Hill-Mails and Why-Mails
There was a lot of going postal this last week. Some old, some new, all bad.
We can start with Hillary Clinton’s private email server
back in good old Chappaqua, which is apparently as secure a location as the
place Dick Cheney keeps his compassion.
Tens of thousands of emails from the period when she was Secretary of
State didn’t run through government channels (which, as we all know, are
impregnable) and instead entered the Hillary Clinton Presidential Library zone.
I have no idea what she was thinking. Her public statements are she did it for
convenience, but I don’t think too many people actually believed that. Hillary (and Bill) are both very smart, and
very gifted, but the wheels are always turning in Clinton-Inc., and people know
it. Whether you are a Clinton fan, or a
Clinton hater, you know it as well. It's
simply a question of what you think the motive is, and whether you actually
care about that motive.
Bill is one of the few political geniuses we’ve seen in the
last 40 years. He just has the gift, as
Reagan did. It’s a gift that allows
people to enjoy the things they want to see in him, and ignore those they don’t
care for. Hillary is a different
sort. She’s not the acrobat Bill is, but
she’s a worker. When she first ran for
Senate in New York she went everywhere, including counties that had not voted
for a Democrat since time immemorial.
People who think of New York as Manhattan don’t realize that much of the
state is actually rural and quite conservative—even beyond Staten Island.
Hillary talked crops, she talked milk, she talked cows, she talked open space,
trees, apples, etc. It worked—while she
never completely shrugged off the carpetbagger label, more people began to
think she was one of them.
In the Senate, she continued the hard work—even Republicans
agreed. She could have been President, and maybe would have, except for the once-in-a-generation talent of Barack Obama. I always thought
it was interesting that she agreed to be Secretary of State. While six former Presidents (Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren and Buchannan) had the post prior
to being President, it’s not been considered a stepping-stone to the Presidency
by anyone in modern memory. Perhaps she
had an itch that couldn’t be scratched, or perhaps she made the same mistake
William Seward made when he became Lincoln’s Secretary of State (and assumed he
would run the government.)
If her accession to Secretary of State was a curious one, I
think the Hill-Mail controversy more bizarre, especially for someone so bright and so able. She couldn’t possibly have
expected them to remain secret. The number
of people working day and night on Hillary-opposition research is probably
enough to move the weekly unemployment data.
And, the Hillary-haters have the advantage of taxpayer subsidies as
well—Trey Gowdy, who is heading up the 842nd Benghazi investigation,
is already in denounce and demand mode.
That investigation (and others) will be sure to continue until…well,
hope springs eternal, so why not the committees?
Yet, and I realize this is counterintuitive, I think this
can be a serendipitous thing for the Democrats.
First, it’s inoculation, if Hillary is the candidate. Emails aside, Gowdy and every other
Republican in Congress with access to an unlimited checkbook and
subpoena power were going to have at her the next couple of years anyway. There is a point of diminishing returns on
persistent partisanship, and having watched the GOP unbound when it comes to
Mr. Obama, it wouldn’t surprise me if Hillary takes on a certain stature
similar to Bill (“yes, he was a womanizer—that’s the best you can do?”)
Second, if there really are “incriminating” communications,
and those are so bad that they really endanger Hillary’s legitimate chances to
win, then she will withdraw, and likely sooner rather than later. That will give other Democrats an opportunity
to step up, away from her substantial shadow.
And, it will also reveal some imperfections in some of the Republican
candidates. Jeb Bush, for example,
harshly criticized Hillary, but then had to try to explain the rather
embarrassing fact that he did everything possible to keep his emails as
Governor secret. Naturally, he insists
it’s different (it's always different when you do it) but I doubt that will
meet with universal asset.
My best guess about the Hill-Mails is that there will be
some unvarnished, unattractively critical comments about both some of her
adversaries (and possibly even some of her allies) and some unflattering
evaluations of foreign governments.
This last part, the country doesn’t need, particularly
because of the second mail problem we had last week—freshly minted Arkansas
Senator Tom Cotton’s remarkable letter to the Iranians, as merrily signed by 46
of his co-religionists. The letter, in my opinion, is far more embarrassing
than any private snideness Mrs. Clinton might have shared with an aide. It is the ultimate “Why-Mail”.
Let’s start at the beginning; “It has come to our attention
while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not
fully understand our constitutional system.”
Who writes stuff like that?
Did they hire someone whose last experience was working on 50’s B-movie
script? At least they got to it quickly—no wasting time with “we come in peace”
nonsense, just get to the arrogance and condescension quickly.
Then, it went on to discuss the differences between treaties
and “executive agreements” and, my personal favorite, showed the Iranians an
acute knowledge of the eternal life of a Republican Senator from a Red State,
as opposed to the firefly existence of a mere President; “As applied today, for
example, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us
will remain in office well beyond that, perhaps decades.”
From there, it points out that whatever is signed now by
President Obama will be quickly reversed when they are in charge. The next President could end it “with the
stroke of a pen” and “future Congresses
could modify the terms at any time.”
Finally, (the letter is mercifully brief) it signs off with hope
that the letter “enriches your (the Iranians) knowledge of our constitutional
system…”
I don’t want to fall into the easy trap that the New York
Daily News (an otherwise persistent critic of Mr. Obama on foreign policy) did,
and call the signers “traitors” because I think that is an unwise and unfortunate
use of the dirtiest word in the English language.
Stupid, is what I would say, and no matter how many giggles
emanate from the summer-camp bunk that appears to house the nine-year olds who
signed this letter, it remains an appalling act of peevish childishness. Boehner bringing Bibi in at least had a
point. This letter does nothing good at
all besides giving us an opportunity to see Cotton smirk—and he has a
formidable smirk. The Iranians laughed it off, the Germans, who are
participating in the talks, were furious, and, not entirely surprisingly, so
were a lot of conservative commentators.
How come people like Kathleen Parker, Michael Gerson, and
the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal excoriated it? Two critical reasons: the first is that
Republicans have a deep faith in Executive Power—when they are the
Executives. Presidents have entered into
literally thousands of executive agreements, and future Republican Presidents
will do the same, and they are not going to tolerate any pesky liberal Senators
from interfering. The second is something that practical conservatives have
understood for some time: a stunt like this by a few wayward Senators is just a
little bad press. 47 Senators? That shows that the party just isn't ready to
govern.
That freaks out the Establishment Right. If it's a choice between some unflattering
Hill-Mails, and some destructive Why-Mails, the public might just choose the
veteran warrior princess. Or, worst-case
scenario, they might choose someone younger, and scarier, maybe with a slight
Massachusetts accent.
There are mailrooms, and executive suites, that think that
could be almost as bad as the Iranians getting the bomb.
March 16, 2015
Michael Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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