The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Let us face the matter squarely

    As a commercial people should                                                                                                                   We have learned  no end of a lesson.                                                                                                            It will do us no end of good 

    Kipling

    Brad Delong claimed convincingly-at least I was convinced - that Hillarycare failed because of Hillary Clinton..Too much transmit and too little, in fact almost no,receive. So have others but that's irrelevant. There's no reason to solicit the view of anyone else. His is sufficient,

    But then was then. Then. And now's now. (Chances are you'd noticed that for yourself.Oh,good.)

    No one has made a convincing similar claim about the affairs of State when she was the Statemaster.I won't claim that's because  she  learned from Hillarycare.  Post hoc doesn't require propter hoc.. Her life went on after Hillarycare .And as Doc Cleveland reminds us she did some other things in the Senate and at Foggy Bottom. 

    Well.

    But there were those emails?

    Fine, let's disagree with Bernie's sensible position and hear some more about emails. One more time.

    If the Secretary of State  wants to read any document at home, or at the North Pole  ,or in a hot air balloon drifting over Alps then the SecuritySystem should allow her to do that. If it doesn't, the fault is with the Security System not with the SOS. Her job is to absorb as much information as she can in the manner that is most conducive to knowing as much as possible about the stuff she has to know as much as possible about.

    If the Security system doesn't contribute to that , her duty to the country is to claim she's complying and not do so..

    If that's what she did, it seems presidential to me.

    Comments

    This is all I got right now Flavius:

    Reagan had a secret:

     

     


    HIllary has 50% and Bernie 49.

    Cruz has won the R primary and  Trump is just barely ahead of Rubio.


    Here's Josh Marshall's at TPM take on the email "sacndal."

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-wages-of-derp-are-derp-lots-of-it


    If I were a Hillary fan who ever believed that she would get indicted over anything. then Josh's article would help to ease any fear that the rumors and bad reporting had created. If Josh's article had explored the wisdom, judgment, ethics, etc, of Hillary's use of a private email account to conduct business which should have been considered secret until classified one way or another, then it would have been worth the time taken to read.


    Well, it rather addresses this in so doing - 

    Start with the fact that as far as we know, she is not actually even being investigated for anything, let alone facing a looming indictment. The simple facts, as we know them, just don't put her in line for an indictment. The first reason is the facts, which rest heavily on intent and reckless negligence. The second is tradition and DOJ regulations which make professional prosecutors very leery of issuing indictments that might be perceived or in fact influence an election. This was my thinking. But as the press coverage has become increasingly heated, I started trying to figure out if there was something I was missing - some fact I didn't know, some blindspot in my perception. So I've spoken to a number of law profs and former federal prosecutors - based on the facts we know now even from the most aggressive reporting. Not like, is this theoretically possible? Not, what the penalties would be if it happened. But is an indictment at all likely or is this whole idea very far-fetched. To a person, very far-fetched.

    Why far-fetched? Because this is standard fare government. Bradley Manning walked out of a "secure facility" with a bunch of secrets burned on a Lady Gaga CD, Eric Snowden with flash drives. Did they fix these security holes once revealed? No. Is there a big worry? Not as long as the CIA thinks classifying info on rotary phones is "critical" or reclassifying info from Obama public speeches on drones, nope.

    But you've got a sad on because Josh didn't use the occasion to say Hillary's been a naughty girl and needs a spanking.

         

      

      

     


    That's where we disagree.. I think government documents should be considered not secret until classified one way or the other. If there is a disagreement between agencies of the government the lessor classification should apply. There should be a well staffed declassification agency whose purpose is to look through government documents and release them to the public unless there is a clear and compelling reason for classification. Every document before at least 1916 should be released to the public.

    I'm not at all concerned about Hillary's email server. I'm concerned about the government's over classification and deliberate misclassification  of documents. I've read enough of your posts that I think if this wasn't a partisan election issue you would agree.


    I absolutely agree that our government over-classifies information but we are talking about a particular class of information produced in a situation which often, very often, has secret or sensitive material transmitted. In the case of emails involving State Department communications it simply does not make sense to consider them all non-secret until someone gets around to classifying the ones secret which should then be so classified. That is a sequence problem if it were to be done as you suggest. When some significant part of expected communications can be known with certainty to deserve a level of classification then it is not an excuse to say it wasn't secret when it arrived. It is only after the fact that over-classification becomes a fault which should be corrected, IMO. 

    I've read enough of your posts that I think if this wasn't a partisan election issue you would agree.

    That is absolutely wrong, not that I expect my saying so to convince you. I read your posts too. 


    Lulu, you might find this Dan Abrams article a bit more balanced, though the conclusion is much the same.


    Thanks, barefooted. That did seem balanced and fair. 


    Yes, thanks.