Thus spake Mel Brooks, playing an effete, Brooklyn-accented 18th-century French Louis in the movie The History of the World: Part I.

It's still good to be the king, although in 21st-century America, we no longer call them kings.  We call them "public servants."  (What comic genius coined that phrase?)

When public servant Hillary Clinton was exposed for having criminally mishandled state secrets, we were told that no prosecutor in the country would indict a servant merely because she had carelessly broken a few laws, and she got off scot-free.

Giving speeches earned Hillary a queen's ransom.  They weren't said to be particularly good speeches, but they didn't have to be.  The money was more a perk of office (or office-to-be), just like the French Louis, who weren't known for their oratory, either.

Her consort and former public servant, Bill Clinton, also ransomed his speeches.  He's said to have raked in half a million dollars for a single talk in Moscow, although it's unclear whether the ransom was for his words or for his wife's assistance in the sale of twenty percent of America's uranium reserves to Russia, which sounds a lot like corruption but is of little interest, apparently, to our public servants who are in a position to do anything about it.  It's good to be the spouse of a public servant.

Recently, it has been revealed that James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and other public servants in the FBI have done things that, had we done them, would have landed us in prison.  It seems unlikely, however, that these public servants will ever go to the pokey because (see three paragraphs above starting with "When public servant Hillary Clinton...").

The FBI's misconduct had a dark purpose.  It appears that a few even more senior public servants who worked directly for the nearest-thing-we-Americans-have-to-a-king authorized a counterintelligence investigation to subvert President Trump.  In short, CIA director John Brennan, director of National Intelligence James Clapper, national security adviser Susan Rice — and possibly even President Obama himself — may have conspired in sedition.

If they did and if history is prologue, they also may get away with their crimes.  If they do, that won't be the end of the story, but it may well be the end of our country as we've known it.

Our nation burst into existence with these words: "We take these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  If this founding principle has become a lie, if justice in America is two-tiered, and if our public servants have effectively become our kings and queens and above the law, then the American experiment is finished.

The Louis of France did not have a happy ending, and neither shall we.