Posted on 03/05/2015 10:05:42 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Honestly, it may be their best remaining play. They can’t claim that private e-mail is good practice when the State Department itself is on record as saying it isn’t. They can’t claim that it’s basically as secure as government e-mail when even lefty sites are reporting that that’s wildly untrue. On the merits, in terms of national security and as evidence of the creepy lengths to which President Claire Underwood will go in the name of evading accountability, it’s a total disaster.
The only move left on this chessboard is to ignore all that and simply insist that voters won’t care regardless. That’s not untrue, but it’s revealing that this is what Team Blue has been reduced to arguing.
Clinton supporters have pushed back against the media and Republicans, waving off the stories as yet another Twitter-fueled much-ado-about-nothing that has little resonance with the typical voter beyond Washington.
“Voters do not give a $#*+ about what email Hillary used,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a longtime Clinton ally and CNN contributor. “They don’t even give a fart.”
But if regular voters aren’t paying attention, the Democratic power brokers who hold sway over the nomination process in key states — the legislators, local party chairmen and plugged-in activists — most definitely are. The questions some of them are raising are less about the specifics of the stories and more about the long-established narratives they feed: That the secretive Clintons, enabled by unquestioning loyalists, play by their own rules.
“The questions relating to Hillary are more about, are we tired of the same old thing?” asked one prominent Democratic state Senator in South Carolina who wished to remain anonymous.
Is that Begala stating a political fact? Trying to reassure Democratic establishmentarians who are already weary at the thought of another four years of scandal? Or nervously trying to reassure himself because even he isn’t sure at this point how bad this might get? There’s a small but nonzero chance, I think, that foreign hackers might capitalize on the media attention by dribbling a few purloined Hillary e-mails onto the Internet to embarrass her. Nothing too embarrassing — why waste your strongest hand now when you could play it for maximum advantage after she’s president and in a position to make concessions? — but maybe just a little something to screw with America’s head about what else might be out there. That’s the only way this becomes a real political liability for her. Hard proof that her e-mail was accessed when stories are swirling about how lax her cybersecurity was would be a gut punch to her credibility on national security.
As for the “who gives a $#*+?” approach, it’s not just Begala who’s pushing that line, of course. Watch below and you’ll find Hillary’s successor answering a question about the e-mails by sneering sarcastically that he hasn’t had time yet to pay any attention to “such an important issue.” That’s going to be the Democratic establishment’s new talking point for as long as they can maintain it: No matter what you may read in the newspaper, no matter what some hyperventilating wingnut or wild-eyed Elizabeth Warren fan tells you, sleep easy knowing that this is a nothingburger because it just is and that’s all you need to know about it. Voters won’t care. Ergo, you, voter, shouldn’t care. Got it?
Exit question via RB Pundit and Ace: As of late this afternoon, Rachel Maddow had studiously avoided the Hillary e-mail debacle in her otherwise busy Twitter account today. How come? I’d expect her to be #ReadyForWarren, not part of the Kerry/Begala “who gives a $#*+?” crowd. Maybe she’s calculating that until this story goes fully nuclear and/or Warren makes some noise about actually running, she’s better off staying on Her Majesty’s good side. Goodwill from the White House will come in handy for a major media figure if we end up with another Clinton administration after all.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
The Gruber email system for dummies.
“Voters do not give a $#*+ about what email Hillary used,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a longtime Clinton ally and CNN contributor. “They don’t even give a fart.”
The forehead keeps it classy.
They’re throwing her under the bus. Libs would really rather have Fauxcahontas Warren as thier candidate.
Is it true Jeb Bush had private emails as well? If so, he needs to be called on it
Does the SOS John Kerrry have a legit email?
They might care a little more if some member of the 0 administration has a copy of one of H R C ‘ s email on their Government server that reveals a highly incriminating communication...like an order to nix any request from the CIA to send help to rescue an ambassador. Or the men trying to protect the Consulate in Bengahzi. That would be a huge bombshell, and most likely long ago scrubbed. But a series of less “explosive” messages still extant could—over time—leave a crater big enough to bury even a Hilda beast!
Death knell: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fired an Ambassador for doing the same thing that she deliberately did herself. This is one scandal that cannot be deflected onto anyone else, and is Hillary’s alone. It is apparent that Hillary is being thrown overboard.
Heh... What does it matter at this point!
No fair comparing actions to hers...ha.
If Hillary conducted ALL of her State Department business on the private e-mails, she had to have communicated with Obama. Why didn’t Obama object to her using a private e-mail account?
Jeb was a governor - maybe Floridians might care but I don’t. OTOH, the witch planning on running guns through Libya and getting our men killed via secret email is a whole another matter.
I wonder if the left will be as interested in perusing Hillary’s emails as they were in Sarah’s.
[leave a crater big enough to bury even a Hilda beast!]
That’s a nice thought.
[This is one scandal that cannot be deflected onto anyone else, and is Hillary’s alone.]
Yep, she owns this one.
Obama didn’t object because his light in the loafers foreign policy team - the “politburo” as some call them- including the guy who replaced James Jones and really screwed the pooch were using private email too.
That ambassador who just got stabbed in Korea was one of them before that appointment.
Governor is not a Federal post.
MORE NONGOVERNMENTAL EMAIL CASES
Excerpt courtesy STARWISE:
While the meetings have been extensively reported before by ABC News and the New York Times, a new report published Tuesday by House Republicans exposed a raft of email messages between industry lobbyists and Obama administration officials deliberately making plans to rendezvous off-site to avoid detection.
In several cases, the officials’ messages were sent from non-governmental, personal email accounts, which Republicans allege was intended to keep the correspondence from the public record.
Get more pure politics at ABC News.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com
“Jim – coffee at Caribou Coffee – across the corner from the WH – would work at 11:30 a.m. on Friday…plus getting you through the new WH security rules these days almost takes an act of Congress almost (and you know how well that’s going these days),” wrote one official in the White House Office of Science and Technology policy to an executive in the GPS industry.
****”[P]lus you’d appear on an official WH Visitor List which is maybe not want [sic] you want at this stage …”
Other emails show then White House chief of staff Jim Messina using a non-governmental account to discuss language for the health care reform bill with a pharmaceutical industry lobbyist. In one message from March 2010, Messina assures the lobbyist he would overcome opposition from then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to achieve more favorable legislation.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/gop-hits-obama-on-lobbyist-meetings-at-caribou/
With a Clinton, they know they're getting the same old thing - more scandals, more amoral and unethical conduct, stonewalling, attacks against all perceived enemies, cries of innocence, and protestations that everyone does it. And her campaign hasn't even officially started yet!
[I don’t think the link goes anywhere any more, too old an article.]
Hillary’s e-mail fiasco is just as clintonesque as sending sandy bergler to the National Archives to steal classified hard copy.
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