The hate campaign against Hillary and all who surround her

F HILLARY Clinton is elected 45th President of the United States on November 8, her closest aide, Huma Abedin, of Indian and Paki st ani extrac tion but born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, will become one of the most powerful women in the world — a contender for the post of White House Chief of Staff.

S h e wo u l d b e the f i r s t wo ma n appointed to this all-important role (how easy it is to forget that The West Wing’s CJ Cregg was a fictional character). First, however, Abedin must escape the debris of a marriage gone horribly wrong that has become a parable of modern politics and its pathologies.

To return to the presidential election: it is hard to exaggerate the strength of the bond between the Democrat nominee and the invariably elegant 40-yearold, who began working for Mrs Clinton in 1996 as a young intern from George Washington University and has been a trusted member of her inner circle ever since. “I have one daughter,” the presidential candidate says, “but if I had a second daughter, it would be Huma.”

Abedin is routinely described as a “notoriously private” figure — a political operative who shuns the spotlight, at ease behind the scenes, relentlessly fixing, advising and steering strategy to the benefit of her candidate. Yet this week — and not for the first time — the most sensitive details of her personal life have generated headlines around the world, as she announced her separation from former Congressman Anthony Weiner after six years of marriage.

In the first flush of their relationship, Weiner and Abedin appeared to be a flawless “power couple”. In contrast to Abedin’s quiet authority, Weiner was a legislative showman, a natural tribune of the people whose card was marked for greater things than the House of Representatives. He was Jewish, she was Muslim. They complemented one another perfec tly. It seemed only natural that Bill Clinton should preside at their wedding.

Yet in 2011 their two-person political coalition was shattered by the disclosure of Weiner’s “sexting” activities. After admitting that he had sent suggestive photos to women, he resigned from Congress.

Two years later he was back on the campaign trail, entering the New York City mayoral race. This time, as if to cleanse himself with daylight, the candidate allowed cameras behind the scenes — a decision that resulted in the remarkable fly-on-the-wall film Weiner (available on iTunes).

Even as the cameras rolled, it emerged that Weiner had carried on his sexting activities after resigning from Congress. This time, to compound the embarrassment, he had used the toe-curling alias of “Carlos Danger” while exchanging revealing photos with a 22-year-old woman called Sydney Leathers.

The revelations shattered Weiner’s electoral prospects in the mayoral race — though it now appears that not even this hideous experience, in which a film charting his notional comeback became a record of definitive disaster, was enough to curb his pathological behaviour. The revelation that, even after the documentary, Weiner had carried on sexting was enough to persuade Abedin to announce their separation.

It is tempting, of course, to dismiss