Ed clintonemails.com: Who is Eric Hoteham?

[theprestige]

When is Dubya gonna be indicted for invading Iraq?

Or do we actually judge a politician's worth based on factors other than strict determinations of lawbreaking?

It seems to me that there is a huge problem when a politician's defenders cannot say "they committed good acts", but rather must resort to, "they committed only as many bad acts as may have been permitted under current law".

Why does the US Secretary of State need a body of law to tell her how take basic precautions to safeguard the country's diplomatic communications? Is she a child, or an idiot? A college undergrad with little real-world experience who hasn't yet been in a position of responsibility where they must consider such issues and own the consequences?

And what does this say about a Hillary Clinton presidency? The Executive branch has the duty and the authority to act in areas that are not clearly defined by the Legislature. If Hillary struggles to do basic information security without a law to compel her, how can we trust her to act responsibly for the good of the country, with the much greater scope of action afforded to the President?

 

[davefoc]

Clinton usually gets flack from the left because she voted for the war. I disagree. At the time, nobody realized that Cheney was leading a shadow government that had pulled the case for war out of their ass. I tend to think it is patriotic when a politician overcomes partisan proclivities and supports the president in these kind of situations.

...

Actually, a lot of people realized it. I think Clinton caved to the public sentiment about the 911 attacks and the Pascal's Wager problem, what if Cheney was right.

...

Pffft. Talk about a whopper.

But I understand the strategy. Back then we were demonized as terrorist sympathizers and shouted down by the bloodlusting empire-mongers of both parties. That's the one thing both parties agree on.

...

There are two issues here:
1. Were there people that opposed the war when Cheney and company had convinced the majority of congress to go along.

2. Were there people that realized what Cheney and company had done with regard to manufacturing the case for war and how bizarrely ignorant many of the people in Cheney's camp were of Iraq and the problems with unseating Hussein?

The answer to one is obviously yes. But there are always people that oppose wars on general principal so the fact that there were some in this case isn't unexpected.

I am not sure about the answer to question 2. Speaking for myself, I was wildly naive. I did not think any modern American administration would trump up a case for war like was done here and I didn't think any American administration would employ such wildly unqualified people to assess the situation so when I look back on the situation, I am sympathetic to the people that held views similar to mine at the time. Perhaps, there really were people at the time that realized what Cheney was doing and how horribly misinformed his minions were about the region. With hindsight that certainly seems possible, but I don't find much fault with Clinton on this because she wasn't one of them.

 

[davefoc]

...

Why does the US Secretary of State need a body of law to tell her how take basic precautions to safeguard the country's diplomatic communications? Is she a child, or an idiot? A college undergrad with little real-world experience who hasn't yet been in a position of responsibility where they must consider such issues and own the consequences?

And what does this say about a Hillary Clinton presidency? The Executive branch has the duty and the authority to act in areas that are not clearly defined by the Legislature. If Hillary struggles to do basic information security without a law to compel her, how can we trust her to act responsibly for the good of the country, with the much greater scope of action afforded to the President?

This is the situation in a nutshell as far as I am concerned, although I think any claims that Clinton didn't break laws are a stretch. Whether Clinton broke laws in a way that rises to a level that will get her indicted has yet to be determined but she broke rules and laws.

But for me, the most serious issue here is just how stupid her actions were and what it says about her ability to obtain advice from appropriately qualified advisers if she doesn't have adequate knowledge in a particular area.

 

[DavidJames]

This is the situation in a nutshell as far as I am concerned, although I think any claims that Clinton didn't break laws are a stretch.

Any claims that she did or didn't are a stretch. Why this thread keeps going on and on and on when despite what's going on in the real world are a true testament to the effect of HDS.

 

[davefoc]

Any claims that she did or didn't are a stretch. Why this thread keeps going on and on and on when despite what's going on in the real world are a true testament to the effect of HDS.

Maybe because partisans refuse to accept the obvious.
1. Clinton did not have any intention to comply with rules requiring her to make her SoS email correspondence available for archiving in obvious violation of the rules with regard to that.
2. Clinton violated laws with regard to receiving and transmitting of classified material.
3. Clinton seems to have been bizarrely ignorant of the importance of maintaining a secure email server for the SoS.

Clinton's actions suggest a willingness to blatantly break the law when she feels like it, that she is ludicrously ignorant of computer issues and that she, as a leader, did a poor job of getting and using guidance from qualified individuals.

This seems like really bad stuff to me. But her defenders say that the effects of some of the decisions by the Bush administration were so much worse that this is of little import. I think that's a nonsense defense. The claim here about this scandal is that it reflects badly on the suitability of Clinton to be president, not that the effect of Clinton's actions caused substantial harm.

But it's not clear right now exactly what the effect of Clinton's actions were. Did Clinton have software installed on her servers to detect the presence of intruders? Does she know who had physical access to her server, especially when it was stored in a data center? Does she know how many backups were made of the data and where they are all exist today?

I really wish the Democrats had another viable candidate. I have a hard time imagining that Clinton can win in Florida or Ohio after this and without at least one of those states the Democrats are just not going to win the presidency.

 

[Ziggurat]

I really wish the Democrats had another viable candidate.

 

[davefoc]

http://40.media.tumblr.com/a51afb06b67330e68e36aec09025c1a3/tumblr_nk23rkC2Oa1rj0wxlo3_1280.jpg

I don't think sailor moon is going to meet the requirement that she was born in the US, but who knows. Trump is a candidate and I didn't think that was likely either.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

I don't think sailor moon is going to meet the requirement that she was born in the US, but who knows. Trump is a candidate and I didn't think that was likely either.

She's rather 2 dimensional. Are you sure she's not a republican?

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Maybe because partisans refuse to accept the obvious.
1. Clinton did not have any intention to comply with rules requiring her to make her SoS email correspondence available for archiving in obvious violation of the rules with regard to that.
2. Clinton violated laws with regard to receiving and transmitting of classified material.
3. Clinton seems to have been bizarrely ignorant of the importance of maintaining a secure email server for the SoS.

And around and around we go.

1. throughout this thread you seem to have implied you believe the state department email servers can call up all her emails. Why don't you think this at least shows some intent to make her email available for archiving.

2. still very grey. Especially with regards to receiving emails. If you look at all the emails that say things along the lines of "will have to talk about this securely" etc, you clearly say that her and her staff were aware of requirements, and made efforts to follow them. The fact that the state dept, who has to deal with foreign governments and the public, disagrees with a spy agency on what constitutes classified information really shouldn't be a surprise.

3. Clinton should be able to trust her advisers about technical issues. And she had a secure mail server for classified mail. Her mail server was intended to handle unclassified email. Unclassified email. That means if her server gets hacked, it's not the end of the world.

Clinton's actions suggest a willingness to blatantly break the law when she feels like it, that she is ludicrously ignorant of computer issues and that she, as a leader, did a poor job of getting and using guidance from qualified individuals.

It was poor judgement to use her own server, so she could control it, instead of state dept email. I just can't put it on the same level of "incompetence" as you do.

This seems like really bad stuff to me. But her defenders say that the effects of some of the decisions by the Bush administration were so much worse that this is of little import. I think that's a nonsense defense. The claim here about this scandal is that it reflects badly on the suitability of Clinton to be president, not that the effect of Clinton's actions caused substantial harm.

But it's not clear right now exactly what the effect of Clinton's actions were. Did Clinton have software installed on her servers to detect the presence of intruders? Does she know who had physical access to her server, especially when it was stored in a data center? Does she know how many backups were made of the data and where they are all exist today?

Your expectations are unrealistic for a SoS to know those technical details, as it would be for a CEO to know those types of details for his business.

I really wish the Democrats had another viable candidate. I have a hard time imagining that Clinton can win in Florida or Ohio after this and without at least one of those states the Democrats are just not going to win the presidency.

I wish they did, too. But after watching the debate last night, I still feel pretty good about clinton.

 

[davefoc]

She's rather 2 dimensional. Are you sure she's not a republican?

I looked around and I didn't find much about her political affiliation, but she seems to be something of a feminist icon, so right now I'd say she's probably a Democrat. But let's not jump to conclusions, I'm not sure she's running. Ziggurat's suggestion might not turn out to be right.

 

[davefoc]

[see above]

A few fair points and I agree we are at the point where we are not going to completely agree about this, but we have each said about all that we have to say about it.

I particularly think your point that the bulk of her emails were sent to government addresses indicates that she was not trying to violate disclosure laws completely was fair.

As to your point that my expectations of her computer knowledge were unrealistic: I think almost any professional younger person would have had a better understanding than she seems to have had, but my point there wasn't so much about her lack of knowledge as her failure to obtain and utilize guidance from people better informed than herself.

 

[theprestige]

As to your point that my expectations of her computer knowledge were unrealistic: I think almost any professional younger person would have had a better understanding than she seems to have had, but my point there wasn't so much about her lack of knowledge as her failure to obtain and utilize guidance from people better informed than herself.

I seem to recall being assured that a hallmark of an Obama presidency would be that even though he'd had no real prior experience, he was very smart and he would be sure to surround himself with smart and experienced advisors.

Whether or not this turned out to be true of Obama, do we at least agree that we can have no such assurance about a Hillary presidency?

 

[Ziggurat]

I particularly think your point that the bulk of her emails were sent to government addresses indicates that she was not trying to violate disclosure laws completely was fair.

The fact that she wasn't trying to hide all her emails isn't exculpatory, since it's only necessary to hide some in order to violate disclosure laws in a meaningful way.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

I seem to recall being assured that a hallmark of an Obama presidency would be that even though he'd had no real prior experience, he was very smart and he would be sure to surround himself with smart and experienced advisors.

Whether or not this turned out to be true of Obama, do we at least agree that we can have no such assurance about a Hillary presidency?

That's a fair point to make based on this email kerfuffle.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

The fact that she wasn't trying to hide all her emails isn't exculpatory, since it's only necessary to hide some in order to violate disclosure laws in a meaningful way.

No, but it certainly is contrary to the notion she had no intention to comply with rules requiring her to make her SoS email correspondence available.

I still don't understand why she didn't turn over her emails at the end of her term, or begin making some arrangement regarding turning them in. I also am at a complete loss to understand why no one else said anything or raised an issue about it.

I would love to find out more in general about archives and archiving process for all higher elected officials in the federal government, and if clintons actions were really that far outside the norm or not.

 

[Ziggurat]

No, but it certainly is contrary to the notion she had no intention to comply with rules requiring her to make her SoS email correspondence available.

No, it's not contrary to that notion. The rules required her to make all her email correspondence available. The fact that some of it would have been available doesn't mean she was complying with the rule.

I still don't understand why she didn't turn over her emails at the end of her term

Really, Elvis? Most of us figured out that one a long time ago.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

No, it's not contrary to that notion. The rules required her to make all her email correspondence available. The fact that some of it would have been available doesn't mean she was complying with the rule.

Really, can you show me where that rule is ? That she is required to make all her email correspondence available ?

I'm betting not

Really, Elvis? Most of us figured out that one a long time ago.

 

[applecorped]

 

[Ziggurat]

Really, can you show me where that rule is ? That she is required to make all her email correspondence available ?

If your point was that her supposed "yoga routines" didn't need to be available, you're being pointlessly pedantic about my phrasing. Emails pertaining to government business were supposed to be made available to State. She had emails that pertained to the business of state (such as between herself and Abedin, or Blumenthal) which should have been available to state but which never went to State's email system. Are you honestly not aware of this?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_5004455fb2e3900eb7.jpg[/qimg]

She didn't turn over her emails because she didn't want State to have them. Quite simple, really.

 

[plague311]

She didn't turn over her emails because she didn't want State to have them. Quite simple, really.

And quite unsupported, really.