What do I know about political strategy? Somewhere along about the second hour of the latest interrogation of Hillary Clinton over Benghazi … Benghazi! … BENGHAZI!!!, I turned to my dog, who looked about as interested in what was going on as the average voter. “I don’t get it, Lou. I would have opened with the blockbuster new revelation, the killer detail, the smoking pipe bomb that would have her sweating, ‘like Dan Quayle on ‘Jeopardy’, as we used to say. But they’re two hours into this and they’re talking … e-mails. This Gowdy guy couldn’t possibly be so stupid that he’d let the lights go up on this circus without bringing something new to the show, could he?”

Well, Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, may not be stupid, but he pretty clearly found himself in the position that having pandered for a year to his Tea Party base he couldn’t figure out any way to pull the plug on the lifeless corpse he was required to roll out on national TV, showing off a kind of Tea Party “Weekend with Bernie”, without any intentional laughs. He had no other choice than to put on whatever show he could, so he can go back to South Carolina, look the tri-corner hat crowd in the eye and say he brought the fight to the devil incarnate.

You knew it was a resounding disaster, certainly for the ambitious Mr. Gowdy, when his close-ups showed him slathered in Nixonian flop sweat by the time he gaveled the thing to adjournment 10 hours and 59 minutes after it opened. At least his faux hawk held up.

If you’re a Republican outside the Freedom Caucus psycho ward you had be shaking your head and reaching for the Jim Beam before lunch. All you could possibly see, knowing that Gowdy had nothing, much less anything new, is that Ms. Clinton would not only prevail against GOP’s clown car of interrogators, but that their easily foretold failure was only going to strengthen her for the 13-month run to the White House.

The conventional (Freedom Caucus) wisdom (sic) was that given enough time, the tea cup Torquemadas on Gowdy’s committee would either force Clinton into at least one juicy, viral 5-second gaffe or reduce her to a babbling Socialist, troop-hating ninny. Because, you know, she’s Hillary Clinton, someone who has never before in her long career ever had a tough/stupid question put to her or been forced to sit in front of cameras and smile patiently at a panel of filibustering buffoons. Of course they’d break her! She’s never seen the likes of Gowdy or Jim Jordan (leader of the Freedom Caucus) before! By the glory of God and our guns we’ll show her what freedom’s all about!

Talk about a fool’s errand. You got nothing. She knows it. She’s been at this game for 25 years. You’re still trying to find the Capitol rest rooms. What could possibly go wrong?

Until Hillary oversees the indictment of Goldman, Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon she won’t be my dream candidate. But as long as mastery of The Game and serenely swatting down mosquito logic — keep biting until it bleeds — are criteria for high office, she’ll do just fine.

Lord, what a pathetic farce that was.