Good luck to the Trump fans waiting for Hillary to cough herself out of contention in the first debate.  If you're hoping it will be another "Deep Throat" moment – unstoppable by popping a lozenge – forget it.  Clinton will not be cowed by an irritating tickle in her vocal cords.  Even in the worst case scenario, she will use such an embarrassing episode to evoke sympathy and turn her adversary into the bad guy whose bullying provoked it.

It sometimes seems as though The Donald cannot win for losing.  Even if Her Heinous were to cough her bobbing head off and "lose" a crucial debate, she and her campaign crew would concoct an excuse to conceivably snatch victory from the hacking jaws of defeat.

Hillary Clinton wrote the book on excuses.  She is an acknowledged liar who has made a practice of blaming things on others.  And when she is caught red-handed, she expresses regret only to the extent that it might otherwise damage her political ambitions.  Now she says she is "sorry" about using a private email server, but she has never apologized for the real possibility of exposing her country to grave danger.  Instead, she reiterates her innocent desire for "convenience, " as though that were the most naturally justifiable expectation of a busy bloke.

Presuming innocence for her actions and reactions has become Hillary's modus operandi.  Toward the end of her time as first lady, she went on all the Sunday morning talk shows to intimate that a Republican "vast right wing conspiracy" had spread the false rumor of an affair between Bill and Monica Lewinsky as a means of bringing down his presidency. Incidentally, Bill Clinton used his longtime personal secretary, Betty Currie, as the link for his trysts, etc. with the young intern, further demonstrating his insensitive regard for women.

To this day, Hillary's accusations remain a falsehood for which she has expressed neither remorse nor apology.  Like so many other troubling things in the Clintons' long career in government, that episode has been conveniently dismissed as water under the political bridge.  In fact, it worked to Hillary's satisfaction in advancing her own career.  As a humiliated first lady reportedly "betrayed" by a philandering husband, she was able to generate sympathy in her 2000 bid to become a U.S. senator from New York State.  To her scheming credit, she successfully parlayed her husband's weakness into a display of her own strength.

At the same time, she used the gender card to perfection, particularly in the debates with her opponent, then-congressman Rick Lazio.  That "hot" and highly expensive senatorial contest was supposed to have been between Hillary and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.  But in the spring of the campaign, he withdrew amid reports of prostate cancer and marital woes.  His replacement was a young politician little known beyond his district on Long Island.  Pitted against Hillary's name recognition, experienced scheming, and deep pockets, he didn't have a chance.

And now, as the all-important presidential debates loom, what happened in the senatorial debates sixteen years ago has relevance.  Lazio was pretty aggressive with Hillary, demanding she sign a pledge to forego the soft money pouring into her campaign.  She, in turn, reacted like a stunned puppy whose space had been invaded by a brash whippersnapper.  And it worked!  That's because Hillary 's mean-spirited taunts against her opponents are more than matched by her studied pretense of defilement when the shoe is on the other foot.  More than ever, she will look for a pretense to pull off this act against an outspoken Trump.

Meanwhile, Hillary's prevarications and transfers of blame continue unchecked.  The fault for "wiping clean" her personal server has been laid at the doorstep of her "technical" team.  The use of her personal home-based server is blamed on advice from Colin Powell, who denies giving any.  Death and destruction in Benghazi, initially attributed to a third-rate YouTube video, is now "old news" not worth pursuing.  Any unresolved email problems are no longer her responsibility, but that of the State Department, with whom she is no longer affiliated.  And all accusations of "pay for play" between the Clinton Foundation and the former Madame Secretary are dismissed out of hand as sheer nonsense, cooked up by a deranged opponent behind in the polls.

All investigations into her suspect actions are brushed off as an attack from a hostile Congress, or in the case of Judicial Watch, the unbridled hatred of an organization that has been hounding the Clintons for years.  (And with good reason.)  The hundreds of millions of dollars amassed by the couple since they left the White House "dead broke" came to them, in Hillary's words, "by dint of hard work."  She says they have been "blessed." Indeed

Despite the fact that Ms. Clinton insists she is capable and competitive, she really doesn't anticipate a level playing field.  Instead, by virtue of her being a woman, she expects the field to be tilted in her favor.  This is obvious by the way she dishes out insults but cannot take them.  She has called Trump an unfit-for-office bigot, anti-Semite, misogynist, racist, hypocrite, and all-around hater.  But if he uses just one of those adjectives to describe her, she seethes with righteous indignation as only a hypocritical liberal can.

Interestingly enough, during Hillary's initial Senate run, she was dogged by some of the same issues that persist in her ultimate challenge today.  Then as now, she had unenviable disapproval ratings, higher than any of the preceding first ladies.  Even then, there was an active "ABC" movement: "Anybody but Clinton."  She was, as usual, plagued by scandals, from the inappropriate raising of funds to her policies on the Middle East and Israel.  It is interesting to note that in 2000, New York Jews, generally a major constituency, gave Hillary only 56% of the vote compared to presidential candidate Al Gore's 81%.

Yet despite the tall tales and the questionable practices, Hillary easily won the Senate race and re-election four years later.  Why is it so hard to make the legitimate charges stick?  Perhaps when she's putting on a public show of hugging her erstwhile husband, some of his magic Teflon rubs off on her.