In 2012, congressional investigators asked the State Department for a wide range of documents related to the attack on the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. The department eventually responded, furnishing House committees with thousands of documents.
But it turns out that that was not everything.
The State Department had not searched the email account of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton because she had maintained a private account, which shielded it from such searches, department officials acknowledged on Tuesday.
It was only last month that the House committee appointed to investigate Benghazi was provided with about 300 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails related to the attacks. That was shortly after Mrs. Clinton turned over, at the State Department’s request, some 50,000 pages of government-related emails that she had kept on her private account.
It was one of several instances in which records requests sent to the State Department, which had no access to Mrs. Clinton’s emails, came up empty.
In 2013, Nitasha Tiku, then a reporter for Gawker, filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking all correspondence on Mrs. Clinton’s private email account between her and Sidney Blumenthal, a close adviser and onetime staff member in the Clinton White House. Some of those emails had already spilled into public view and been reported in the news media. But the State Department told Gawker that it could find no records responsive to the request, Gawker reported.
Mrs. Clinton’s aides on Tuesday sought to play down the significance of her exclusive use of a personal email account for State Department business. But an examination of records requests sent to the department reveals how the practice protected a significant amount of her correspondence from the eyes of investigators and the public.
Even if she did nothing illegal, the sheer stupidity of this blows my mind. I mean, she just had to know this would be an issue. And if she didn’t, is she just that insulated from reality by her shield of aides and see-no-evil supporters? I’m a nobody, but I have three separate email accounts- one for work, one for personal/political/this website, and one for finances/online purchases. You segregate stuff, and work stuff stays in work. And it’s for MY protection, most of the time. If someone asks “Did you talk to X about X,” I can do a quick search and have the contents of that conversation at my fingertips. Kind of like the intent of having government emails preserved for posterity.
I know, I know. I’m just a shill for Trey Gowdy and doncha know the NY Times and Whitewater. Like Israel, HRC’s worst enemy are her most ardent supporters. Why do they not understand that this kind of behavior, even if she did nothing illegal, is going to cause problems? Not recognizing there is just something off and insular and hubristic about this behavior, especially given the context, is not my problem. That’s hers and the HRCis44 crowd.
rea
Hoe could she possibly not realize that acting like every Secretary of State since the invention of e-mail would be an issue?
Hellene
I really, really do not want Clinton to run. The idea depresses me almost as much as having another Bush run, and more than having another election between a Clinton and a Bush.
Partly, it’s the lower case democrat I me, who doesn’t like dynasties and that’s exactly what we seem to be moving toward, and doesn’t like coronations and that’s exactly what we’re getting — I can’t believe I actually envy the Republican’s clown cavalcade primary because they at least have one. And partly is the upper case Democrat in me who thinks the Clintons are too conservative, too close to corporations and too manipulative for their own good.
I’d like to be inspired to work for a presidential candidate of my party and with HRC as our nominee I don’t think I’m even putting up signs.
Baud
Is this the same reporter who did the last NYT story? I’ll wait for someone more credible.
Seth Owen
And there is a large cohort of us who are not especially excite about another Clinton presidency, but have resigned ourselves to it because it seems infinitely better than the clown show likely to be the GOP nominee. If her incompetence lets the clown win anyway … .
NotMax
Stupid is as stupid does.
Baud
@rea:
Did you catch this?
2013, huh?
ThresherK
One more voice for “standin’ on the corner, waitin’ for someone more credible” to hawk this “news” plus the clown car in the press corps who are couchfainting over this the way they never cared previously when anyone else had done it.
danielx
‘It’s out there’, so it must be pursued.
Loviatar
2 posts in 2 days on a subject other than pets. Must be a negative article about a Clinton to agitate this
former Republicanpragmatic Democrat.John Cole +0
@rea:
Why, it’s even worse than that! John Jay and Thomas Jefferson didn’t even keep email records, and no one is making a stink about them!
It’s not that simple, and thanks for proving my point about the willful blindness of Clinton supporters (a term I hate, because if she is the nominee, I will be a Clinton supporter) in the very first comment.
NotMax
Frankly, I look askance when it comes to credibility at any 67-year-old without a gray hair showing.
JPL
@John Cole +0: I’m not a Clinton supporter and I tend to agree with the comment.
Since she’s a Clinton, maybe she should have known that her standards had to be higher because……………..
What laws were broken? At this point, we don’t know if any laws were broken but the repubs are sure to investigate the heck out of it.
jonas
Check me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me the issue isn’t whether she used a private email — apparently that was routine until Kerry’s term — but how that account was secured and archived. Was it a private account that she just used for work? Or are all the Benghazi emails mixed in there with viral LOL cat memes, grocery lists, etc.?
Robert Sneddon
@Hellene: I think you’re a bit late to be worrying about the “dynasty” thing. Senate seats and Congressional districts are commonly apportioned to family members such as nephews and nieces or indeed direct offspring like the Bushes, Pauls, Rockefellers and Kennedys. I don’t know if anyone’s ever created a current list of the 538 elected members of the federal government and their dynastic connections but it might make an interesting project for someone.
C.V. Danes
Yup. Also like, you know, my employer would probably take a dim view of me utilizing my personal email account to conduct work-related business!
Napoleon
Am I the only person who recalls how terrible she was in 2008. She appears to have zero good judgment (for that matter her husband did not either). All you need to know is she surrounded herself with people like Mark Penn.
And its not like she has such great policy positions that you are willing to hold your nose and take your chances with her. She’s a pure Eisenhower Republican (well sort of, she was, in fact, a Goldwater girl).
Gene108
Maybe this is Hillary’s Rezko moment, where skilled politicians are able to not have this sort of thing stick to them.
Every politician has something stupid in their background.
The skilled ones, for good or evil, do not get bogged down by the stupid.
@Hellene:
I think Hillary has to be the first woman President, precisely because Bill was President. I think there are enough fragile male egos that could not handle a husband sidelining his professional career for his wife’s political ambitions that with Bill being a former President, who has reached the top of his profession, with nothing left to do all the raving mysoginists who will come out of the woodwork will lose a bit of the it edge. There is no career advancement for Bill to set aside. He can be the first First Husband and continue to work with his foundation, without comments about “who wears the pants in the house” or about how ” whipped” he is.
I do not think Hillary is a natural politician. She did not have to fight her way up.
If she is running in 2016 she needs to bury this story now. It seems to already be taking on a life of its own.
Given her husband’s reputation as “slick Willie” there is a switch in older voters minds that can be flipped to recall Whitwater, and the never ending list of Clinton “scandals”, rather than the balanced budget and prosperity.
I do not think Bill’s administration was corrupt, as nothing he did while President was found to be corrupt, as compared to Watergate or Iran-Contra, but the stigma -thanks to Ken Starr – is still there.
boatboy_srq
@Baud: Are FOIA requests appropriate for a private account? Seems she’d need a subpoena for that kind of correspondence. Possibly the intent, but still…
@John Cole +0: @JPL: This is one of those places where the not-so-young just do not get how permanent the Internet can be, and how business and pleasure blend in ways that were previously unthinkable. HRC isn’t the first person I’ve heard of who clearly either had no idea that their worlds were so mixed or misunderstood so fundamentally how the public sphere can intrude on the personal one. Dumb? Sure. Unthinking? Definitely. Deliberate? Possibly, but there are so many in her line of work and age group that fall into the same trap it’s hard to say. I’m definitely unimpressed, but no more so (and probably somewhat less) than when JEB published his entire e-mailbox, sensitive information and all.
MomSense
@JPL:
We joke about IOKIYAR but it is absolutely the way the game is played. If she didn’t know that as a Democrat she would be, will always be, held to a higher standard then we are in for a lot of messes to deal with before November 2016. There is a reason the Obama campaign’s “no drama Obama” took hold in the 2007-08 race for the nomination.
boatboy_srq
@Gene108:
Impossible. It’s twenty years on and the Reichwing is still obsessed with Whitewater and Vince Foster.
Baud
Can someone who is following this story enlighten me? When they say private account, do they mean Clinton’s personal email account or simply a dedicated email account that’s different from the state dot gov account State Department employees get?
Gin & Tonic
Christ on a cracker, I’ve maintained separate work and e-mail accounts since before *Bill* Clinton was President. How is this not just common sense?
It may not have been illegal, and it may have been what other SoS’s did, but that doesn’t make it anything other than mind-bogglingly fucking stupid. And even if she is that fucking stupid, the fact that she doesn’t have anyone around her who is smarter is a real problem.
dobrojutro
Anything from her Sent folder is in somebody’s Inbox, so unless she’s conducting official business with another non-Government email addy, there’s no issue with preserving information. She might have a email security issue, but who doesn’t?
Gene108
@NotMax:
What did my mother ever do to you? As she fits your reason for suspicion…same with Nancy Pelosi, who is older than 67…
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: That’s “work and personal.”
magurakurin
If this is such a terrible thing, then why was she allowed to do it in the first place? Why didn’t the Obama administration require all officials to use the official servers in 2009 as they did in 2014? If the Times reporter actually had an interest in finding out what was going on maybe they would have researched that. Why isn’t until 2014 that all officials are required (actually strongly suggested is the better description) to use official servers?
She wasn’t doing this in secret after all. Everyone involved had to have known that her email address wasn’t us.gov. Unless they never ever look at the address of someone who sends them mail. Clinton sent them 55,000 pages of emails after she was requested by State to send what she had. A request that was made to all former officials. A request that till now has only been responded to by Clinton.
I’m having a hard time seeing what she did wrong, and a similar hard time seeing how she could have anticipated this happening. I’d like know more about why she choose to do this as told by her and not just speculation on the part of a reporter. And I’d like to know more about why she was allowed to do this in the first place: technology issues? something no one thought was a problem until recently? what exactly prompted the 2014 rule change? No article I’ve seen today, and I’ve gone through about 20, address any of these issues.
Gin & Tonic
@dobrojutro: What about an e-mail she sent, say, to the German FM? What if she says “I never sent anything” and the German FM is out of reach of a US FOIA request or, for that matter, the US National Archives?
Cervantes
@rea:
Would it make a difference to you if it could be shown that in using private e-mail accounts for official purposes she was disregarding clear guidance provided by the White House?
HRA
It does not matter if she was “acting like every SOS”. It matters that she is going to run for POTUS and she may succeed.
I worked for a government agency until last year when I decided to retire. I was given an email address for work. I already had a personal email address for my home PC. I could easily access my personal email account from work. I did not do it. Nor did I us my government email account for personal use. It’s common sense to not do it.
I admit I have said I was never a Clinton supporter. A few days ago I also told my husband I’ll may be driven to vote for HRC considering the machinations of those R idiots in the Congress lately. Now I am most likely not to vote at all and am certainly not happy about it. .
pseudonymous in nc
@rea:
Because Karl Rove and his henchmen had played the “send it to my gwb43.com account” game over the US Attorney firings? There were lots of Senate hearings on it, so one would assume that then-Senator Clinton was vaguely aware of it.
Handing over an archive after the fact to the official record keepers isn’t enough. There are always going to be bits of official business conducted off the record, and I’m fine with that — we’re not asking senior officials to wear Google Glass and have their entire lives recorded. But the legal requirement to preserve presidential and federal records exists for good reason, namely J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon, and saying “well, y’know, email” and waving your hands about isn’t good enough.
raven
@Robert Sneddon: It’ never too early or late to worry at BJ!
magurakurin
@Baud: dedicated email account different from the official server
link
raven
@HRA: That’ll teach em.
mtiffany
Or maybe she’s playing 12-dimensional chess and she wanted the issue because she knew that at some point in the future she would run for President and Republicans would trip over their own tiny little dicks trying to smear her and she wanted to give them every opportunity to make fools out of themselves over a big fat nothingburger.
Or, maybe, not being able to see into the future, she failed (unforgivably!) to adhere to rules and/or laws that did not come into existence until after she left office.
But on a serious note, if Congressional Republicans are so upset about not having access to Madame Secretary’s emails, they can just go to the NSA and get copies from them.
MomSense
Melissa McEwen has a good piece on this issue. http://www.shakesville.com/2015/03/on-hillary-clintons-email-compliance.html
magurakurin
@Cervantes: guidance suggest by the Administration in Feb. 2013 after Clinton had left her post.
JPL
It’s deflategate all over again. I’m just not a reactionary. Use of a private account was the norm so that doesn’t appear to be a problem. Did she turn over all the emails, hell if I know? There’s not enough information for me to make a decision.
I do agree that if this is a hit piece, she is not handling it well by remaining silent.
NotMax
@Gene108
Don’t know your mother, but Pelosi is no exception. And say that knowing full well that she is revered by many here. She shredded the last figleaf of credibility when “Impeachment is off the table” while speaker for all intents and purposes made her an accessory after the fact.
Gene108
@magurakurin:
I can see it be technology issues.
For security reasons some government e-mail ID’s do not port well to mobile devices.
I think it has a lot do to with the government having a whole mess of older and generally mismatched equipment, with regards to IT infrastructure, so rather than find a solution to get government servers to have the same functionality as Gmail, the government sometimes tends to just limit the functionality of what people can do with their infrastructure to minimize security risks.
Warren Terra
I happen to take the creation of public records seriously, not only for possible accountability in the short term but for the use of historians a generation from now. And so I’m disappointed in Clinton, especially if (as seems likely) she broke the law – and disappointed in all the officials who corresponded with that private email address and didn’t mention the impropriety.
Still, all this being said, the particular request that apparently kicked off this controversy is exactly why people hide their correspondence in private email accounts. Sidney Blumenthal? What possible business of this reporter’s could it be what Clinton has to say in emails traded with a longtime personal friend and political advisor who holds no public office, and with no obvious justification? Openness and accountability are about the performance of her public duties, for FSM’s sake. The notion that an unjustifiable and intrusive fishing expedition like this would have been viable, and within months of her time in office, comes close to justifying her decision not to generate public records.
Maybe we should double down on enforcing the creation of public records, and tighten up a bit on their disclosure?
Baud
@magurakurin:
Thank you. First of all, it suggests that all the talk about mixing business and personal emails is blather if it was a dedicated account for official business.
Second, who the hell are hdr1 to 21?
magurakurin
@Gene108: that seems to make sense.
p.a.
@Seth Owen: here’s hoping the damage occurs in the primaries and the Dems get a nominee who isn’t so tone-deaf/arrogant/incompetent.
pseudonymous in nc
@magurakurin:
I very much suspect that the tech infrastructure wasn’t in place to archive the damn stuff properly. If you look at the discussion surrounding email in the later Bush years, the point at which emails were being retained was still the Outlook .PST file on individual machines, and that could and would go bye-bye when a machine got wiped.
There was a settlement with CREW / GWU in 2010 based on a lawsuit originally filed against the Bush White House to put in place proper archiving for the EOP. Fuck knows what State had in place.
RaflW
We need another strong Dem to step up and make serious noises about running for Prez, and we that person now.
I have been very discouraged by the whole Hillary coronation. This is but one reason – not even the emails per se, but that her ‘inevitability’ means there’s a very weak bench and if she’s damaged, we’re toast.
Morzer
@Gene108:
This is simply not true. Whether you like her or not, the fact is that Hillary Clinton has spent most of her life fighting with a variety of people who wanted to put her down, keep her in her place or simply destroy her by any means possible. No-one in the last 30 years has had more buckets of hysterical horseshit poured over her by the right wing, the media and, frankly, some Democrats who should have known better than to rush to judgment. Throw in a husband whose philandering, crass stupidity and immaturity have repeatedly embarrassed her in the most humiliating ways and think about the total impact of that situation on any human being in terms of stress and pain. Somehow, Hillary’s kept going forward and remained effective despite all of the nonsense and the hate and the malice. That’s deserving of some respect and honesty towards her, no matter what mistakes she’s made and whatever you think her faults might be.
There’s an awful lot of sanctimonious self-righteousness among Democrats of a certain stripe, including some Johnny come latelies, who like to get all preachy and holier than thou about Hillary, pretending on a regular basis that, when she does something that all her modern predecessors did, it somehow shows that she is a fool or incompetent or scheming. It’s time that we recognized the canting hypocrisy of this approach and declined to take it seriously.
magurakurin
@Baud: Yes, it is silly to suggest that she is a bonehead about mixing “work and personal” just because someone takes that to mean that her personal email was her AOL account. YOU’VE GOT MAIL from the president of Rawanda. Hardly.
Her setting up her own personal server may have been for tech reasons, convenience or something nefarious. But the truth is, that these articles are not giving any clarity on that at all, only speculation. I do agree though that Clinton is not helping herself right at the moment by being quiet. Some explanation as to why she did this is needed.
pseudonymous in nc
@magurakurin:
The MX records for clintonemail.com point to mxlogic.com, which means that at this moment it’s going through a third-party spam/virus proxy (McAfee SaaS) and we don’t know where the actual mailserver is.
NotMax
@boatboy_srq
Absolutely beyond faux pas, treading deep into criminally negligent territory on Bush’s part regarding that last phrase. But that “entire” is 100% bogus; roughly 250k of an acknowledged 3+ million e-mails were provided.
Gene108
@Hellene:
If you think the Clintons are too conservative, where does that place Obama?
In 2008 Hillary was to the left of Obama on gay marriage, for example, she came out in favor of it while candidate Obama was opposed to gay marriage, but was OK with civil unions.
Their economic policy agendas were nearly identical, with both wanting to raise taxes on the top 2%, have a pathway towards universal healthcare, etc.
Betty Cracker
@raven: It’ll heighten the contradictions too!
Baud
@pseudonymous in nc:
Benghazi!
rikyrah
The Clintons do stupid shyt and then force people to go out there and defend her.
It’s the unforced errors that always irritate me with the Clintons.
It’s the ENTITLEMENT here.
How come she couldn’t have a Government address like everyone else?
it’s a simple question.
Morzer
@Gene108:
It’s going to take a lot of Friedman units and comments to settle that one. What say we just skip the ritual chants on all sides and go to the apocalypse directly?
Cervantes
@magurakurin:
You may be right about that — but my question was about something slightly different.
magurakurin
@rikyrah:
It is, so why didn’t the New York Times reporter ask it?
Morzer
@rikyrah:
By all accounts, none of her predecessors did – and it wasn’t mandated as official policy until after she had left the state department. If we are going to denounce her for this, there’s going to be a fairly interesting line up of people who ought to join her in the FEMA punishment battalions.
NotMax
@Morzer
I’ll bring the red hots if you’ll bring the brew!
Morzer
@NotMax:
I am not sure I can carry that many barrels on my own.
Gene108
@Morzer:
Fair enough. Your point is taken.
I do not think someone, who started her legal career with the then start-up non-profit The Children’s Defense Fund is solely into public service for access to unlimited power.
rikyrah
@Napoleon:
no, you are not the only one.
magurakurin
@Morzer:
lol “That’s a joke, I say that’s a joke son”
Kay
It’s good it’s happening now in a way because I always thought Hillary’s big strength was her core group of supporters in the Democratic Party structure and the punditry. I always thought Obama was at a disadvantage there: the “we don’t know him” factor.
We’ll see what they do.
Morzer
@magurakurin:
I read it in an old Alinsky Playbook that someone left lying around the Death Panel bureau one day. I think it was the September 1956 edition, but I could be wrong.
Tommy
@pseudonymous in nc:
Exactly. I used to do a ton of work for Fortune 200 companies that worked with the Federal government. You’d think the White House or State Department would have a solid IT infrastructure. You’d be wrong. Gore did a lot to improve the procurement process, but large IT buys takes years to award. Clearly that is a problem with technology changing as fast as it currently does.
ellennellee
this is the sort of thing that pushed me into the obama camp in 08; that kind of cavalier tilt toward incompetence, bordering on entitlement – why should i have to be careful or on top of things? hillary seemed to say; there’s always a safety net. check it out: lost the nomination, appointed SoS.
i’m with hellene here; i have a lot of admiration for HRC, but not enthusiasm. and gene108, 08 really came down to that competence/entitlement factor, not to mention the national craving for something truly fresh and new and inspiring.
while i agree their politics don’t differ substantially, their management styles and political intuitions and judgements and charisma were worlds apart. and take note; those are not all superficial differences, only the charisma. which, for getting actual voters to the polls, makes – and made – a world of difference.
i’ll of course vote for her against anything the GOP offers, but it won’t be with the enthusiasm obama generated. the kind of enthusiasm warren or sanders could inspire. and we need that. the country needs that, even if it does seem frighteningly ‘extreme’ to some. (*cough* middle way blue dog wimps)
Gene108
@Morzer:
Eh…I just wonder if the Clintons personally peed in people’s cornflakes to get so much animosity against them from liberals…
CaseyL
When did the big Wikileaks document dump happen? In late 2010?
I wouldn’t be too surprised if it turned out that using “private” email accounts was tacitly approved, maybe even recommended, in response to the Wikileaks issue.
Morzer
@Tommy:
IIRC the FBI tried a huge IT makeover about a decade ago – and ended up giving up on the project in despair after spending a pretty impressive chunk of cash. Likewise the British attempt to radically overhaul/create an IT infrastructure for the NHS. I don’t find it remotely surprising that the infrastructure wasn’t in place – or, for that matter, that people were unaware of all the rules. That’s pretty much the norm for big bureaucracies, especially ones that are inadequately funded and have been burrowed into by conservatives who want nothing more than to damage them.
Face
OT:
Anyone want to talk about the actually-happening nullification event taking place in Alabama? Where their supreme court actually said this:
And this is supposed to be Bama’s best and brightest….
Morzer
@Face:
Sounds like Howling Mad Roy Moore has escaped from his cage again.
Ryan
Here comes Issa. BENGHAZI!!!
Baud
@Face:
That part isn’t wrong. What’s wrong is that the Alabama Supreme Court tried to countermand a federal district court order. That’s antebellum shit.
Weaselone
So, let me get this straight. Clinton, like every preceding Secretary of State during the internet age did not use a government account for her email correspondence, probably because government email infrastructure was inferior to what was available privately. Any relevant laws and guidelines were created after she left office. So the problem here is bad optics that Republicans and their water carriers in the media are using to smear Clinton and by extension the Obama Administration and democrats as a whole.
So how do liberals and democrats counter this? Do they write articles and blog posts exposing this as nothing but a vicious smear? Do they point out that thanks to the Obama Administration this is now no longer allowed and that Kerry is in fact the first SoS exclusively using government email address? Nope, It’s dousing ourselves in gasoline and circular firing squads for everyone. Maybe if we use up all the fuel and ammunition there won’t be any left for the republicans.
Tommy
@Gene108: Yeah I am not a huge fan of Hillary but I don’t dislike her. But this email thing is just stupid. In what world don’t most people conduct business via email? I work for myself and I am so anal about backing up my .pst file. Email is my lifeline to my business.
HRA
@raven:
“That’ll teach em.”
You think I am the only one with the same thought about not voting for a Bush or a Clinton? I’ll even extend it further. There is no R I would vote for either.
I’ll somewhat agree this latest news my not be what will sink her bid. Considering the past gaffes by her and Bill Clinton in the 2008 attempt, there will be other ones coming in the future.
NotMax
OT: apparently the ol’ pendulum makes an extra-wide swing on TCM, as the day following their month of Oscar pictures, this stellar (Not!) line-up is already in progress:
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
Wild Guitar
Dementia 13
The Last Man on Earth
Spider Baby
Equinox
Night of the Lepus
Schlock is much too kind and mild a word.
Kay
She does have a lot of support in the local(s) of the Democratic Party though, in addition to those national people you see on TV so it’s more nuanced than “grassroots support” versus institutional “national” support. The local Party people would characterize themselves as “grass roots” and they are, within that Party context.
It’s complicated :)
Shantanu Saha
I just can’t get worked up about this.
My school system has email accounts for all teachers, yet of the 30 teachers in my school, only 5 use their Dept of Education emails for regular business. I’ve also set up an email system through Google Apps which is specific to my school, and both teachers and students have emails using this system. My principal has even mandated that teachers communicate with parents through these school email addresses (considering how atrociously the Dept Exchange system is set up). Yet the majority of teachers still don’t use it, preferring to forward emails sent to their school address to their personal email accounts. So you can say that I have direct experience with workers refusing to use their company emails to conduct company business.
Unless there is legal sanction for government officials to use use official email accounts for all government-related business, a large portion will slip through. Because in many cases, official email is just awful to access and work with, it just becomes easier not to deal with it for a lot of people unless they absolutely have to. And in the case of a high executive like Ms. Clinton who probably has an aide to read and send all her email (both personal and official) sometimes the exec might not even be aware of which email accounts the aide is using to conduct the exec’s business.
I happen to have no less than six email addresses: my DoE email, my school email, my personal gmail account (which I use for most personal messages), my personal yahoo account (which I use when I register for sites which I don’t care to reveal my main address to, so it’s my spammiest account), and no less than two rarely used Apple addresses associated with my iCloud settings.
Because I’m somewhat tech savvy, I have all the email coming in to one email client’s inbox, and take care when I send messages to select the account and persona I use to reflect the type of email I am sending. But not all people do this, or care to do so.
And note that the law that DOES require federal officials to use official email accounts was passed in 2014. Ms. Clinton left office in 2013.
Yes, it’s a (minor) lapse in judgment. Yes, Ms. Clinton should have directed her aides to release all her State department-related emails to the archivists at State when she left office. Having this show up now will dominate the right wing news cycles for a few days. If there is any “gotcha” statement in any email, it will be embarrassing. But it will go away, because using personal email accounts to conduct official business is something many (if not most) Americans can relate to, and will not change their opinion of Hillary Rodham Clinton in any meaningful way.
Tom W.
@Robert Sneddon: Exactly. If you’re old enough not to have opposed Teddy Kennedy, then “dynasties” are a very selective term meaning “people we don’t really like.”
Morzer
@Weaselone:
Pick one of the three default options:
1) Holier than thou outrage at the accused because it proves that you are uniquely pure and totally not a sucker
2) Fleeing for the exits because the accused has magical cooties that might turn you into an accused.
3) Pointing out that 1) and 2) make no sense and subsequently being accused by proponents of 1) and 2) of being a partisan/Clintonista/Obamabot etc etc etc
Tommy
@Morzer: One of the last projects I worked on was the IRS Tax Modernization program (awarded to CSC — my client). $10B over ten years. I can’t even wrap my mind around trying to manage that type of project.
Baud
@HRA:
Lots of people don’t vote for Democrats and for lots of reasons. Not really much we can do about it except find votes where we can. Maybe if you’re right and a lot of liberals aren’t going to vote for Clinton if she is the nominee, the best course for the party may be to tack to the right and try to pick up votes there.
ellennellee
it just occurred to me – given how antiquated and lame the state dept. system is, might it be entirely possible the entire department knew it to be a security nightmare and actually suggested to her to use her own system instead? unofficially, of course.
just a thought. of course, this would require someone to come forward and fess up, which would seem easy enough to do by simply pointing out – yet again – how deeply the republicans have cut their funding (benghazi happened for this reason, among others, yet they spend tons o’ bucks digging for dirt on it; ooooh this hurts my head so bad).
Morzer
@Tommy:
Any time you need help handling sums of $10 billion or so, feel free to give me a call. I’ll be happy to take the problem off your hands and clear all that burdensome cash out of your freezer/livingroom/overburdened bank account.
No need to thank me. I do it purely for love of my fellow human beings.
Morzer
@Baud:
Fake Republicans always lose to real Republicans. I think it might be because the artificial spittle doesn’t fly as convincingly as the echt volkisch mouth-foam.
Southern Beale
OT BUT:
Nashville/Middle Tennessee dog bleg: Critter Cavalry Rescue has 3 adorable little puppies that were dumped by the side of the road, need foster homes ASAP. If you can help, go to their Facebook page for deets.
Gin & Tonic
@Tommy: backing up my .pst file. Email is my lifeline to my business.
E-mail is your lifeline, and yet you rely on a PST file for storing it? Good luck, dude.
The only question is when does the PST bork, not if.
dm
You newbies to email and your 20-20 hindsight are pretty amazing. I bet she didn’t use the State Department Twitter, but uses Twitter.com. I’ll bet her smart phone wasn’t provided by the State Department. I’ll bet if she uses Snapchat, it’s not using State Department servers. And I doubt the State Department hosts her photos.
As you judge her lack of prescience in this, think about new technologies that are (semi-)new now. Don’t think about how you’ve grown to use technologies now that you’ve had long experience using them.
Also, think about the big yawns with which similar revelations about Bush, Romney (remember the hard drives that weren’t turned over too Massachusetts?), and Palin were greeted.
NotMax
OT: Former senator John Danforth (a Republican!) is due kudos.
Ex-US Senator Calls Out Missouri GOP Leader During Funeral: ‘Words Can Kill’
Baud
@Morzer:
I don’t like the strategy. But what choice do we have if a lot of liberals are opposed to Clinton on a personal level?
Morzer
20 minutes until oral arguments begin in King vs Burwell. I have a feeling this day is going to be a doozy.
Morzer
@Baud:
Some liberals maybe, but I doubt they are more than a disgruntled splinter of the party as a whole. If it’s a choice between HRC and some teahadi, I imagine they’ll think again.
Betty Cracker
This seems to be one of those ambiguous issues that allows everyone to confirm existing biases. If you already disliked HRC, it’s proof positive that she’s a corrupt, conniving, incompetent boob who’s going to blow up 2016. If you’re an HRC supporter, it’s evidence of a double standard among dudebro Dems and wingnut extremism. If you’re unaffiliated, it’s “meh — let’s see how it shakes out.” I’m in the “meh” camp.
WaterGirl
@HRA: That’s okay, because you will get what you deserve if you don’t vote. I hope you’ll enjoy the supreme court that will surely roll back a whole lot of stuff that is really good for regular people.
Sadly, though, it’s the millions and millions of other people who, though no fault of their own, will get screwed by the supreme court we would get under a republican.
Loviatar
@Shantanu Saha:
DING, DING, DING. We have a winnaaah!!!
—–
Yet, we’ll get at least one possibly two more front page post from our fearless
former Republicanpragmatic Democrat host.Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
I am basically unaffiliated, but I think there are some pretty obvious double standards here which will only enable wingnut extremism further.
Tommy
@Betty Cracker: What gets me is somebody on her staff totally dropped the ball. I mean it isn’t like Hillary is setting up her own email. I can believe there wasn’t some staffer at the State Department that might have put together there might be a time when a Senate panel or a FOIA request might come through asking for her emails.
Morzer
@Loviatar:
I imagine there will be at least one red-faced rant about what our host really meant and how we are all wicked people for deliberately taking his words in their most natural sense.
NotMax
@Tommy
Um, no, she (or staff) was setting up her own e-mail, the servers for which where inside her home in NY.
Betty Cracker
@Morzer: Fair point. I’m not a Hillary supporter and never was, but I can see that she attracts out-sized hatred (out of proportion to her offenses, IMO) among a subset of Democrats.
Luckily, I think the “I’ll-take-my-ball-and-go-home” faction will be even less consequential than the fart-in-a-whirlwind PUMAs before them should HRC actually get the nomination. At least I hope so.
MomSense
My understanding is that the issue isn’t really that she used a private email account, rather whether her official or work emails were retained and available as required by the Federal Records Act–which was in effect while HRC was SOS.
We are all relying on her advisers to provide the emails they deem to be related to her work as SOS.
Baud
@Morzer:
Maybe, but the Clinton folks need to develop an electoral strategy well before election day. If the message from liberals is that we hate you on a personal level regardless of how much better your policies are than the GOP, then that will have at least some effect on the strategy they pursue.
Morzer
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/03/hillary-email-scandal-not-so-fast.html
RaflW
@JPL:
This is where I feel that Clinton ignored history. Republicans in Congress were going to freak out about something and demand email trails. As long as she’s controlling what gets released from her private server, they will never, never, never be satisfied with what she releases. Now, it could be said that they wouldn’t trust what State released from official servers either, they are that paranoid, so maybe it’s a tossup. But at this moment at least, it looks to me like she just set her own trap.
Han
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t see how that’s any different than if she’d sent a snail-mail, which is the way they used to do things. Did the NA used to require copies of correspondence sent, as well as received? and if so, when did that start? With copy machines? carbon paper? All the way back to scriveners?
WaterGirl
@Baud: What choice do we have? Find another candidate.
She wasn’t inevitable in 2008 and she’s not inevitable now, unless we just want to roll over and give up.
eric
@Gene108: I think the “Big Pee” was the triangulation on “welfare.” I cant speak for all liberals, but i know that was the moment that I thought “what the heck.”
Morzer
@Baud:
Yes, no, maybe. I don’t know that you can develop a strategy that accounts for potentially anything and everything being distorted/exaggerated/invented by the media with the help of people from your own party who should know better than to rush to judgment by now.
JPL
Deep thought
If the repubs thought that the use of an email address other than a government email address was a problem, why didn’t they mention it during the Benghazi hearings? It only became a problem because an article in the NYTimes questioned the use.
Patrick
@rea:
Maybe it is an issue because unlike the other SOS’s she is running for President. Transparency is an issue. To me this is an issue just like Romney not releasing his tax returns was an issue. What are they trying to hide?
Morzer
@JPL:
Because using personal email addresses to avoid media scrutiny of their activities in state government is absolutely SOP for the GOP these days.
Tommy
@RaflW: And that is exactly it. She could ship her server to them and they won’t be happy. I tend to view this as an unforced error on her part, but on the other hand as you clearly noted nothing will make the Republicans happy.
Loviatar
@Morzer:
She has the last name Clinton and is married to Bill. Its similar to being black and living in Ferguson MO.
Amir Khalid
In light of information such as that noted by Morzer #103, I’m with those who reckon that there’s rather less to this fuss over Hillary Clinton’s email account than meets the eye. Let’s all see if there’s still any screaming over this in week or a fortnight’s time, shall we?
Paul in KY
@MomSense: Good point. She should know that the Repubs will try to gig anything & everything.
WaterGirl
This seems very simple to me. If people like you, they give you the benefit of the doubt. If they don’t like you, they give you the negative benefit of the doubt.
For someone who talked about the vast right wing conspiracy, you would think she would know she falls into the “negative benefit of the doubt” category. Fair or not, she is held to a different standard. That’s the reality.
She’s a fool if she isn’t able to draw the dotted lines from using private email to conduct business as secretary of state to exactly where we are today. “The rules don’t apply to me” bugs me as much from democrats as it does from republicans.
Betty Cracker
@RaflW:
It wouldn’t be speculation; it’s an established fact. See the endless inquiries into IRS “targeting” of blatantly political tea party groups running supposedly non-partisan organizations, etc.
Yes, HRC — and any Democrat — must strive to be 100% above board at all times. But it won’t impress the wingnuts, no matter how successful those efforts are. I believe the Obama White House is the least scandal-plagued administration of my life time by a long shot, but the Freepers operate under an alternate reality.
NotMax
@Han
“So, Mr., um, Moses – that is you full name, isn’t it? – you say ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was one of the commandments, yet multiple witnesses have testified to your smashing the tablets. Your Honor, this is clearly hearsay and inadmissible. I request this testimony be stricken from the record.”
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
I should have credited Michael Tomasky. I think he makes a good case that some of the hysterical peddlers of despair and sanctimony would do well to consider. As he points out, Whitewater turned out to be nothing, despite being sold as definitive proof of the Clintons’ rapacious perfidy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: We could just go ahead and cut off our noses to spite our faces. Better yet, how about their noses? I’m sure it would give President Walker a good laugh.
Hal
@Gene108:
I like HRC but she was not yet that enlightened:
Tommy
@WaterGirl:
That is what gets me as well. I have a work email and one I use for private/personal stuff. It isn’t rocket science for me to differentiate the two.
Belafon
I don’t. I do have an email for work that changes every time I get a new job, because it’s assigned to me by my job. I use my personal email for everything else. What my brain compartmentalizes doesn’t leave enough space for stuff like email management.
JPL
@Morzer: They wanted to tarnish Hillary during the Benghazi hearings. I just don’t know why they didn’t question the email address then.
CaseyL
To repeat: Clinton was SoS when the Wikileaks document dump occurred. Surely at least a few of us remember the shitstorm that stirred up?
If, as seems likely, the official email accounts are, or were, on an antiquated system particularly prone to hacking, or bolluxing up communications, or crashing at inconvenient moments, it is not at all surprising Clinton would – like every other SoS, as has been pointed out – use a non-govt email account.
Also, since the story has brought out the Clinton Haters and the GOP, I’m more then ever inclined to discount it. So the MSM will run with the story… they’re not exactly unbiased when it comes to Democrats in general, and Clintons in particular. Especially the NYT.
I won’t call the story a nothingburger, since it does seem to have riled up the Usual Suspects, but it’s not substantive. It’s the ordinary shit-flinging we’ve all grown wearily accustomed to.
Morzer
@Tommy:
I think part of it is a generational thing. Older people often seem to think that their personal email account is the only account they need and they like it and want to keep using it, partly because they’ve gotten used to how it’s set up and the various things you can/should do to make it work for you.
the Conster
@Morzer:
She fights for herself pretty hard alright – I’ll give her that. For progressive principles, not so much. If she’d fought Bush policies as hard as she fought to keep those Michigan delegates I’d feel much better about her. Her one “accomplishment” as Senator was to co-sponsor an anti flag burning bill with that paragon of progressivism Bob Bennett from Utah. Is there any way to draft Sherrod Brown? I just can’t take any more of Clinton retro 90s bullshit.
mikej
@Baud: If the “left” are stamping their feet and absolutely won’t vote for you, there’s only one place to go.
orogeny
John, you’re right about the fact that it was really dumb for Clinton to use a private email account instead of state.gov, but would it have made any difference to the right? The simple fact that she HAD a private account would have been all they requited to create a cloud of suspicion and innuendo.
“Sure, she used the state.gov account for all the innocent emails, but it was the clintonemail.com account that was used for all the incriminating Benghazi! emails.”
But she was still dumb to give them extra ammunition.
Gin & Tonic
@Han: Did the NA used to require copies of correspondence sent, as well as received?
Yes.
Loviatar
@WaterGirl: @Tommy:
I copying this whole comment because its seems neither of you have bothered to read up on this subject. (h/t Morzer)
Morzer
@the Conster:
You might care to recall that, when she did try and stand up for even modestly progressive ideas of the feminist variety, there were howls of rage and demands that she get back to baking cookies like a good little housewife. Back in the day standing up for anything vaguely liberal was not exactly fun. I don’t recall too many Democrats standing up for her then either.
West of the Cascades
@Baud: Smart FOIA lawyers know this sort of crap sometimes goes on and ask, in the alternative, for all emails on government and personal accounts.
The point is that we shouldn’t have to, and regular members of the public — who have the same rights to public documents under FOIA — aren’t going to be able to get them when a public official conducts government business on a personal email account.
Tommy
@Morzer:
I don’t disagree. I see it all the time with my clients. I am doing this massive e-commerce site for a client and I can’t get him away from Yahoo! Mail. It makes NO sense to me but it is what he knows, what he is comfortable with, and I soon realized I couldn’t change him. A battle not worth fighting.
Paul in KY
@magurakurin: Of course she had a government email account. She just didn’t use it.
Emma
@Weaselone: We Democrats love to spit on our own. It’s why we’re always left to do the cleanup for the Republicans. When it comes down to it, until the Tea Party arrived, they marched in lockstep. In many ways they still do. We have pretty much allowed them to push back on every front because our primary concern is with our purity.
I dislike the Cintons and hope to God a more viable contender comes out of the process. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to join in the “let’s get Hillary” mob. But it won’t matter. We’ll get Hillary ourselves and then whine as the Republicans continue to push us back to pre-Civil War times.
At least we’ll have our intact purity.
NotMax
@the Conster
This
Boiled down to the nub (and all generalizations break down, including this one) Bill is intelligent but not very clever; Hillary is clever but not terribly intelligent.
(dons goalie mask and garb)
pseudonymous in nc
@Tommy:
You’d bloody well hope not.
If you were mightily pissed off about Rove’s little Rovelings using unofficial email while in political-appointee jobs during the Bush presidency (and I was) then you have to be equally pissed off about Clinton doing the same. Doesn’t matter what previous SecStates did.
Mike in NC
I just made a run to the post office, and spotted one of the new ‘Hillary!’ bumper stickers on a car. Pretty exciting. Or not.
Josie
Two points – Ms. Clinton traveled (a lot) and the clunky government email probably didn’t travel well. Also, this is inside the beltway stuff that people out in the real world of trying to live from paycheck to paycheck just won’t give a damn about.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, my specific recollection was that Obama mentioned LGBT rights in his regular stump speech, Hillary only when she was speaking to groups she knew were gay friendly, and even more when she was trying to make hay out of his “clinging to their guns and bibles”, the little arch lift of her tone and eyebrows when she pointed out that he had said that in “San FranCISco”
geg6
@Morzer:
THIS. THIS. THIS.
Belafon
@Patrick:
Her office did recently turn over a lot of emails, like 50K pages worth.
At the same time, I wonder if she used the same email for the same reason we no longer get a new phone number when we change cell phone carriers (remember when that used to happen): You have to notify all of your contacts and you and they have to update their contact list. I suspect Clinton’s government contact list is huge and if you’re not required, why would you want to go through it?
Morzer
@pseudonymous in nc:
Hold on though. Did the Rovelings turn over their emails? Clinton seems to have done so – which was what the law required when she was SoS.
EriktheRed
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/03/remember-huge-mitt-romney-email-scandal.html
the Conster
@Morzer:
Oh bullshit. The howls weren’t coming from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, and I remember clearly her tears in New Hampshire about her poor poor lady parts victimhood. If she runs away from the Obama coalition which she seems to be inclined to do- the coalition that elected a Democratic president twice – I’ll fucking hit somebody. Her political nature is to be a Republican leaning centrist triangulator like Bill, and it shows every day in every way. She needs some seriously stiff competition.
Cervantes
@Paul in KY:
Actually, the Times has reported that she did not have a government e-mail address during her four years at State.
Patrick
@Belafon:
Fair point.
MomSense
I think people are getting caught up on the email account and that is not the problem. The problem is whether her correspondence as SOS was retained and available as required by the Federal Records Act.
That the State Dept. was not able to provide emails because they did not have them in their possession is the problem. That we are now relying on her advisers to provide the emails they deem relevant is another big problem.
The double standard in all of this is NOT whether she used private email accounts like Sec. Powell but more like what the Bush admin did when it used RNC servers so that the public could not access communications we had a right to see. The media didn’t seem to care much about it when the Republicans pulled that crap but they do now. I cared then and I care now.
Morzer
@the Conster:
Did you miss the Clinton presidency? The whole debate about whether she was allowed to keep her own name? The whole baking cookies nonsense? The vitriol poured on her for trying to create a real healthcare plan? Were you simply asleep throughout those years? HRC has tried to walk the walk and been panned for it by all sorts of Democrats over time.
MomSense
@Morzer:
How do we know if Clinton turned over all of her emails? Because her advisers say so?
The Moar You Know
@C.V. Danes: We now fire people for that shit. It’s a known predictive behavior for IP theft or espionage, and it wreaks utter havoc, both for legal and the IT department, if we ever get hit with a discovery request.
geg6
@Morzer:
Sitting down with Betty and Morzer.
Loviatar
@Morzer:
You can’t win. This is an Obot/pragmatic Democrat site. They’ve made up their minds and damm if your facts are going to change it.
Tommy
@Cervantes: And that to me is not acceptable. I have no idea why she’d do this, but I am sorry it kind of makes me wonder. Look I get the Republicans will attack her no matter what she does. All the hate she and Bill have endured would make me want to give them the middle finger and not let them have access to all my emails. But she was a freaking government employee and there is a Federal Records Act. Those emails are the property of the United State Government!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I saw in the paper this morning that it is the law that some government officials (I forget offhand just how many, or if it’s everybody in the government or what) must use government e-mail accounts for all their official work. This is so there’s a history of what people sent back and forth. I saw that Clinton, or somebody near her, said that it’s all O.K., because the government officials she sent her e-mails to would have copies, so everything’s hunky-dory. Only that doesn’t quite cut it, since, well, what about official e-mails she might have sent to people who aren’t in the U.S. government? What about people in other countries governments?
This is one of the reasons I don’t like or trust Clinton, this, well, I don’t know quite how to put it in words… Secrecy? Insularity? Bad judgement? Tendency to surround herself with incompetents? I think Trey Gowdy is a racist, and I know he’s a dickweed with a misshapen head, and he’s a fundamentalist authoritarian fucklehead, and all he cares about is fucking over the president any way he can. But the last thing anybody who has anything to do with President Obama’s administration should be doing is giving any credibility to this asshole. And Obama and those around him have been maddeningly, almost tauntingly, honest. That’s something that pisses Republicans off more than almost anything else, and that’s why they’re so dead fucking set on showing us all, damn it, just what a corrupt, sleazy darkie he is. And here Clinton has given Gowdy and his shit sow fail parade something legitimate–for the first fucking time in six years–to beat into the ground.
I don’t want to go through four or eight years of watching a Democratic president play into the wingnuts’ hands.
Paul in KY
@Cervantes: I stand corrected. Thanks!
Cervantes
@MomSense:
I agree.
Morzer
@MomSense:
It’s a matter of public record that she turned over 55,000 pages of email, which, allowing for the stuff that gets classified under national security regulations and excepting cat-porn from relevance, looks like a pretty solid chunk of the material that account would have generated.
the Conster
@Morzer:
I was there, and I have no interest in reliving it again. I perceive her ambition to be president is for the title, and for her own self-aggrandizement – it feels to me like she’s all about “I’ll show them” and I have no interest in sitting through that fucking drama, at all.
Morzer
@Loviatar:
Hell, I am an Obot, always have been, and I would say that it’s distinctly unpragmatic to piss all over Clinton on the basis of a thin story and some poorly evidenced assertions about her nefarious ways. I don’t even like Bill Clinton and I am not impressed by his record as a politician, never mind being a fan of HRC. What mystifies me is this rush to beat on HRC in ways that can only gratify the GOP.
Chickamin Slam
John Cole / Anne Laurie 2016
Get your bumper stickers while their hot!
I mean if Herman Cain, Steve Forbes, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump can weigh in and be taken seriously as presidential material on one side. And if Hillary keeps imploding and Warren won’t run. Why not Cole and Laurie?
Morzer
@the Conster:
Well, alrighty then. Let’s all run with our perceptions and to hell with those boring old facts. What a blast 2016 is going to be!
MomSense
@Morzer:
So a pretty solid chunk is the standard?
TriassicSands
@Face:
Best and brightest? We’re talking about Roy Moore, who is nothing if not the worst and dimmest. Moore’s judicial training appears to have been in Biblical studies and as we all know, according to the US Constitution, the Bible always trumps the Constitution.
Tommy
@Morzer: As I have said I am not a huge fan of Hillary. But I refuse to bash her. If I have to vote for her I will. Might not be happy about it, but alas in my 45 years on this planet, not a single person I supported in the primary made it to the general.
I just get a little frustrated we tend to “eat our own.” The Republicans well attack Hillary with everything they have …. see no reason we need to pile on.
Morzer
@MomSense:
What other standard would you be happy to apply at this point? How many emails do you think have been hidden from you by the wicked Hillary and what is your basis for that belief?
the Conster
@Morzer:
The facts speak to her sense of entitlement, her instincts to always play it safe, her inability to surround herself with anyone other than the hacks she relies on for advice, and her inability to control her own presidential campaign so it wasn’t an infighting back stabbing chaotic mess. We Democrats deserve much much better.
Morzer
@the Conster:
The “facts” as filtered through your not exactly unbiased perception might say that to you, yes.
And do feel free to tell all of us who the progressive champion without flaws might be. Are they actually resident on planet earth? Do they want to run for the Democratic nomination?
the Conster
@Morzer:
An you of course, are perfectly unbiased because reasons.
Loviatar
@Morzer:
Obama – Not a fan. Naive politician who fumbled away the first opportunity in almost 50 years (since Reagan) to move the country back to the left. Much more conservative than his supporters and opponents will acknowledge.
Clinton, Bill – Arrogant, egotistical ass who pissed away his legacy and is directly responsible for the election of Bush the lessor.
Clinton, Hillary – Done more with less opportunity than most men. More moderate then me, but less so than either Bill or Obama.
The hate here for Hillary is a combination of CDS, sexism and Obot hatred for all things Hillary.
Morzer
@the Conster:
I am not the one repeating warmed-over Beltway gossip to damn Hillary Clinton. A slight difference between our view of things, but not without significance.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Damn. You said everything I was trying to say, but you said it much better and in many fewer words than I did or could have. And Democrats we do deserve better. The country deserves better. It isn’t like she’s the only person in the Democratic Party who could do the job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Loviatar: Jesus, you’re an idiot, but it’s almost endearing.
OzarkHillbilly
@the Conster:
Do you really believe there are people who run for other reasons? I mean outside of the Herman Cains of the world?
the Conster
@OzarkHillbilly:
There are easier ways to satisfy egotistical needs than to run for president, so yes, personal ambition is necessary but not sufficient.
Betty Cracker
@Tommy: Obama was the first candidate I supported in the primary who went on to win the nomination. Before Obama, I had a sad record of primary support FAIL that included Bill Bradley, Jerry Brown and Howard Dean.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Forgive me–or don’t; I don’t care–but were you asleep through the winter, spring and early summer of 2008? One of the reasons a lot of us are so skeptical and suspicious of her is that we saw waht kind of campaign she ran then, and we didn’t like what we saw. She reminds me of Martha Coakley on a much bigger stage.
Loviatar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thank you. I truly am the one-eyed man in the land of the Balloon Juice blind.
Karl
Really? She used her personal email for correspondance on business? This is some Andrew Sullivan level shit man. Am I in violation when I text my boss an important question, on my personal phone?
I don’t want Clinton to be president. But for crying out loud, let the woman be a human being who lives in the world. Especially considering the rules were not in place until after she left the State Department.
Are we really arguing that the right hates her so much that it’s her fault if she steps on a fucking sidewalk crack? She should have known better?
Fair Economist
And it’s a damn good thing she *didn’t* use the State Department system, because otherwise all her official email would have gone out with the Wikileaks business. She couldn’t have made a better decision than to use her own email.
the Conster
@Morzer:
Her campaign wasn’t a back stabbing chaotic mess? Her instincts aren’t to stick her finger in the wind? She doesn’t surround herself with the Mark Penns and Lanny Davis and Haim Sabans of the world? Which of these things isn’t true?
patrick II
That depends upon whats in the emails.
And she watched her husband get shot down over an affair found by a guy who was supposed to be investigating Whitewater. They just kept looking until they found something. They found this private email account because they were ostensibly looking for Benghazi material, but were actually using Benghazi as a means to ask for and scour as much of her material as they could to find that next controversy, and after four years as Secretary of State I’m sure they would of found something. They could ask for emails with any mention of Benghazi, but emails often have more than one subject — perhaps some too frank assessment of Netanyahu or some othr alleged ally.
It’s not clear to me that it was dumb if she can use the pivacy to protect herself from Republicans combing thru them because there would be no harm that releasing emails would do to this country that would stop republicans from trying to harm Clinton.
Cacti
What will be the next shiny object that the BJ combustible hair brigade chases frantically?
OzarkHillbilly
@the Conster: My point is only that they all have egos, and they all think they can do the job better than everybody else. So to knock a person for that particular flaw is really rather pointless.
And just for the record, There are any # of Democrats I would prefer to Hillary, but there is not a Republican in existence I would prefer to her.
Tommy
@Betty Cracker:
Oh I know that feeling very well. I was an Edwards guy before Obama, so you can question my judgement :). The point I was making, which I think you totally get, is that I often have to hold my nose when I vote. But I always vote. I just wish others in my party understood this isn’t a perfect situation, but as the Stones said “you can’t always get what you want.”
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Gene108:
I’m wondering that as well, especially since I discovered yesterday that I mysteriously can no longer access my corporate email account from home through the website I’m supposed to use. You can’t have the SoS in the UK with someone saying, “I sent you an urgent email about Uganda,” and have her say, “Sorry, I can’t read that until I’m back in Washington.”
Cervantes
@Paul in KY:
What I have not yet seen the Times report is that the primary e-mail account she used while at State was created on the first day of her Senate confirmation hearing — a week before the president was inaugurated. The use of the account was therefore not a reaction to “Wikileaks” or anything else that happened while she was at State.
It is not clear who actually did the work of registering the domain name; the paperwork mentions someone who has not yet been shown to exist elsewhere.
And the account was used for all of her official state.gov business, and for nothing else — so its use was not a matter of her continuing to use for convenience a long-established e-mail address that all her contacts already had in their address books.
Betty Cracker
@Loviatar: In what ways do you think Clinton (Hillary) is less moderate / conservative than Obama? I think there’s almost no daylight policy-wise between the two, which is what makes the ferocity of the infighting kinda dumb.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: You don’t think there are huge differences in how Clinton would handle foreign policy vs. Obama? I surely do.
Tripod
The Clinton’s have always been lazy sloppy, it’s who they are. When Bill was on point, he could use his immense political charisma to make their recurrent fuckups go away. With Hillary as candidate they don’t have that margin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that’s one thing that’s been on my mind whenever this comes up: How much urgent, classified, really important State Dept business is done by e-mail? I believe I read that Rice didn’t use email at all while SoS, which is hard to imagine, but HRC’s people have said she did important business either face-to-face or by (presumably secured) phone calls, which strikes me as logical. This, to me, is mostly political, Trey Gowdy and Lindsey Graham pretending to believe there’s a smoking Benghazi gun out there somewhere, and John McCain, Darrell Issa and all the other crazy uncles actually believing it.
the Conster
@OzarkHillbilly:
Amen to that.
askew
@rea:
She wasn’t acting like every prior SoS. Powell used both personal and private and Rice didn’t use personal email. But, even so, that’s no excuse to defy regulations in place in 2009 and the WH’s stated directives to use government e-mail not private e-mail.
Tommy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I wonder the same thing. I recall Obama’s staff took away his Blackberry after the election. If I am not mistaken it was said it was too much of a time drain. But I also wonder about security. And to be frank, a paper trail.
Fair Economist
@Cervantes: The private email account wasn’t a response to Wikileaks, although it might well have been a response to the government account not being good enough. I would actually suspect it was a response to Hillary’s long experience with Republican abuse of governmental records. In any case, it worked out to a fantastic decision and saved the country from a tremendous amount of grief and trouble from having all the SoS correspondence released on Wikileaks.
jl
@rea:
You make a good point.
There is a difference between ‘bad Democrat’ and being generally silly.This NYT story is still waffling around about whether HRC broke a written regulation.
This story is still BS. It won’t be if a) HRC has not preserved her emails and cannot respond to requests, or b) it can be shown that HRC broke written regulations and/or departed significantly from precedent. I don’t see either yet.
It’s fine to not like HRC and fine to prefer someone else run as Dem nominee in 2016.
But I am not going to be trolled by poor reporting by the NYT that has a history with Clintons or corporate press that produces BS sloppy reporting. This might not even be revival of NYT sad history of reporting wrt to Clintons, might just be general trolling because things are to quiet and undramatic on the Democratic side.
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe, possibly, can’t say for sure until she is elected.
However, one thing I can say for sure, she sure the hell won’t naively waste six years expecting the Republicans to cooperate with her. Obama missed an opportunity, he had a great crisis to use and instead of using it to implement his objectives, he instead used it to reach out to men who hated him on sight. He thought he was smarter and better than the whole room. Bush knew he wasn’t, when his crisis arose he took advantage of it to move the country in his direction.
askew
@dobrojutro:
That’s the problem that Gawker talks about. Email correspondence to people outside State didn’t get archived and now it turns out her staffers were using private email accounts too. But, don’t worry about it. We can just trust Hillary.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I think HRC might be .002% more hawkish, but no, I don’t think there are huge differences between the two on foreign policy. I find both distressingly intervention-minded. That said, Obama had the brains and courage to oppose the Iraq War and Clinton didn’t, which is the #1 reason I supported him over HRC in the 2008 primary.
srv
Hosting your own mailserver? For Federal business? Perhaps she dables in UUCP and likes fucking with sendmail.cf.
TIL, Real politicians run their own mailservers.
Han
@NotMax: And Moses had a fishy birth certificate too.
Mandalay
@Morzer:
What’s wrong is that nobody really knows whether Clinton really did turn over all her emails to the State Department. Why? Because the State Department has no access to Clinton’s email account, and they are having to rely on Clinton’s staffers to do the right thing. If Clinton sent any emails as SoS to any foreign government, and did not copy someone in the State Department, and Clinton chooses not to hand those emails over, then there is no record at all.
Maybe you trust Clinton to hand over all those emails. Would you trust SoS Cruz just as much? It boggles my mind that people are not more concerned about this.
She deliberately created a situation where the government did not have full access to her emails in her capacity as SoS. All the discussions about what her predecessors did, and what the law was at the time, are somewhat beside the central point – what Clinton did was inherently wrong.
The story is inevitably being framed and perceived in partisan terms. But suppose you were asked this question before all this blew up: “Are you in favor of senior government officials using only their personal email account to conduct government business?”. Would anybody here say “yes” (or even “meh”) to that?
askew
@Gene108:
Other WH admin employees had no problems adhering to this guideline and had Blackberrys as did all other State employees except Hillary and her inner circle.
Kerry Reid
@Morzer: Her “baking cookies” comment came in 1992 in Chicago, when Jerry Brown was pressing her husband about the amount of work that the Rose Law Firm was getting from the state. So it was a question about conflict of interest with Mrs. Clinton’s employer. Not sexism. The baking-cookies line was Hillary Clinton’s way of trying to make it about her having a career at all — not how that career was helped by her marriage to the governor of Arkansas.
That said — I remain dubious that there is a big scandal here. Maybe lack of judgment, sure. And the need for the MSM to constantly create “scandals” around Democratic politicians is one of the fall-outs of losing the Fairness Doctrine. Yet another reason why Reagan and his supporters can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned.
Randy Khan
@Gin & Tonic: It’s great that a lot of people maintain separate accounts, but a lot of people don’t. It is, among other things, inconvenient to have separate accounts.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t have had a “[email protected]” account and used it for all of her official business, but we shouldn’t act like there aren’t millions of people who commingle work and personal email.
askew
@rikyrah:
Yep, she’s left the WH out there answering questions and taking heat from the media while she has her spokesperson send out one vague and completely useless statement. As usual, Clintons make the messes and the rest of the Dem party is left to clean it up or make excuses for it.
I liked that the WH basically shoved this pile of shit back into the Clinton’s hands and said they didn’t know if Hillary was in compliance with laws/regs and that it is up to State Dept to determine that and that further ?s need to go to State and Hillary’s team.
MomSense
@Morzer:
I think she should comply with the Federal Records Act not some “other standard”. I don’t think it should be up to her private advisers to determine which emails are relevant. How would I know how many emails may or may not have been hidden? Do you know? Do you care? Why is this a matter of belief?
Tommy
@askew: One of the only reasons Research in Motion (ie Blackberry) is still in business is it works very well with a MS Exchange server for emails and it is very secure.
askew
@Morzer:
Lie. Powell had a government email address and used both personal and government. Rice did not use a personal account at all for government business.
Kerry Reid
@Betty Cracker: I’m in the “There is a nihilist death cult called the Republican Party and anyone who is going to NOT support Hillary because of this can fucking well join them in hell” camp. And as you probably recall from the PUMA stuff (good times!) I was FAR from a Hillary supporter in 2008.
gelfling545
@John Cole +0: I’m a Clinton supporter. I am such because I see it as absolutely essential that the next president be a Democrat. If there were someone even nearly as likely to attract a majority of voters I would be very amenable, even delighted to support that person but, to date, no one even remotely likely has surfaced.
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
Its funny I was leaning towards Obama for this reason also, however I was very leery of him because we did not know much about him other that he was this black Senator from Illinois. I didn’t have a clear idea on his Foreign Policy (way too close to Lieberman for my liking) beyond his Iraq vote. I didn’t know much about him at all. My stance was lets find out more about him, but on sites like this there was a frenzy of CDS and sexism that made Hillary anathema to a certain segment of Democratic voters. The commentary was vile and destructive (today’s thread is a very very mild version of what was said in 2008). It turned me off of Obama, but I voted for him anyway. However, once I saw his policies and actions, I sat out 2012.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@askew:
Where are you getting the information about Rice? It’s not in the NYT story that John linked above.
Cervantes
@Randy Khan:
But what if the (one?) particular private address she used for state.gov business was only used for state.gov business?
askew
@Kay:
I think you make the mistake of thinking Ohio is like the rest of the country. Hillary did not have a lot of institutional support in Minnesota. There was a lot of Clinton fatigue up here in 2008 and people just weren’t interested in re-living the constant scandals and missteps of the Clinton years.
Now, Minnesota is very different from the rest of the country and I expect she’ll do better in other parts of the country. She is just a bad fit for our state. We like squeaky clean politicians up here.
askew
@Cervantes:
Then why did her staffers have to comb through her emails to determine which ones needed to be turned over for State (years after they were supposed to be archived) and why did only some of them get turned over?
These are questions that Hillary should have already answered. The fact that her supporters are making up reasons for why she violated the WH’s express wishes and may have violated the 2009 regulations is troubling. Why isn’t Team Hillary in front of this? Is it because she doesn’t have a good answer or she hopes if she doesn’t say anything until the DNC convention in 2016 we’ll be stuck with her?
AnonPhenom
It’s not the legality stupid, it’s the ‘optics’. I’m pretty sure she knew she’d be running a political campaign to become President in 2016.
Did she think for one moment that ‘Clinton Rules’ would not apply?
I get the whole private server thing, particularly given the Rove Republicans’ perchance for ratfucking, I would be hesitant to use a hand me down IT system also. But don’t be ‘slick’ about it. Let it be known that you are doing this.
Because now you are stuck ‘explaining’ it. And when you’re ‘explaining’ …
askew
@Morzer:
You mean the double-standard for how outraged Dems were over W admin’s use of private emails, Walker’s use of private emails, Palin’s use of private emails, etc. and how it is no big deal if Hillary does it now. If you don’t remember the outrage, we have plenty of quotes from Hillary and her future campaign manager Podesta expressing outrage.
I’d be pissed if it was Obama doing the same thing. There is no excuse for using personal email exclusively and not turning over emails in a timely manner to be archived.
Betty Cracker
@Kerry Reid: Amen and amen!
@Loviatar: As you may realize, many people had the reverse-image experience, i.e., stumbling onto lunatic hives of ODS Clinton-supporting sites that turned them off HRC.
Me, I was gonna vote for whichever Democrat prevailed in 2008, and I’ll do the same in 2016. As Kerry so astutely observes above, there’s this nihilistic death cult…
C.V. Danes
@The Moar You Know: Exactly. This is like standard IT stuff: here’s your new log in and your new email address. Do they not have these procedures in place?
Tommy
@askew: And that is my frustration. I don’t care who did it, it is wrong. Maybe I have worked for anal bosses but I don’t know in what world it would have been OK for me to conduct business using a private email address.
askew
@the Conster:
Martin O’Malley is apparently going to run and he is running to Hillary’s left on economic issues and he is to her left on social issues. He is a great alternative to Hillary. I don’t think he gets much traction unless Hillary continues to stonewall on this issue and the hearings get ugly and there are going to be a lot of hearings now because Hillary didn’t turn over all her emails.
askew
@Tommy:
I said this last night but my corporation deals with protected health information and we have to take annual compliance tests regarding HIPPA and other laws and it states quite clearly over and over if we use non-work emails for our job we can be fired or fined by the government.
I am actually more concerned about the stories now that her staffers were using private emails as well. So, if they were sending emails back and forth on State business how do we get that archived? Trust that they may turn it over someday?
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
Same here.
Doesn’t mean I have to like my fellow travelers though. Also, if I feel its bad enough, I will sit out.
askew
@Morzer:
And you don’t think Obama got insulting things hurled at him? He still managed to fight for progressive policies. Why should we elect someone president who will abandon fights for progressive policies because people said something mean to her?
Tommy
@C.V. Danes: The most standard thing. Every place I’ve worked since like 1992 my login information for the network and my email was as common as a first thing to do as it was to fill out my W2 Form. I can’t even wrap my mind around the shit storm that would have happened if I used a personal email for business.
askew
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Yep, I am seriously pissed off that the Republicans finally have a scandal to sink their teeth into with the Obama admin and it is thanks to Hillary Clinton. Why am I not surprised? They make bad choices that lead to scandals time and time again. Obama has run the most transparent and clean WH in decades and then this happens. Thanks Hillary.
Tommy
@askew: My niece Katie is 6. I was over at her house last weekend for her birthday. She is going to a private school that has kids from Kindergarten until middle school. On the fridge was a note from the school with her email and password she’ll have the entire time she is at the school. Like 8 years of her life. That my 6-year-old niece and her school has a better procedure in place then the Department of State is troubling to say the least.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
I backed every one of those and I even wore a stupid orange hat and knocked on doors for Dean in Iowa. It’s been disappointment after disappointment for me until Obama got the nod. I am still in shock that he managed to beat Hillary. I think the media is as well.
HRA
@WaterGirl:
“That’s okay, because you will get what you deserve if you don’t vote. I hope you’ll enjoy the supreme court that will surely roll back a whole lot of stuff that is really good for regular people.
Sadly, though, it’s the millions and millions of other people who, though no fault of their own, will get screwed by the supreme court we would get under a republican.”
That’s a wonderful way to respond to a person. Is bullying someone to vote against their choice going to be a trend now? Maybe you also forgot one salient point “you get two for the price of one”. There are people saying they don’t want to give Bill Clinton a third term.
The Supreme Court is the add on to everyone’s vote? Does the fact of both houses of Congress being Republican matter if there is an opening there? Don’t blame me for it. Blame the missing DNC and the Democrats who stayed home in the last election. I was not one of them.
askew
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Sigh. Really? This is your new far-fetched excuse for circumventing the WH’s explicit request to use government emails for government work and possibly breaking the 2009 regs.
There are 100s of State employees stationed all over the world and all of them are using government email accounts. The president uses a government email account. John Kerry exclusively uses a government account.
But, Hillary knew before she even started at State that she would be unable to get her government email at some point at State so she set up a personal email account that let her turn over only the emails she wanted when she wanted at her discretion. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
askew
@Cervantes:
If the account was used only for State business, why did her staffers have to come through every email to determine what could be turned over to State to be archived years after she left? And why did they leave some emails out?
Mandalay
@Tommy:
Exactly. Surely even Clinton’s staunchest defenders would have to concede that what she did was fundamentally wrong.
Sure you can make mitigating arguments that it was legal, or “both sides do it!”, or that it is no big deal. But anyone insisting that she did nothing wrong needs to check their moral compass.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
Because as people have said for years, it isn’t about policy alone. It’s about competence and character.
Plus, there is huge daylight between the two of them on foreign policy. Does the Iraq War ring a bell?
Gex
@Belafon: Yeah, but if I do something a certain way, it is obvious and right and everyone should know it. (How every “well I do such and such…” response to something like this sounds to me.)
askew
@Tommy:
Secret Service took away his personal blackberry not his staffers. It was a security issue and it just goes back to why the President can use a gov email address but it was too hard for Hillary to do the same.
fuckwit
Meh. I don’t like the Clintons, and I recognize my own immediate reflexive reaction to see glibness, arrogance, grift, sleazery, and obliviousness in their actions. It fits the narrative I already have of them; I don’t trust them, even though I agree with a good chunk of their ideology and policy. At least I’m conscious of that feeling. However, the right wing, and may democrats, particularly around here (ahem, blogmaster) perhaps aren’t as conscious of their own biases. And I see this story as being driven by that kind of reflexive dislike/distrust.
Even with my prejudice against them, I smell nothingburger grilling up medium rare. I’ll score the number of fucks I give about this as zero.
askew
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
ABC News.
dnfree
@Shantanu Saha: The teachers in your school who don’t use the official email address may be making a huge mistake. Do they realize that their communications with parents are subject to subpoena? I know a teacher who has been in that situation (a lawsuit over special education recommendations or lack thereof). This teacher was aware that her communications with parents were subject to exposure, but not that her email communications with fellow staff members about the student (in which she may have been slightly less discreet) were subject to being obtained.
Using a work email address for work-related purposes is simply a sign of professionalism as well as a practical matter.
Starfish
@Tommy: Tell me more about how secure Blackberry is.
Tommy
@Mandalay: @askew: I do websites for a living. Mostly small businesses, so setting up emails is just part of my day to day life since many of my clients are having a hosting account and domain name for the first time.
This is 2015. Not 1987. Setting up an email is simple and clearly not location specific.
One of the things that has frustrated me in these comments is that Hillary felt she had to do this because the IT infrastructure at the State Department wasn’t good enough. Total BS. You can buy a low-end server for under $500. She is the freaking SoS. Buy a server just for her. Throw it into any data warehouse and be done with it.
As I said in another comment this isn’t rocket science.
askew
@Tommy:
I think there were procedures in place at State. It sounds like Hillary and her team disregarded them and there was no one above her telling not to do it. Should Rahm have made sure that every cabinet head was following the guidelines the WH set down, possibly. But, let’s be honest Hillary was never going to let Rahm tell her what to do.
e
@NotMax: Dementia 13 was Francs Ford Coppola’s first mainstream movie.
Loviatar
Hey guys, lets ends this argument among
friendscolleguesfrememies.There should be prosecutions if “somebody has blatantly broken the law” but we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. You’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got spend their all their time looking over their shoulders.”
John Cole +0
@Loviatar: For fucks sake. I’ve done nothing but defend Clinton for the past few years. I’m going to vote for her. saying “STOP SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FUCKING FOOT” is not breaking out the haterade.
Loviatar
@John Cole +0:
douche bro angry because he’s called out on his CDS/sexism. aww don’t be angry douche bro.
John Cole +0
@Loviatar: What sexism? What CDS? Where is that on display?
Mandalay
Forget about what Clinton’s predecessors did, the wisdom of using a personal email account, and the legal issues…
This is your future president who claims to love transparency and open government: no response to FOIA requests after five years.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Loviatar:
Well, Jesús Marimba, it isn’t like he hasn’t also dumped on other Democrats who’ve done dumbass or weaselly shit. He dumps on Joe Manchin all the time. He bitches (rightfully, I think) when President Obama needlessly goes out of his way to try to win over Republicans who are never going to do anything but look for ways to impeach him. Pissing and moaning about something like this is hardly something he only does when Clinton does something dumb.
And, come on. What the hell, we watched six years ago, as she kept doing the same kind of shit as this, and she kicked away a nomination that should have been easy for her to win. You know? It just makes us wonder whether she’s learned anything since then. Now Gowdy Doody (R, Conehead) has something that might not be a waste of everybody’s time to flog for the next year and a half. We don’t need that.
Betty Cracker
@askew:
Uh, yeah, which is why I wrote that I supported Obama over Clinton for that very reason earlier in the exchange with that commenter.
kc
@rikyrah:
Yes, Obama really showed terrible judgment in making her his SOS.
Loviatar
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
History son, its a wonderful thing. Take 5 and google John Cole, Hillary and 2008. Youl’ll get why I say sexism and CDS are driving these posts.
kc
@askew:
Then why did Obama nominate her for Secretary of State?
Tommy
@askew: No I get that. I am sure if you or I start at the Department of State tomorrow there are very specific procedures in place. But as you noted when you are running the place who tells you you can’t do this or that?
I think she is very, very smart. I am not a conspiracy theory guy, but I also don’t think for a second she didn’t know what she was doing here. This IMHO was not some oversight.
The only reason you do something like this is because you don’t want a paper trail. I am open to other reasons, but frankly none of them make any sense.
askew
@kc:
That’s what I’ve always said. Biggest mistake of his administration.
askew
@kc:
Because SoS doesn’t set foreign policy, they carry out the President’s directives and he made the decision that she’d be less of a PITA in his admin than outside of it and the Dems in the Senate didn’t want her back. I disagree. I think she would have been Kerry’d if she went back the Senate and we’d be done with Hillary.
Hillary wasn’t Obama’s equal while at State no matter what her supporters try to pretend.
C.V. Danes
@Tommy:
Exactly. And how do you separate the two for legal purposes once you have co-mingled the emails? Instead of Clinton’s staff having the option of turning over what they want from her personal account, her personal account should have been treated as a state account as soon as she started co-mingling the emails.
John Cole +0
@Loviatar: I’m waiting. What was sexist or douche bro about this post. Fill me in. All ears.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
You actually said that after the comment I quoted and it was too late for me to edit. But, that is a big enough difference that your original comment about there being no daylight between the two on policy was silly. There has always been big daylight between the two on foreign policy. And like I said, there has always been a massive difference between the two on character and competence issues with Hillary lacking in both.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@askew:
Look, I realize that you have a deep and abiding personal hatred for Hillary Clinton but, really, you think that the federal government’s computer infrastructure as of 2009 was completely up to date and easily did a remote interface with laptops and mobile devices? Have you ever even used a VPN to get through your company’s firewall from home?
Loviatar
@John Cole +0:
My son always tries to make it about the moment whenever he tries to get out of trouble for something he’s done. I always tell him context and history matter.
You have a history of CDS/sexism (no I’m not doing the google for you), its out there and has been repeated with various women (Jane Hamsher). Your CDS as a former Republican is also well established. Your desire to headline twice over the past two days on a subject even some of the most ardent Hillary haters see as a nothingburger indicates this is not just a “STOP SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FUCKING FOOT” post but a personal condemnation of Hilliary Clinton. If its personal to you, then I feel quite comfortable in pointing out to your readers that your personal opinions comes with some baggage.
John Cole +0
@Loviatar: You got nothing. Duly noted. Troll.
Mandalay
@askew:
I have only seen Clinton explicitly criticize Obama’s foreign policy once since he became president, when she blamed Obama’s policies for the rise ISIS in a bizarre outburst.
She didn’t repeat that mistake. After she ran her mouth and stuck the knife in I suspect someone in the Administration quietly made her an offer she couldn’t refuse: either you STFU criticizing your president, or you won’t have his support for your presidential ambitions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Cole +0: of all the commenters on this thread, you choose to engage with the dumbest troll you’ve ever drawn out of the toobz?
Loviatar
@John Cole +0:
So John, tell us how you really feel about Jane Hamsher. And afterwards you can tell us about the Clinton years and the deep respect and admiration you showed for Hillary in 2008.
Loviatar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
one-eyed man in the land of the blind.
askew
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I work at home and use VPN every single day to log on to my work’s computer with zero issues as do 1000s of other employees at my company who telecommute or work at home occasionally. Yes, on occasion there can be issues but 99% of the time it works just fine and our systems are far from state of the art.
And how are the 1000s of State Dept and other federal government employees who work overseas able to use government email for their work while Hillary can’t. What about the president and his senior staff who all traveled all over the world and still managed to use government email. Robert Gibbs said yesterday that what Hillary did was unusual for the Obama admin and the WH Press Secretary said that the WH expected all admin employees to use government email for government business and this has been true for all of Obama’s time in office. So, why didn’t Hillary follow the correct protocol?
And if the reason that she used this alternate protocol was because she was having issues with gov email, why did she set-up the email account before she even started at State? How would she know she’d have issues ahead of time?
This has nothing to do with my hatred of Hillary and I don’t hate her. I just want her out of public office. I’d be fine with her if she retired and went away already. I’d be equally pissed if O’Malley or Obama did the same thing.
askew
@Loviatar:
Blackface Hamsher? No one should be defending that racist asshole who calls themselves a Democrat or liberal especially after she teamed up with Norquist to attack a Dem admin. Not to mention her work to Kill the healthcare bill.
Marc
@Loviatar: Disagreeing with you doesn’t make someone sexist, sorry. If you have a case on the merits to make, make it. If not, spare us.
askew
@Mandalay:
Yeah, that’s my thought as well. But, judging by the tone of Earnest yesterday, I think the Obama WH has zero interest in helping out Hillary with this mess.
Loviatar
@askew:
Reading Comprehension is almost as important as being able to read.
Please point out where I’ve defended Jane Hamsher. What I’ve done is point out that John’s behavior towards her was sexist and beyond the pale. I guess from your standpoint because she wore blackface and partnered with Norquist its okay to treat her in a sexist manner.
Filed away for future reference
Loviatar
@Marc:
Google John Cole and Jane Hamsher, then come back with the same statement.
askew
@Loviatar:
No, sexism is not ok nor is racism. But, I see a lot of Hillary supporters who are A-OK with racism but accuse anyone who doesn’t worship Hillary of sexism. The Geradline Ferraro factor if you will.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@askew: Heh. First time Corner Stone trolled on me was when I mocked noble truth teller Geradline Ferraro
chopper
@Loviatar:
explains a lot.
Loviatar
@askew:
As every parent has told every child sometime during their childhood; if Johnny decided to jump off…
Loviatar
@chopper:
one-eyed man in the land of the blind.
I saw, you still can’t see.
chopper
@Loviatar:
how about you actually support your claim instead of demanding other people do some generic googling?
chopper
@Loviatar:
is it lonely on top of Olympus? must be foggy, I’m sure.
Loviatar
@chopper:
nope
Loviatar
@chopper:
pretty clear if you know what you’re looking at
askew
Yikes, this is looking worse not better http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/03/hillary-clinton-email-server
The server was in her home and her top aides were using it too. There are multiple lawsuits pending from her records.
This is not a nothingburger.
chopper
@Loviatar:
this is fucking hilarious.
askew
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why does that not surprise me?
bemused senior
@Cervantes: Consequently it was not a “personal” email account, but a “privately managed” email account. Calling it a personal email account connotes your Aunt Hattie’s aol account complete with spam, phishing, chain mails from the dotty bridge club friend, etc. etc. A well administered, backed up and secured private server with an email account devoted to her SoS business and and with the appropriate contents turned over as the law required is not a scandal. In fact, given the known problems with government IT, it seems like a genius move to me.
Loviatar
@chopper:
I know, I know ;>)
Loviatar
@bemused senior:
but, but the CDSers say its a major scandal and a return to the bad old Clinton days. Additionally the regulation their citing to beat her up on was not implemented until 6 mths after she left office. Nothing here other than people with an agenda finding a reason to hate.
Mandalay
@Loviatar:
I just did, and came up with Cole saying this in 2008:
That quote makes the allegations you are making against Cole seem not credible. Maybe you still have a point and maybe you don’t, but your eagerness to make accusations coupled with your refusal to provide any actual quotes makes it look like you are full of shit.
So here’s your big chance: back up your accusations with some evidence.
chopper
@askew:
the clintons’ domestic policy can generally be summed up as ‘don’t take chances’. hence triangulation. does anyone think president hillary would have put her neck on the chopping block like obama did to squeak by a health care reform package?
not bloody likely.
different-church-lady
Holy… fucking… GOD, Cole, it’s like you’re determined to be their tool.
askew
@chopper:
No I don’t. One of the reasons I supported Obama over Hillary. When the going gets rough, Hillary folds.
So, the server was stored at Hillary’s house and it also housed two other Clinton emails addresses and was installed by a person the AP can’t find to exist. It had no back-up until 2012. How is this ok?
Loviatar
@Mandalay:
John was sexist in his comments towards several women in the past and I’ve named two. Has John apologized for some of his comments and possibly changed his attitude, maybe, we’ll see as we get further into the 2016 campaign and Hillary runs. But to say based off of your one finding that he is feminism personified is wrong. Those of us who’ve read John for years (10+) realize he has a past that is not the most PC so when he makes comments that trend towards his past behavior I for one am not surprised and also not shy about pointing it out.
—–
nope. for everyone wondering nope, I’m not doing the google for anyone other than myself. If you don’t believe me and choose not to accept my word or check my word thats your problem.
wasabi gasp
Everyone chill the fuck out,
I’ve got this!This is mine!chopper
@Loviatar:
you clearly don’t understand the concept of making and supporting a claim.
john b
@Loviatar: So basically you’re right and there’s no way to prove otherwise?
Bobby Thomson
@rea: this. Nailed in the first comment. Anything else worth reading?
Betty Cracker
@Loviatar: That’s not how it works. You made a very specific allegation. Put up or shut up.
Bobby Thomson
@Loviatar: the Pavlovian conditioning is very strong when it comes to Ted Kennedy and Hillary. It’s how you could always spot the
terminatorsRepublican trolls in the early days of GOS.Alex
@Loviatar: You’re a fucking joke and an embarrassment who just wanted to troll. Any time someone here has confronted you with actual facts and arguments, you’ve hedged. Shoo troll, go home.
Loviatar
@chopper:
She did, seems we all forgotten Clinton health care plan of 1993. She didn’t get it passed, but tried.
We like to joke about the Republicans forgetting everything that occurred before 2008 just so they can blame Obama for everything thats happened since. How is that any different than you guys forgetting everything Hillary did ans tried to do prior to 2000 just so you can give Obama credit for thats happened since.
No difference in my eyes.
WaterGirl
@askew: “Lie” is a very big word, and it implies intent. Unless you are privy to Morzer’s intent in some way that I am not, it seems like it would be more accurate to say that what he wrote is incorrect.
Loviatar
@askew:
Wow what a statement.
Husband cheats on you on a global scale. Opponents attack you for everything from your looks to your name, to you business doings. Yet you still are able to a Senator, a Secretary of State and possibly President
Please GOD, FSM, whatever let my son fold like that.
Mandalay
@Loviatar:
But that was the ONLY quote I could find from Cole to support or refute your accusations, and it just happened to refute them.
I’m with you in principle: if posters want to challenge something someone else writes it is incumbent on them to first get off their lazy ass and come up with some evidence of their own. But I have tried and failed to find anything that’s supports your allegations. Surely it’s not expecting too much that you now provide the evidence yourself?
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
I did. I pointed to John’s comments on Jane Hamsher. What I’m not doing is googling for anyones enjoyment. Those who been around know, those who haven’t can either accept my word, check for themselves or disbelieve me and never believe anything I say again.
——
I treat others like I want to be treated, until proven wrong I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. However, I also check things I consider important or that I’m not sure about. I tend to do my own research because that way I’m not being fed cherrypicked facts out of context. If others don’t want to do the work thats their problem not mine.
john b
@Loviatar: in other words, only evidence in your claim’s favor counts for anything?
You made a vague claim and have not backed it up at all. I remember that Cole was pissed off at both Hamsher and HRC in 2008 (and later). I don’t know if any of that is due to sexism. CDS can be attributed to anything you like.
And to reply to a different thread, I don’t think that Clinton folds. Hell, I think a lot of people would be much more amenable to her if she had folded a little earlier than she did in 2008.
Mandalay
@Loviatar:
I completely agree with all of that, and wish more folks here also felt that way. But when the research of others directly contradicts what you claim I don’t see how you can still refuse to provide any evidence to support your allegations.
chopper
@Loviatar:
I think askew was talking about policy. I certainly was.
clinton certainly showed personal strength during the attacks of the 90s. that does not inherently translate into political courage.
askew
@WaterGirl:
When it has been pointed out over and over again that they were incorrect and they keep repeating it, then it is a lie.
askew
@john b:
When it comes to herself and her personal ambition, she’ll fight forever. When it comes to policy, she’ll fold like a cheap tent.
Loviatar
@john b:
John has been pissed at Jane since at least the mid 2000 (prior to the 2008 election). In fact its what originally brought me to the site. It was a massive muti-year, multi-blog, multi-postings war that was awesome in its vitriol and hate. Things were said on both sides that was beyond the pale, so Jane was no victim here.
I’m not sure where this falls in the back and forth, but here is a link to some of what was said from this site.
Who Needs Ann Coulter?
john b
more Hamsher hate from Cole
link
chopper
@Loviatar:
if you’re trying to argue that Hillary put in the type of work and put her balls on the line in 93 the way Obama did with obamacare, you’re deluded.
askew
Are any of Hillary’s defenders going to defend her keeping the email server at her house with no back-up until 2012 or address anything else in the AP or Vanity Fair articles that I posted?
This is getting really ugly.
Loviatar
Jane’s response
It’s All They’ve Got
john b
@Loviatar:
There is literally nothing sexist in that post.
Fair Economist
@chopper:
In the 2008 race, one of the few differences between Hillary and Obama was that she said an insurance mandate was needed and he said it wasn’t. When Obamacare came out, of course, it had a mandate, because it *is* necessary. Obama isn’t stupid, he must have known it would be needed; but Hillary was the one with the political courage to risk a nomination to get a mandate to do what was really needed.
Betty Cracker
@Loviatar:
Thanks for the clarification. I’ll opt for the latter.
Mandalay
@askew:
I think they might back her if cost them nothing, but the Administration itself is also under scrutiny because of what Clinton did. Note that Earnest was very careful with his choice of words:
He specifically avoided saying whether that guidance applied to the SoS, whether Clinton defied that specific guidance, or whether that guidance even existed when she became SoS. He said some word salad, but revealed nothing.
Loviatar
@chopper:
Dude you’re embarrassing yourself. Can anyone over the age of ?40? who was politically aware please inform chopper of the massive political and private toll the Clinton Healthcare plan took on the Clintons (Hillary in particular) and the Democratic administration in general. Why do you think they started the Whitewater investigation? It was to shut her down and get her away from policy work.
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
ok
Loviatar
@john b:
its the start and it goes downhill from there
Fair Economist
@askew:
Absolutely. The problem was not that Hillary and her top aides kept their emails in that server; the problem was that the rest of State didn’t, and as a result the Russians now have ALL their emails. Hillary’s actions were hugely beneficial to the country by keeping our top diplomatic correspondence secret from foreign governments.
Loviatar
@Fair Economist:
shhh don’t you’re confusing them with facts.
chopper
@Loviatar:
yes, the clintons certainly retreated with their tails between their legs only to triangulate themselves back I the gop’s good graces. not exactly the sort of ‘political courage’ I’m talking about, but sure.
certainly they gave up on the whole thing a great deal too early, obviously.
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
So Betty I have to ask; you seem to believe its not sexism as to the reason John writes these posts about Hillary with such vitriol. Do you then think its CDS, or as he claims he is telling her to “STOP SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FUCKING FOOT” or is it some other reason (perpetual hate syndrome, West Virgina old man syndrome, etc).
My belief as stated earlier combo of CDS and sexism. Pick your percentages depending on how well you think you know him.
Loviatar
@chopper:
Please name the best Presidents in your adult life (18+), then name the most successful Presidents of your adult life (18+).
If you’re honest and under 50, then Clinton will be second on both lists.
—–
The man was an arrogant, egotistical fool who pissed away his legacy and led directly to Bush the lessors election. But his administration was a hell of alot better than anything the Republicans have produced. And I daresay better than what a significant portion of the Democrats could produce. Your hate and acceptance of talking points have made you blind to facts.
Read, reading is your friend, reading comprehension can be your soul mate. Go out and find your soul mate.
Betty Cracker
@Loviatar: I don’t see any evidence that Cole’s criticism of HRC is based on sexism, and you’ve certainly offered none despite repeated invitations to do so. I don’t get the impression that Cole particularly likes HRC, but so what? He’ll support her if she’s the nominee, which is the only important question on the topic in my view.
There are commenters here who seem to have a bizarre, over-the-top antipathy toward HRC, but I don’t think Cole is one of them. Certainly HRC has faced a shitstorm of sexism in the past and will again if she runs in 2016, but I’m confident it won’t be led by Cole.
Loviatar
@Betty Cracker:
ok. thank you for the response.
chopper
@Loviatar:
bill clinton was certainly successful. not at liberal policy, mind you-he was the best republican president we’ve had in my lifetime for sure.
Loviatar
안녕히 주무세요
Jet lag and time change has finally caught up with me.
askew
@Loviatar:
Obama has been more successful than Clinton and he isn’t even done yet.
He ended the Iraq War which Bill pushed for, killed OBL, passed healthcare, ended DADT, restarted talks with Cuba, Frank-Dodd regulations that fixed part of the mess Bill created, etc.
Just imagine what he could have done if he didn’t have to spend so much time fixing Bill’s messes.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Looks like this thread has kind of petered out. But I was thinking about this earlier, and I thought I’d put it up for anybody who cares. So, here’s the deal: If you’re arguing with somebody about something, and you make a claim, it’s up to you to back it up. You don’t say, “Hey, I’m not doing your homework for you. It’s up to you to prove that I’m right.” But, no. It doesn’t work that way.
Now, there are exceptions. If some tool gets in an argument with you about how Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1808, or the New Deal led directly to the Civil War or Mark Twain wrote the Gospel of Mark, or some bullshit like that, and you’re arguing the contrary, and he asks you to prove that Lincoln was not elected in 1808, or that the New Deal came 70 years after the Civil War, or that Mark Twain did not write the Gospel of Mark, well, then, you’re entitled to say, “Look, this is widespread knowledge. Look it up, for fuck’s sake.” But that only works if the question in question is (or should be obvious to anybody with a 3rd grade education. When it’s what some semi-prominent blogger said about another semi-prominent blogger in 2008, then you need to back up your claim.
dobrojutro
@askew: @Gin & Tonic: Fair point, but I’d be surprised if she is not cc’ing 20 or more official US email addys on such communications. You don’t just setup a gchat with Merkel.
David Koch
BWHWHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA
I knew this would drive the Dead-End Hillbots crazy.
Mmmmm, num, num, num – popcorn
pseudonymous in nc
@Fair Economist:
And manure is hugely beneficial to plants, so I’m going to shit in your garden.
Trying to parse out heroism from this is inane.
Either you believe in the principle that government records need to be preserved, or you don’t give a shit that they end up in the bit bucket. If you don’t give a shit that they end in the bit bucket, then the GOP looks forward to running things off their own communications systems next time they have the chance, and you’ll just have to take ’em at their word if and when they decide to cough up the archives.
johnnybuck
Goddamn it’s going to be a long two years…
Mike D.
The issue isn’t the issue per se.
The issue is that we’re so, sooooo early in the cycle, and already this. So stupid, even if nothing really was done wrong technically. (As others have said, that other SoSs acted similarly doesn’t make it not stupid. How many of them were basically sure they would be running for president, and, above all, were such major political commodities that they were presumptive nominees long before they would ever have decided to run? Powell? Powell rather decidedly was never going to run, we now know. And: really? All other SoSs completely circumvented their administration’s email system for all official business? Or all other SoSs merely had personal email accounts through which at least some official business was conducted?)
So what else? How big will it be, and how often will it drop? We already know how early it starts. Those are the questions; that is the issue.