New Disclosures on Benghazi

[barehl]

Hey, sneering contempt for governmental transparency and conversion of US Government property?

You must be referring to the emails that Dick Cheney routinely sent using personal email to specifically circumvent any oversight.

Technical violation, she will make a hell of a President.

At least as good as any Republican since Eisenhower. Actually, if there was a Republican candidate worth a damn right now I would have no problem voting for them. Sadly, there isn't even one to be found among the current crop.

 

[barehl]

Does this mean that you believe Clinton established safeguards against the removal or loss of records she determined to be necessary?

Yes, records were saved on a daily basis.

And somehow those safeguards allowed Clinton to not turn over any of the emails that she wrote as part of her official position as SoS?

You are confusing two different things. The emails that Republicans want now were obviously already determined by her in her capacity as SoS to not be important to save. That doesn't change now that they want them.

The nuts and bolts of this scandal elude me. Presumably Joe Blow worker was required to use the state department email system and presumably every one of their emails was saved by the State Department IT workers.

It should be obvious that lower level workers would not have had the authority to determine what was necessary to save. Why is this hard to understand?

However, it seems that Clinton and perhaps some other State Department employees could use their own email accounts and not turn over any of their emails to be archived?

That depends. Any email that she sent to a state department server would have been saved. Any email sent from a state department server would have been saved.

 

[The Big Dog]

You must be referring to the emails that Dick Cheney routinely sent using personal email to specifically circumvent any oversight.

Wow that is a next level attempt to derail the conversation....

Protip, you have just described the same thing that Hillary did, so Hillary is at least as bad as dick *********** Cheney, except she is a hypocrite to boot.

Fantastic argument!

Lolz!

 

[sunmaster14]

Are you thinking that repetition will lend this more significance? You've already admitted that they didn't have recon and that they couldn't arrive soon enough to prevent the ambassador being killed. You keep pushing the idea that the negligence was in not sending forces to prevent a third attack that didn't happen. Why?

I didn't admit they had no recon. They actually did have recon. At some point after the first attack there was a drone in the area that was streaming video. I just thought it was negligence in that Panetta didn't give the order for troops in Croatia to begin to deploy until sometime between 12am and 2am, Benghazi time, when the first attack started at 9:40pm Benghazi time. I can certainly understand if a decision was made later not to land at Benghazi airport because of a risk vs benefit calculation. But that decision wasn't even considered because the troops never got within 500 miles of Benghazi.

Which was a risk. Do you know what risk assessment is? Hint: it is routinely used for rescue in fire, avalanche, earthquake, and floods. The decision to not send people into a dangerous situation occurs everyday. For example, the Coast Guard does not send out rescue helicopters if the conditions are judged to be too hazardous...oddly though without any condemnation from you.

How do you know there is no condemnation from me? It depends on the situation. In this case, I think there is simply no higher priority for the US than to protect its diplomatic personnel and facilities when they're under attack.

You are now mixing together prevention with effect. You are claiming that if the effect was greater then somehow, after the fact, the prevention should have been greater to compensate. Are you now arguing for the use of time machines?

The one area of bipartisan agreement seems to be that the security situation in Benghazi was untenable. Either security should have been beefed up, or they should have left. I don't think you can say that other diplomatic facilities around the world were as vulnerable under the Bush administration. Perhaps it's true, but there's no evidence of it that I've seen.

 

[sunmaster14]

Yes, records were saved on a daily basis.

Not true.

You are confusing two different things. The emails that Republicans want now were obviously already determined by her in her capacity as SoS to not be important to save. That doesn't change now that they want them.

You're still missing the point about the emails she did return, almost two years after leaving office. And for the record, we've already seen some of those emails, and they're clearly Federal records by any reasonable definition.

<snip>

That depends. Any email that she sent to a state department server would have been saved. Any email sent from a state department server would have been saved.

Not true. See here.

 

[RandFan]

Wow that is a next level attempt to derail the conversation....

Protip, you have just described the same thing that Hillary did, so Hillary is at least as bad as dick *********** Cheney, except she is a hypocrite to boot.

Fantastic argument!

Lolz!

I've no doubt Hillary is a hypocrite but she is a neophyte compared to Cheney who knew that the Iraq war would be a quagmire but who pressured Bush into an invasion anyway.

 

[davefoc]

I've no doubt Hillary is a hypocrite but she is a neophyte compared to Cheney who knew that the Iraq war would be a quagmire but who pressured Bush into an invasion anyway.

You credit Bush with more involvement in the situation than I do. Iraq II looks like Cheney's war to me. I don't think the great decider was deciding much of anything for the first 6 years or so of his presidency. He took a shot at being president in the last two years of his administration and it seemed like he might have been a half way decent president if he had decided to be one in his first six years.

The two people Cheney needed to manipulate into supporting his war were Colin Power and Tony Blair. I kind of get good soldier Colin Powell getting screwed but Tony Blair? That was Cheney's masterpiece and I don't know how he did it.

 

[davefoc]

Yes, records were saved on a daily basis.


You are confusing two different things. The emails that Republicans want now were obviously already determined by her in her capacity as SoS to not be important to save. That doesn't change now that they want them.


It should be obvious that lower level workers would not have had the authority to determine what was necessary to save. Why is this hard to understand?

...

This sounds like a reasonable legal defense of Clinton. I think her apparatchiks will need to do a little better when it comes to defending the situation to the voters. On the other hand the Republicans are looking like they may not know how not to select a whacko so Clinton could look pretty good to the voters no matter how the spinners explain her little email server adventure. And, of course, there's always falling back on they do it too. That might fly.

 

[davefoc]

Brown's actions were driven from above and from within. Being a beneficiary of the cronyism and electoral spoils system, he naturally continued with that modus operandi.

Political appointments (supporters, party members who've earned their spurs, old school cums) should be banned. Not just heads of NASA and FEMA, but the Obama move to appoint Kerry particularly stands out. Hillary, it could be argued, had huge experience in matters of State from her years as "the other woman" in the White House. I also have to say that the Dems are apparently worse at this when it comes to SoS. It's a political plum to them, not a position where hiring is based on merit.

It sounds to me like you are suggesting a political system that has never existed. The people in power need to balance paying off their cronies with a semblance of good governance to stay in power and to satisfy their conscience. Although, my sense of the situation was that Rove didn't see much of a need for the semblance of good governance part.

 

[Foolmewunz]

It sounds to me like you are suggesting a political system that has never existed. The people in power need to balance paying off their cronies with a semblance of good governance to stay in power and to satisfy their conscience. Although, my sense of the situation was that Rove didn't see much of a need for the semblance of good governance part.

It's always existed to some extent, but there are a number of positions that were filled by career pros in the past. I can see making donors and honorable opponents Ambassador to the Court of St. James or giving them a particular bailiwick that they might enjoy (Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome).... but I don't see making a crony or party stalking horse the Secretary of State? Ditto any of the key cabinet posts. I'd rather they stayed with the minions in State or Defense or AG.

 

[kmortis]

This thread got too big for the servers to effectively handle. I've made a continuation thread. It's over here. This thread is now closed.

Posted By: kmortis