioned as “shot by LIFE magazine in 1969 as part of a feature on outstanding college students.”  A credulous Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post gushes over the photos as “so fascinating. It captures Clinton before she became ‘HILLARY CLINTON’” and “Hillary Clinton like you’ve never seen her before.”

But I was alive and also a graduating senior at the time, and remember well the treatment Hillary got, and why she got it. For one thing, the clown pants she wore seemed rather comical.  For another, LIFE Magazine was actually read by people back then. The real story: Hillary Rodham was allowed to give an address to the student body of Wellesley at commencement, and she ungraciously used the opportunity to attack the commencement speaker, Senator Ed Brooke, the first African American senator since Reconstruction and a Republican, over his support of the Vietnam War.

Naturally, neither Life Magazine nor Cillizza bothers to mention this impolite attack on a black man. Were the political parties reversed, imputations of racism would be highlighted, of course.

Hillary’s breach of etiquette was part of the coarsening of academic life brought about by the antiwar protestors, and heralded the takeover of the university system by the left. Hillary played a prominent role in this disastrous transformation.  But her friends in the media are per-emptively defining this away.

With this crowd, you can’t be cynical enough.