Eugene Robinson on Hillary emails

[MBS]

29. it matters, especially for the Secretary of State

First, the Obama white House issued a clear directive that all staff members of the executive branch use government email only for government business.

To me, this policy is appropriate, and important, for two reasons:
1) national security issues. Since this is the current topic du jour in the current media frenzy, there is no need to belabor this point any further. But I will note that this issue is particularly important for the State Department, which daily handles many sensitive issues -- even non-classified issues can be sensitive enough to raise difficulties if confidentiality is breached.
AND
2) clear separation of personal interests from government interests. This is a principle reiterated almost weekly to federal employees, even those in non-sensitive positions, and is a matter both of ethics and common sense for those in sensitive positions. This seems to me particularly important for Hillary as Sec of State, since the work of the Clinton Foundation, and the Clintons' vast network of friends and business acquaintances, overlapped at many points with the interests of the State Department. Given the fact that the line between the personal and political/governmental business is often a blurry one among the Clintons, Hillary should have done everything in her power to keep that line as clear and rigid as possible while she was Sec of State. A minimum step in this direction would be to use one's government email account for government business, while conducting personal business (only) through her private server . Using the same server for government and personal business is the worst possible "solution".

The thing that continues to boggle my mind is why she chose to do this in the first place, in contradiction to policy, when she continued to harbor presidential ambitions. Instead of reminding the public of her intelligence and long experience, and introducing the substance of her agenda to the public, she's now having to divert her time and energy to answer these endless questions about email, discussions which bring back to the voters old bad memories of the ways that the Clintons tend to push the envelope on the rules, and their paranoia about privacy, secrecy, and more. Especially with her long experience with Republicans and the press, couldn't she or her advisors have seen what an incredibly stupid move this was politically to insist on using a private email server exclusively to conduct Dept of State business? Even ethics aside, couldn't they see how damaging this would be to her presidential ambitions? Does she have a political death wish? Does she not want to be president? To me, insistence on conducting government business, especially sensitive government business, from a private server is so obviously a bad idea -- I continue to be shaken by the poor political judgment displayed by all concerned.

Yes, the Republicans and the media are milking this for all it's worth. But it's her fault, too. They would have not had the ammunition, and she could have stood firmly on higher ground, had she conducted her State Dept. email correspondence properly, from a government account.

FYI, I'm undecided in the Democratic primaries, but firmly committed to voting for HRC if she is the Democratic nominee. But I'm very angry how her incredibly stupid decision (to use a private email server) could possibly jeopardize her/our chances of keeping the White House. Because we really need to win in 2016. Just the thought of any of those Republican candidates as president makes me shudder.