Having spent a couple of days pointing out calmly to outraged email correspondents that my disbelief in the Clinton campaign’s story of the mysterious disappearing tip reflected clear-eyed judgment rather than Clinton Derangement Syndrome, I’m embarrassed to report that my view, whether or not it was deranged, was certainly wrong.
It happens that the son of someone I’ve known for 35 years is working advance for the HRC campaign in Iowa, and the son tells the father that he personally left a $60 tip and knows that someone else left another $40. How the tip failed to get to the waitress remains a mystery, but I know for certain Tom Gowen wouldn’t lie to me, and it seems wildly implausible that his son would lie to him. I stand corrected.
Footnote Tom and I were together at Haverford, where we rang doorbells in a futile attempt to overthrow the “War Board,” the astonishingly nasty and corrupt Republican machine that then ran Deleware County, PA. Since Tom is a Haverford grad, his utter truthfulness is axiomatic.