Laura Ingraham is one of the five most poisonous public figures in post-America today

Yesterday on her show, she got a call from someone - I wonder how many such callers there are who don't get through - who basically asked how she can overlook Squirrel Hair's seemingly infinite demonstrations of moral squalor.

Her lame response? That Reagan was divorced and that Lincoln "had flaws."

Allahpundit at Hot Air parses the full flimsiness of this position:

Lincoln suspended habeas in the middle of a Civil War, Reagan got divorced, and Trump — well, Trump’s going to end globalism. When you’re judging whether he’s fit for office, what more do you need to know?

What you’re hearing here is a variation on the argument Trump fans have been making to conservative Trump skeptics in many contexts lately: He’s a difference in degree, not in kind. That was Katrina Pierson’s and Mike Huckabee’s point last week in grumbling at #NeverTrumpers for refusing to back the nominee. Grassroots conservatives held their noses and voted for McCain and Romney, right? Well, time to repay the favor by voting for Trump. He’s different — but only in degree, not in kind. Meanwhile, when they’re not pitching him to skeptics, every breath they spend praising him is devoted to the idea that he is different in kind, not just degree. It’s a “takeover” of the party. It’s a “new” GOP. It’s a revolution! We’re a nationalist party now! Read this new WaPo analysis and ask yourself whether Trump is a difference in degree or in kind. And if he’s a difference in kind, if he really has formed a new party, what duty to him do people who belong to a fundamentally different party owe?

In order to believe that Trump is “conservative,” you need to believe that taking a hard right-wing line on one policy question, immigration, is sufficient to qualify. And in order to believe that Trump’s character is no more disqualifying than Reagan’s, you need to believe that any single moral failing is no less damning than a multitude of them. This is conservatism now, I guess.

I realize she's not stupid. She clerked at SCOTUS for Justice Thomas. And she claims to be a devout Christian, although on this latter point, I think she's mouthing by rote what she was before she sold her soul.

Oh, and perhaps the question is arising as to who the other four are. Well, now, that makes for an interesting parlor game doesn't it? Lots of candidates to choose from in these dark times.