are certainly clutching at every bit of gossip on the email issue. Substance here is less important than the form of secrecy. The entire farce about how Clinton has stumbled on this has a certain frisson to it. There have been others who bungled on the issue of misaligning information discussed in an official capacity with private pursuits. General David Petraeus, touted as potential presidential material, ended up falling foul of sharing confidential information with his researching confidante. Where there is sex, there is information release, and much else besides.
The political assault HRC is bearing witness to may not necessarily dint her chances at the Oval office. She is still considerably ahead of the GOP camp, and is keeping a low profile. “The Clinton campaign,” Jason Easley argues, “is going with a slow burn strategy, because they want voters to get excited in 2016.”
When dealing with the Clintons, one is not so much dealing with individual agency as that of a machine organised around the most modern, chameleon like techniques of evasion. Lies become sugared half-truths; sanctimony filtrates through the press releases, assuming the form of ‘common America’. For the Clintons, the only America worth knowing is a corrupt one punctuated by occasional acts of contrition.
The Democrat charges are holding on, hoping that the Clinton machine will prevail. This is what they are used to, what their bruising scandals have done to it over the years. An important aside in all of this stands out. A fundamental contradiction to information security exists in Clinton’s approach and that of the State Department. Nothing illustrates this better than the reaction to Cablegate. With the release of the cables, Clinton was implicated in an assortment of revelations touching on, among others, targeting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, insisting in the process that biometric information of UN officials be collected.
Wikileaks, in its publishing activities, effectively exposed a tension. What should be published? What should be kept confidential?
This article has been excerpted from: ‘Inside Emailgate: Hillary’s Latest Problem’.
Courtesy: Counterpunch.org