The report in the Washington Post on Hilary Clinton's private email account, which she used
when she was Secretary of State, seems to me a long story with little
substance. What Clinton is supposed to have done
wrong remains a mystery to me after having read a number of articles
about the FBI investigation. The article includes the throwaway line:
The referral did not accuse Clinton of any wrongdoing, and the two officials said Tuesday that the FBI is not targeting her.
The FBI, investigates this, and the FBI investigates that, but no
officials at the FBI are named, and a further quote in the article
states in another throwaway line:
A lawyer for the Denver company, Platte River Networks, declined to comment, as did multiple Justice Department officials. (My emphasis)
The information from the FBI seems to be leaks from sources who insist
on anonymity, which, of course, does not mean that the information is
untrue, but a close reading of the article provides no further clue
about the specifics of what Clinton is supposed to have done wrong,
except that she used a private email account while she was Secretary of
State. Note: Colin Powell used a private email account while he was
Secretary of State.
Which makes me wonder why the
WP concludes that the private account is:
...a setup that has emerged as a major issue in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
What am I missing? The "major issue" looks very much like Whitewater, a
scheme in which the Clintons lost money, but which triggered a major
investigation by Ken Starr, costing $50 million that concluded that
there was "insufficient evidence" of wrongdoing by the Clintons. Try as
I might, I never understood Whitewater, and, thus far, I don't
understand why the private email system is a "major issue", except that
Republicans and the vast media conspiracy against the Clintons wish to
make it so.
The article in the
WP had nothing in the way of evidence of wrongdoing by
Hilary Clinton, but the implication was there. The story follows on the
heels of the
New York Times story linking Clinton to a "criminal
investigation", which was filled with inaccuracies, and which the NYT took its sweet time to correct until cries of outrage became impossible to ignore.
Also in the
Washington Post, Dana Milbank opines on Clinton's private email system.
Clinton, lacking a sparring partner other than the socialist Bernie Sanders,
has reverted to her instincts for secrecy and a distrust of the media
that borders on paranoia. And the media, in the absence of the
back-and-forth of a competitive primary, have taken on the role of
opposition. Clinton’s insularity and the media’s prosecutorial zeal feed
each other — as they have for nearly a quarter-century.
“It feels sometimes like the primary is Hillary against the media,” a top Clinton aide told me Tuesday, one of several in Clinton’s orbit who said the candidate would be better off with a viable primary opponent.
Whoa! If a top Clinton aide, who remains anonymous, dismisses Bernie Sanders, then the Clinton campaign needs to rethink its strategy. Does the fact that Sanders is a socialist make him the equivalent of a potted plant, with the result that Clinton has no sparring partner? He's striking the right chord with a number of people, and, were I in charge of the Clinton campaign, I'd take Sanders more seriously. In truth, I think the campaign leadership is somewhat alarmed by Sanders' candidacy, but they see attacking him head on as a strategy likely to do more harm than good and choose rather to pretend he's not a real challenge. On the other hand, according to Milbank, if Joe Biden entered the race, he'd be a serious contender, and Clinton would be forced to pay attention, but Biden won't, thus it's Clinton against the media. Make what you will of this logic, and count me dubious about the Clinton campaign's longing for "a viable primary opponent".
Rather than label Hilary Clinton paranoid about the media, I'd call her realistic. Even supposedly left-wing media sources have failed miserably in their reporting and writing about the "scandals" of Bill and Hilary Clinton for years. Yes, there was a major scandal in the Monica Lewinsky affair, for which Bill Clinton was duly impeached, and which was widely reported and commented upon by the media. But there were a number of trumped up scandals besides Whitewater, such as the suggestion that Hilary Clinton murdered or had Vince Foster murdered and covered up the murder with the suicide story, which, in itself is enough to make a person wary of the press.
Why continue to bang the drums about Benghazi and the private email account? I don't understand, unless the press wants to keep the stories alive, just in case there is a real story which has not yet surfaced. Why not investigate further and report on a real story, if there is a story to report?
Do you see a trend here? Rather than have to walk back their email story, the writers of the article in the
chose obfuscation by many words to make their points. Milbank's column does pretty much the same, by dissing Bernie Sanders, pumping up Joe Biden, and taking at face value the words of an anonymous source in the Clinton campaign to arrive at the conclusion that Clinton is paranoid about the media. And blah, blah, blah.... The article and the opinion column in the
are both classic examples of the kind of bullshit Jon Stewart warns about in his final, splendid monologue on
