One of the inventors of "scorched earth politics" in the 1990's is complaining about Washington practicing "scorched earth politics."

Never mind - she's on a roll:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decried the "scorched-earth politics" that led to the government shutdown at a campaign event for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe on Saturday.

In her first explicitly political public event since becoming Secretary of State at the beginning of President Obama's first term, Clinton chided Republicans in Washington for operating in an "evidence-free zone where ideology trumps everything else."

Clinton said during her decades of public service, she had "seen leaders who are divisive and I've seen leaders who are unifiers," then decrying congressional Republicans as having displayed "the wrong type of leadership."

The Clintons are long-time friends of McAuliffe, who served as the head of the Democratic National Committee during President Clinton's time in the Oval Office. His bid to become Virginia's governor has served as a platform for Clinton's reemergence into political life. In addition to the "Women for Terry" event on Saturday, Clinton has hosted a pair of public fundraisers for the candidate.

Her appearance also continued to stoke speculation that she herself could be considering a White House bid.

The former secretary of State noted that during her time away from the political world, she had thought a lot about the nation and "what kind of leadership is required to keep it great."

"Yours!" an attendee at the crowd shouted, earning laughs and applause.

It's easy to become nostalgic for those good old days when scorched earth politics was an acceptable strategy - as long as it was Republicans getting scorched. As for Hillary's rollout as presidential candidate, someone please tell me when she hasn't been running for something in her entire career? She is a political creature - a gorgon some would say. It's hard to see where every move she has made over the past 5 years hasn't been made with a 2016 run in mind.