YGBKM, Let's look at the three scandals.

Bridgegate: Governor's office closes closes bridge in retaliation for not getting a political endorsement. Massive backups ensue. At least one person dies in an ambulance stuck in the backup. The orders to close the bridge originate at least as high as the governor's chief of staff, so a political appointee one step from the governor on the org chart.

IRS: The office of the IRS that determines if nonprofits are actual public service organizations that should receive nonprofit status or flimsy covers for political action groups uses some frequently used keywords and notices that some keep coming up for groups that are flimsy political covers. They deny more applications from liberal groups than conservative ones. Really, there is no scandal here.

Benghazi: The embassy requests some additional security, but the ambassador and others didn't fully understand the security situation in Benghazi. Embassy security money was reduced by Congress at Republican insistence. The decision not to give additional security to the consulate in Benghazi was made by a career staffer (ie not a political appointee) three or four steps below Clinton.

The IRS "scandal" is smoke and mirrors. When you compare Benghazi to Bridgegate, they are orders of magnitude different in who made the decision, how close they were to the top of the organization, and the political nature of the decision. Not giving the security money to Benghazi was surely a bad decision. On the other hand, Bridgegate was political retribution. You think there might be a difference?

"Remember that we as citizens expect to be treated equally under the law and presumed innocent until proven guilty" -- in a court of law you mean. otherwise we commonly make assumptions and presumptions using a where there is smoke approach, just like we do to our friends and this helps us detect asshats and liars without definite proof, which is usually not within our grasp, since, like I said, we're not in a court of law."

"why do we expect less of a standard when our elected officials are in trouble? " See above. Also they are at a higher standard so we judge them more harshly, also, we can't subpoena them, sit hearing twenty witnesses, etc., so once we catch them in one serious lie that's it. here, he said he didn't know and other people in his staff knew so it looks like a damn lie know we are starting to see the proof. and anyway what kind of incompetence is it to screw thousands of people with a traffic study? it's a damn lie. the captain of the ship is a fat fool or a damn liar, take your pick.