Emailgate: the latest media spin

Last updated on: March 11, 2015 at 8:10 pm by Jane the Actuary

Emailgate: the latest media spin 2015-03-11T20:10:37-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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You’ve been following the reporting on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail address, and only a private e-mail, for her official correspondence as Secretary of State, right? The fact that she claims that she handed over paper printouts (the better to impede searching through the e-mails) of all SoS-related e-mail to the government, but will not hand over her “private” correspondence, referencing e-mail exchanges with her husband (who is on the record as saying he simply doesn’t use e-mail), and has in fact destroyed all such correspondence, ensuring that no one can assess the truthfulness of her claims? Imagine if Nixon had simply destroyed all the tapes. . .

And you’re wondering, “how will she possible recover from this?” — but here’s an article from this morning’s paper that tells exactly how. (Yes, it’s the L.A. Times, and my morning paper is the Chicago Tribune, but they have the same owner and share a lot of national reporting, but the Trib tends to have these articles behind a paywall or not online at all.)

In the first place, says the Times, she didn’t violate hard-and-fast rules implemented for reasons of legal compliance and national security. Instead,

In her [press-conference] comments, Clinton said she now regretted relying on a private email account while in office, rather than a government account, as recommended in Obama administration policy guidance.

Get that? It was just “guidance,” like “shut down your computer before you leave” or “keep your desk clean.”

And:

She asserted that government rules allowed every federal employee to judge which emails are personal and can therefore be deleted — a claim that some Republicans challenged.

Never mind that these government rules are with respect to employees using work e-mail for personal purposes, not the reverse — and, both here, and at every point at which criticism is raised of her practice, the Times always presents this as an attack by Republicans.

So:

(1) She failed to follow some internal recommendations, and

(2) it’s all a bunch of attacks by the Republicans.

and that, according to the media, is how we are supposed to understand the situation.

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Hillary Clinton

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