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March 10, 2015

Hillary tells all, and tells nothing, on #ClintonEmails

Hillary Clinton at one of her best performances
of not answering questions. Mike Segar/Reuters
And, for those of you who are not wingnuts thinking Benghazi, but either intelligent Democratic liberals, or those like me outside the pale of the Democracy, who in either case are skeptical about Clintonism in particular, or of neoliberalism in general, did you expect anything different than what she actually said?

So, as normal, it’s time to parse Clinton’s words.

Let’s start with:
I thought using one device would be simpler; obviously, it hasn’t worked out that way.
Oh, no, it remained “simpler” in a narrowly mechanical way. It just wasn’t politically simpler. Nice try. I covered this in more detail at the last link at the end of this post.

That said, a longer rewrite of the story has the New Clinton undercutting the Old Clinton:
Mrs. Clinton’s explanation that it was more convenient to carry only one device seemed at odds with her remark last month, at a tech conference in Silicon Valley, that she uses multiple devices, including two kinds of iPads, an iPhone and a Blackberry. She said then: “I don’t throw anything away. I’m like two steps short of a hoarder.”

Ooppppsssss .... 

Then, to this:
I fully complied with every rule.
Is the 2009 regulatory guideline about archiving email a “rule” or something else?

And:
(She added) that no classified material had been sent on her email.
Isn’t that a State Department rule in general, even if you were using a State email address, that sensitive items would go by diplomatic cable, a secure-and-scrambled phone connection or similar?

And, on to this, which will get multiple parsings.
I feel that I have taken unprecedented steps to provide these public emails; they will be in the public domain.
Of course you took “unprecedented” steps because everything Bill and Hillary does is “unprecedented.”

And, does “they will be in the public domain” mean they ‘re not already? Define “public domain” while you’re at it, please.

Finally, this wouldn’t be a Clinton event without a whiff of martyrdom, would it?
Mrs. Clinton said that the State Department would make public all of her work-related emails, which amount to about 30,000 messages. However, she said that her personal email — about issues such as her daughter’s wedding and the death of her mother — would remain private.
Oh, tug the heartstrings.

A fuller rewrite from the Times has more, starting with mentioning that October 2009 regulatory guideline. And, more special pleading from Clinton:
(B)eginning in October 2009, 10 months after she took office, new regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration said that agencies where employees were free to use private email systems “must ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping system.” 
In Mrs. Clinton’s case, her emails were backed up on her personal server — not on a government one. But she argued that, because she had sent emails to “government officials on their state or other .gov accounts so that the emails were immediately captured and preserved,” she had complied with the rule. Mrs. Clinton did not address how emails she sent to people outside the government were preserved.
Yep. Because she can't. 

But asks us to trust her that those were ALL, ALL, ALL "private" or "personal." Yeah, right, and Clintonistas? I have beachfront property in Nebraska to sell you, or a liberal at Faux News. Take your pick. 

Meanwhile, Clinton would also have us believe that the Secret Service has the same detailed attention to online communications as does the National Security Agency:
Mrs. Clinton said the server that housed her email address had been set up on property guarded by the Secret Service, and that there were no security breaches. 
Boy, this gets to be more and more of a laugher all the time.

Including the fact that Dear Leader's denials of information become more and more laughable all the time as well:
After the news conference, Mrs. Clinton’s office provided several new details about the email account and what she has provided to the State Department. More than 100 government officials knew about Mrs. Clinton’s use of private email, her office said.
OK, Camp Hillary, give us names! 

And, rather than you offering to help unpack the media's questions, that's my unpacking of your answers.

Talking Points Memo has Hillary Clinton's nine-page press release, which has more lies. One? That she emailed all government employees on ".gov" accounts, when we know that Huma Abedin had an account on the Clinton server.

It also notes she is turning over 55,000 pages of emails, not 55,000 emails. She's actually turning over only half of the emails of the account, claiming a full one-half are private.

As for why Clintonistas cite Colin Powell for using a private email account but don't cite Condoleezza Rice, who followed him? A 2005 State Department policy manual update said private email accounts could be used only if those emails were turned over to the government, and specified narrow exceptions for private use. That's probably why Condi used a government account.

Meanwhile, ignore the fact that your chief female political fixer had an email on the same private domain and that your JP Morgan moneybags for your $25 million of investments runs the domain server.


Since you took no questions, and just gave a statement, that willful ignorance was easy enough, wasn't it?

Yes, just like it is for Democratic Party-connected partisanship, like that of David Brock at Media Matters for America, to circle the wagons around Clinton.

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