Hillary Clinton is Done

[Bob001]

Didn't she also say she didn't solicit emails from Sidney Blumenthal?

If she said that, it sounds like another case of shading the truth. Blumenthal is an old pal and advisor to the Clintons, and for a time was an employee of their foundation. I doubt that either he or HC felt she needed to "solicit" emails before he sent them -- and he sent hundreds.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...s_emails_show_a_closer_relationship_with.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/u...valued-input-from-sidney-blumenthal.html?_r=0

 

[Meadmaker]

Biden coming in? After Hillary came off like a pathological liar on Andrea Mitchell?

I don't think she came off as a pathological liar. I think she came off as a finger in the wind politician.

This email business has definitely served to lower my opinion of her, but for a different reason than many might think. I think she consulted the lawyers who told her what she had to do, and she did that. In other words, I think she did nothing wrong.

Having been accused of doing something wrong, instead of saying, "This is a non-issue." She is saying "I take responsibility." and "It shouldn't have been done." I don't believe that she feels any remorse, nor should she, but she is upset that it isn't working out politically, and she is framing her response in terms that she thinks will do the least political damage.

I wish she would have come out and said, "I know from experience that every word I ever wrote would be subpoenaed, so I wanted as much control as possible over my words. My lawyers told me this was the best way to do it without breaking any laws."

 

[Fudbucker]

If she said that, it sounds like another case of shading the truth. Blumenthal is an old pal and advisor to the Clintons, and for a time was an employee of their foundation. I doubt that either he or HC felt she needed to "solicit" emails before he sent them -- and he sent hundreds.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...s_emails_show_a_closer_relationship_with.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/u...valued-input-from-sidney-blumenthal.html?_r=0

This was actually addressed awhile ago. There's so aspects to this, it's hard to keep them straight:

"WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters last month that the memos about Libya she received while secretary of state from Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime adviser whom the Obama administration had barred her from hiring, had been “unsolicited.”

But email records that Mrs. Clinton, according to officials briefed on the matter, apparently failed to turn over to the State Department last fall show that she repeatedly encouraged Mr. Blumenthal to “keep ’em coming,” as she said in an August 2012 reply to a memo from him, which she called “another keeper.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/u...illary-clintons-encouragement-of-adviser.html

 

[Mike!]

Hillary Clinton: 50 Shades of "Truth".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Bush et al takes the country into a needless and costly war and lets people die in Hurricane Katrina. Hillary Clinton keeps her emails secret.

On a scale of things ....

 

[Dog Town]

Bush et al takes the country into a needless and costly war and lets people die in Hurricane Katrina. Hillary Clinton keeps her emails secret.

On a scale of things ....

Yes, so relevant! Bravo!

Nice terminal case of BDS,though!

 

[DavidJames]

Never showed Rep colors! Not once! Ignorance has led many! Funny...:

ignorance? Me doth think you protest to much

Is there still a section on the new forum, for mind readers? If so...

nah, more like cold reading, for example...

Nice terminal case of BDS,though!

once you've seen enough individual pieces of the puzzle, the picture becomes clear.

Referring to seeing the failed Iraq war as BDS, speaks volumes.

 

[Dog Town]

ignorance? Me doth think you protest to much
nah, more like cold reading, for example...

once you've seen enough individual pieces of the puzzle, the picture becomes clear.

Yes, ignorance. Thank you Shakespeare! Puzzles are obviously not your forte.
Thanks for playing though. LOL!

 

[wareyin]

I don't think she came off as a pathological liar. I think she came off as a finger in the wind politician.

This email business has definitely served to lower my opinion of her, but for a different reason than many might think. I think she consulted the lawyers who told her what she had to do, and she did that. In other words, I think she did nothing wrong.

Having been accused of doing something wrong, instead of saying, "This is a non-issue." She is saying "I take responsibility." and "It shouldn't have been done." I don't believe that she feels any remorse, nor should she, but she is upset that it isn't working out politically, and she is framing her response in terms that she thinks will do the least political damage.

I wish she would have come out and said, "I know from experience that every word I ever wrote would be subpoenaed, so I wanted as much control as possible over my words. My lawyers told me this was the best way to do it without breaking any laws."

Clinton did respond for months with 'this is a non-issue'. That didn't keep the right wing from making an issue out of this non-issue.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Clinton did respond for months with 'this is a non-issue'. That didn't keep the right wing from making an issue out of this non-issue.

With due respect its a given that hyper partisans were going to go after clinton no matter how well this was handled. But she did make it worse for herself by saying "she didnt know", or similar and didnt just state contritely why she had the email system in place at the beginning. Her trust among other democrats might have been higher, and i dont buy the notion that other democrats who bought into this issue were stupid or ignorant. At the end of the day, they may not vote republican or third party, but at this point they have other candidatrs they can choose from, abd thats what most of the polling and the issues with this affair come down to IMO

Im still neutral on whether what she did was criminal, but she defimitely didnt help herself

 

[Bob001]

Clinton did respond for months with 'this is a non-issue'. That didn't keep the right wing from making an issue out of this non-issue.

That actually illustrates how tone-deaf HC is. A politician doesn't get to decide for herself what's a "non-issue." That's pretty much like saying "it's none of your business." Her opponents and ultimately the voters decide what's an issue. I haven't heard her or anyone else say that she didn't use the federal government's email system when she served as U.S. senator for eight years. She can't realistically claim that she chose to do -- and pay for -- something different as secretary of state but didn't have time to "stop and think what kind of email system will there be."

 

[Bob001]

....
This email business has definitely served to lower my opinion of her, but for a different reason than many might think. I think she consulted the lawyers who told her what she had to do, and she did that. In other words, I think she did nothing wrong.
.....

The problem is "nothing wrong" is not the same as "nothing illegal." What she did violated established policy in the executive branch at the time she did it. It probably never occurred to anybody that it needed to actually be prohibited by law, as it is now. The intent of the established policy was to require that records be kept of all official correspondence, where it would be available to other officials, historians, archivists, FOIA requests, Congressional investigators etc. She went to great lengths to conduct the business of the United States in a manner that made her correspondence inaccessible to anyone else. That sure is suspicious, even if it wasn't illegal at the time.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes, so relevant! Bravo!

Nice terminal case of BDS,though!

I take it you missed the difference.

In addition to difference of scale, there is also a difference of actually showing the negative results of the action.

What's the opposite of BDS?

Denial and/or a seriously defective memory.

Clinton didn't want all of her emails nit-picked with a fine toothed comb. So what? From all evidence we have so far, that was done without breaking any laws.

The right wing is drooling to get over the fence, but they only hope there is meat on the other side. They have no evidence there is. So they are trying to make the fence the outrage.

I'm not outraged Clinton wasn't perfectly transparent about her emails. I'm more outraged Obama has been oppressing reporters that publish whistleblower leaks.

But none of those actions compare to the outrageous behavior of the Bush Administration.

So here's our choices: The Clown Car, Sanders who might lose to the Clown Car, or a less than transparent but at least competent candidate.

If I thought Sanders could win, or that if he won he'd be very effective, I'd be more enthusiastic about the Sanders campaign. If it looks like the masses are actually going to rise up against the corporate/1% coalition, I'll be backing Sanders.

If not, competence is unquestionably preferable by far to the Clown Car.

 

[Meadmaker]

The problem is "nothing wrong" is not the same as "nothing illegal." What she did violated established policy in the executive branch at the time she did it. It probably never occurred to anybody that it needed to actually be prohibited by law, as it is now. The intent of the established policy was to require that records be kept of all official correspondence, where it would be available to other officials, historians, archivists, FOIA requests, Congressional investigators etc. She went to great lengths to conduct the business of the United States in a manner that made her correspondence inaccessible to anyone else. That sure is suspicious, even if it wasn't illegal at the time.

I don't find it suspicious in the least. I wouldn't want everything I said or did accessible to everyone else. Hillary would have had first hand experience with just how damaging that can be.

I will admit I haven't followed the whole story as closely as I could, so I don't know much about exactly what directives from whom were violated. Maybe if I knew, I would be more outraged. As it is, I'm having a hard time figuring out why I ought to be outraged about it.

My only objection is that she isn't owning up to her reasons for doing it, and is now trying to do damage control instead of saying, "I did it on purpose, and it was ok." It makes her seem a bit weaselly. I don't think it's very important, but to the extent that it matters at all, I don't think it's a positive, for me or, certainly, for the electorate as a whole.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
My only objection is that she isn't owning up to her reasons for doing it, and is now trying to do damage control instead of saying, "I did it on purpose, and it was ok." It makes her seem a bit weaselly. I don't think it's very important, but to the extent that it matters at all, I don't think it's a positive, for me or, certainly, for the electorate as a whole.

Kind of like asking Bill under oath if he cheated on his wife, what answer could she have given? "Yes, I didn't want my emails subject to GOP FOIA requests, look at how rabid they've been about Benghazi"?

It wouldn't have mattered, they'd have made that just as big a deal as claiming it was a matter of convenience.

I agree though, I would have liked to see a more credible/competent answer than not wanting to carry two phones. It wasn't well thought out.

 

[Bob001]

I don't find it suspicious in the least. I wouldn't want everything I said or did accessible to everyone else. Hillary would have had first hand experience with just how damaging that can be.
....

It doesn't matter what you -- or she -- wants. She was acting as the representative of the United States in the world, and her official correspondence is a matter of public record. Government employment carries certain obligations. Many people don't even consider applying for government jobs because they don't want to submit to background checks or financial disclosures or conflict-of-interest restrictions. But someone who does want a government job accepts everything that goes with it. It's also significant that the President -- her boss -- knew nothing about her unique private arrangements until it was revealed during the Congressional investigation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-weighs-in-hillary-clinton-private-emails/

It's just incomprehensible that she didn't have multiple email accounts, like most ordinary people: the government one for official state dept. business, and private ones for her foundation, close family and friends, social media, etc. It's just a measure of the Clinton mindset -- and her isolation -- that she decided "I can keep everything secret in my basement and nobody will know!"

 

[The Big Dog]

The claim that Hillary is "competent" is laughable. No one that is competent would have mishandled her campaign so spectacularly.

Further, it is not just that she is not transparant, it is that is that she has a sneering contempt for open government and the truth.

Type clown car again.

 

[Dog Town]

I take it you missed the difference.

You would be wrong! I just think you should focus on the present. Making some bizarre comment about the GOP, in reply to me, made ZERO sense!
HRC reminds me of a gold digging hussy. She stayed with Bill through all his infidelities for one reason. Power! I don't trust that type. Plain and simple. It will be interesting to see how long they stay together, if this run fails.
I enjoyed the last eight years of Obama, hope for more like them. Not holding my breath!

 

[Fudbucker]

If Hillary can't run a campaign right, why should we trust her with the presidency? She has handled this email business about as badly as any politician could handle it, from dismissing it, to joking about it, to taking it seriously, to apologizing about it (but not about the emails, her apology is only for the confusion it's caused). It's like the five stages of grief. I guess acceptance is next?

I want to know why the guy she paid to set up the server took the 5th. When he gets granted immunity, what's he going to divulge?

And for all that, I'll still vote for her, because it means denying the GOP the presidency. Both parties are in bed with Wall Street, but money comes and goes. Civil rights are forever. No matter how corrupt she is, Hillary would nominate liberal SCOTUS judges, and we've got some old justices on the bench. I'm not going to take a chance that my gay and female friends will lose the freedoms they've fought so hard for.

 

[Bob001]

.....
I want to know why the guy she paid to set up the server took the 5th. When he gets granted immunity, what's he going to divulge?

Chances are he really didn't do anything criminal, although taking private payments while he was on the government payroll might be a little tricky. The real issue is that if he ever asked Hillary "Why are we doing this?" and she said anything like "To keep the damn Congress out of my business!" she's sunk.

And for all that, I'll still vote for her, because it means denying the GOP the presidency. Both parties are in bed with Wall Street, but money comes and goes. Civil rights are forever. No matter how corrupt she is, Hillary would nominate liberal SCOTUS judges, and we've got some old justices on the bench. I'm not going to take a chance that my gay and female friends will lose the freedoms they've fought so hard for.

That presumes that she'll beat any likely Republican candidate. It's a little too early to assume that.