I used to work for a Ford dealer in Plymouth, Wisconsin. One day I overheard him talking to one of his salesmen. He said: “If you are going to drink on the job, stop drinking vodka. I want people to know you are drunk, not stupid.”
The same advice should have been given to those people trying to defend Hillary Clinton. This is why this e-mail scandal is going to hurt her a lot more than Democrats will admit:
The question from a CNS reporter:
“FBI Director Comey said yesterday that Secretary Clinton and her colleagues ‘were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.’ Do you believe people who are extremely careless in their handling of highly classified information should have security clearances?”
Hoyer’s response:
“I think that Secretary Clinton as Secretary of State — and Comey clearly concluded — had no intent or thought that she was in fact being careless. I know that’s Mr. Comey’s conclusion.”
Although most people ignore CNS, sometimes with considerable justification, the question is spot on and Democrats better come up with a lot better response.
As a former linguist let me translate: Secretary Clinton is not a criminal, she is just incredibly stupid.
At some point the following will become obvious. It doesn’t really matter if what Clinton did was criminal, what matters is that no one, and I mean no one, is pretending this is responsible behavior. Hoyer didn’t actually answer the question because he has no answer.
But he did say something else that is a huge problem for Democrats and for Hillary Clinton:
“I think everybody agrees that Comey is a person of great integrity,” Hoyer said. “I don’t think that this is a question that he did this politically.”
The he added something that is really significant:
“Some of it was – as the previous question indicated – critical,” Hoyer said. “And others of it concluded that there was no intent here – apparently no damage – I mean he didn’t mention any damage had occurred.”
This is why people like Judicial Watch and others are desperately trying to get their hands on those e-mails. It is why Comey’s decision to not recommend prosecution may create serious problems for Hillary because it is increasingly difficult to justify withholding them from the public. As soon as they are available an army of analysts will seize the day and start looking for “damage.” If they find serious damage to national security it will be difficult, if not impossible for senior Democrats to continue providing cover for Hillary Clinton.
TDM