BBO Discussion Forums: Absence of Malice? - BBO Discussion Forums

We have a couple of opposing views close together here, and not for the first time I fall in between.

Cherdano views the cited article as clearly exculpatory of Clinton.

mike777 says

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I want to focus on the third sentence but mike always goes ape if he is not quoted entirely so I have put it all down. "don't care" is an overstatement and I have no interest in destroying "those in govt who try and stand up to her". I just don't have that interest.

Starting from the beginning. Two accounts would be terribly inconvenient. Really? As mentioned I have kenbecky, my personal account, and a krb account through the University. Far from being an inconvenience, I found it natural and convenient. I visualize HC at a meeting: "Hold on a minute, Vlad, it's my personal phone, probably Chelsea. She has been having trouble with the decorators. I have to take this. "
No. You handle the personal stuff when you are back at the Embassy or at home. If you find that you have to send a message such as :"Bill, go ahead and eat without me, this meeting with Angela is going to take a while." it's ok for this to go on the business account.

Then she got the order to turn over the stuff that she had. Much has been made of the timing. She had sent the order to delete before she got the order to turn stuff over. Ok, but here is what I would then do/say: "Well, if stuff has been deleted then it has been deleted, but I am sending a message today to tell them that anything that remains should be kept, absolutely should not be deleted". I once had problems with the IRS. When I moved two things happened. I lost some records, and I didn't realize I had lost them. When the IRS contacted me I figured out what had happened, I made all possible effort to do a clear and honest recovery, and everything went fine. Of course I don't have a lot of enemies out to get me, so it is not exactly comparable, but it seems clear to me that she could have and should have done better.


Now I will flash forward to the latest. There are messages on Weiner's computer. Huh? Abedin does not know how they got there. Huh? The story, such as it is so far, seems to require a klutziness that I find stunning. Emails arrive. They have to be printed. They are moved from the HC account to a Yahoo account on the Weiner computer so they can be printed. Really? And then Abedin doesn't know how they got there?

The story is always "Well, it all could be just as Hillary says." And I can't prove that it isn't. In How to Marry a Millionaire Betty Grable is having dinner with a married man and {quotes approximate) it goes something like
Man: This is all innocent, isn't it?
BG: If it is this is the first time I have ever found it to be so in similar circumstances.
That's a pretty good description of how I see this.

I see that Chelsea has now been brought into this. I haven't read it yet and I might well not. Chelsea is an adult and she has been part of this campaign, but I am very much hoping she does not get dragged in. This whole campaign long ago exceeded all previous limits on repulsiveness.

kenberg, on 2016-November-05, 07:02, said:

Two email accounts is not inconvenient (I have three myself) but having to carry a separate device for each account would be inconvenient, in my opinion. As I understood it, that was the issue.

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Still, she should have done that.

Probably carrying a second device would have been easier than dealing with the fallout!

But I am not really convinced even of this inconvenience argument. Divide personal communication into emergency and non-emergency. For non-emergency communication you do not need to carry a second device. I rarely have a cell phone with me. I don't want to be on the phone while I drive, blue tooth or not. At a bridge game I have to remember to turn it off or I get penalized a board. If I want to discuss wine for dinner, it can wait. I don't mean she should leave it at home when she flies to wherever, but she does not have to have it with her every moment. And aides can carry things.
How about emergencies? Well, sure. But she might be in a plane. Or she might be in a meeting that is electronically shielded. Or she might be in a meeting but not be answering her phone when it rings or buzzes or vibrates or whatever. But unlike me, I imagine there is always someone nearby who could take an emergency message and act on it. Maybe by breaking into a meeting and getting her, maybe by some other less dramatic but still very effective means. It seems clear to me that she should want a near at hand intermediary of good judgment to take an emergency personal call. I expect most high level people have such an assistant near at hand. How many such emergencies occurred during her term at State? Maybe none, I would be amazed if it was more than three.

Not long ago 538 made HC's chances at a little over 85%. Now it is just under 65%. What happened? Most people, including myself, are not experts or even all that familiar with the Freedom of information Act. That's not what's going on. I think it is much more along the lines of "What? This again? If she cannot handle this, why can she handle being president?" The problem is of her own making and the solution seems to elude her. People notice.

The abuse of power and its exercise.

Read the link from Steve McIntyre above to see the pea under the thimble moves of a "realcon" artist. So much deceit but so much gain. Hil is in it up to her neck and sinking fast. Comey needed to act because the scale of the illegalities and criminality is so extensive.

Obama will pardon her on his last day in office because otherwise the whole edifice of corruption will be exposed.

kenberg, on 2016-November-05, 12:45, said:

I am wondering. Is there any difference between Ken Berg's, and a Secretary of State's, schedule, and communication and travel habits?
If Hillary Clinton wants her "personal communication device" with her at all times so that when she has a break between meetings and Chelsea happens to be available, she can skype with her - does that make her a bad person?

I think you are getting a little bit ridiculous here Ken. I'd find it a PAIN not to have my professional and private communication on the same phone. Just because HRC is of the same generation as you, doesn't mean her communication habits are the same as yours. They are certainly not. (I doubt you are getting 60000 emails in 4 years, for a start.)

But none of us distinguish our e-mail contents by the millions of dollars that they control. Hil's callous disregard for the law is on display for all with a mind to look at the evidence.

cherdano, on 2016-November-05, 15:41, said:

It's true that I am unusual here. I actively dislike this idea of 24/7 constant availability.I could supply arguments, but really I just find it intrusive. I accept that this is an eccentricity, and I even accept that given my age I should probably try to get over it as a matter of safety. So yes, I am a bit of an odd duck on this. It's an authentic eccentricity, for whatever that is worth.

But surely this was solvable in some better way.

Just out of curiosity, do you, or does anyone, know how this is now set up with Kerry?

kenberg, on 2016-November-05, 17:15, said:

Even really smart people will often choose the easiest way, which isn't always the "best" way.

barmar, on 2016-November-06, 13:46, said:

I also think that Hillary is being held to a higher standard than her predecessors have been.

I have been getting much more bothered by the Wiki Leaks. I can see arguments for and against hacking into emails of high level figures and disclosing their hypocrisy. I have never been a fan, not at all, but I can see arguments for it. But what is happening now is not at all based on the public's right to know, it is more based on the asserted right of Julian Assange to jerk us around. A divulged hijacking of emails in July would have been one thing, what we are seeing is totally different.

I really think that we are developing too much technological ability to learn too much. This is delicate, but we need to look at what our candidates have done and go lightly over what they, or their aides, or aides to their aides, say in unguarded moments. Someone sometime said something stupid about the Pope. Ok, I think that we should all respect each other's religion, really, I do. But we don't always think through every word that we say. My mother's friend May once got frustrated with my mother and told her to shove it up her ***. I, being 12 or so, was a bit stunned, but it was not even a bump in their friendship. We need to get some sense of balance.

A little over a week ago, Comey was faced with a very tough decision.

It was his own damn fault - his original decision to grandstand back in July set a very poor precedent and from the looks of things, he's lost control of his own agency.

Even so, he really had no good choices available to him

1. Do nothing, have the news leaked by his subordinates, and get blasted by the right
2. Release a letter to congress knowing that this would get politicized and get blasted by the left and the center

He chose the latter...

In general, when these sorts of decisions get evaluated it all boils down to luck. If Weiner's computer HAD contained some blockbuster folks would have cut him some slack...
As is, looks like he really screwed the pooch...

http://talkingpoints...-clinton-emails

hrothgar, on 2016-November-06, 15:06, said:

Well, he also could have chosen 2.A. Sent a letter, but clarify that they have no reasons to believe that the "newly discovered" emails aren't duplicates, and they have at this point no reason to expect the conclusion to change. (I think noone who actually understands the legal standard saw any chance of these emails changing the conclusion not to indict.)

I expect Comey will resign after the election.

I am delighted, as I imagine a great many are.
As to Comey, here is one (cockeyed optimist) way of looking at it. He did what he thought was right in July, he did what he thought was right nine days ago, and he did what he thought was right today. Looked at that way, a reasonable person might take him at his word that there is nothing there. And then move on. And vote for Clinton. We shall see, but I have had crazier ideas. Sometime. I think.

kenberg, on 2016-November-06, 15:38, said:

You are really insulting Comey here. Director of the FBI is a, to a large extent, a political job. You are claiming that Comey is politically completely clueless.

cherdano, on 2016-November-06, 16:38, said:

Actually, I am not.
For one thing, calling someone politically clueless might be construed as a compliment in some circles. But more basically, had Clinton been a little less politically clever things might have gone easier for her.

There were many ways this might have played out. Perhaps Comey have sent no letter to the Senate. This is the path many, for example Lynch, thought he should have followed. He just quietly worked on it. Except that these days, "quietly working on it" is more of a dream than a reality. So, perhaps, three days ago the news hits: The Clinton probe has been re-opened, Comey tried to keep it a secret. Now, Sunday, Comey says there is nothing there. Is this claim more believable from a Comey who announced to the Senate that he was re-opening the investigation or from a Comey who kept it hidden?

I don't think he did it (the letter nine days back) for political reasons, I think he did it because he thought it was right. But over a lifetime i have come to realize that doing what you think is right often turns out to be strategically the best thing as well.

At the very least, if you get pummeled for your actions you get pummeled for doing what you thought was right, rather than being pummeled for doing what someone else thought was right and you thought was wrong.

True story: today I learned by accident that "All [employees of my employer] should complete the Information security essentials on-line training course."
This policy must have been in place for a while.

cherdano, on 2016-November-07, 04:39, said:

Many companies also have mandatory sexual harassment training, too, and I'm sure most of the people who commit it have been through it.

I've always been cynical about these kinds of training. Most people who really need it are not going to be influenced much by it.