Almost everything about the Clinton email scandal makes me laugh, but two things especially.
One is the claim that Mrs. Clinton never sent or received classified information on her personal email account, which was the only account she used to conduct business. But if, as secretary of state, she wasn’t getting classified information on that account, what kind of information was she getting? The same kind all the rest of us get? Is that because nobody trusted her enough to tell her anything confidential? That would be funny enough, but the irresistibly comic part is that she and her zombies see this as the best story they can tell.
I said “zombies,” and I mean zombies. You remember those scenes in The Manchurian Candidate in which brainwashed people hear the name of a former comrade in arms whom they know to be a cold, twisted, thoroughly unpleasant person (“It isn’t as if Raymond’s hard to like. He’s impossible to like!”), and they declaim, with glazed eyes, “Raymond Shaw is the bravest, kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.” That’s how the Clintonites react when their leader’s name is mentioned. It’s a phenomenon hitherto unknown to American politics. And that part isn’t funny.
If, as secretary of state, Clinton wasn’t getting classified information on that account, what kind of information was she getting?
The second thing I find amusing — even more amusing than the first — was the interview in which Mrs. Clinton finally “took responsibility” for something. Her remarks were generally headlined as an “apology.” This might lead you to believe that she was actually accepting responsibility for her dangerous breach of security, for the foreign hacking that undoubtedly occurred because she hid her communications as secretary of state in a makeshift server operating, first, out of her house, and second, out of somebody’s bathroom in Colorado. But here’s what happened in the interview:
“In retrospect, as I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts — one for personal, one for work-related emails. That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility,” Mrs. Clinton said in the TV interview.
Pressed to clarify whether she made a mistake in setting up a private email account and private server to conduct official business, Mrs. Clinton responded: “I did. I did.”
“As I said, it was allowed, and there was no hiding it. It was totally above board. Everybody in the government I communicated [with] — and that was a lot of people — knew I was using a personal email,” she said. “But I’m sorry that it has, you know, raised all of these questions. I do take responsibility for having made what is clearly not the best decision.”
Please transcend normal indignation at Mrs. Clinton’s impudence, at her cynical assumption that people who care enough to watch her interviews are dumb enough to be impressed by this kind of talk. Move beyond normal amazement that anyone who talks like this could possibly think that normal people would see her as one of them, and like her. The literary question is: how does she put this stuff together?
The short answer is, she has a great deal of help. Hers is not the ordinary rat’s nest of political verbiage. It’s not like a statement I read in the Detroit Free Press on September 9, in which Josh Cline, a staffer for scandal-stalked Republican State Representative Todd Courser, declared his resignation from that high office: “After tolerating months of e-mails that were disrespectful, unprofessional and demeaning, the e-mail sent to me and the entire staff on March 27th, with the subject of 82-issues to deal with, was offensive, ungrateful and beyond reproach.” The literal meaning of that statement is that the email of March 27 tolerated months of disrespect, etc., before deciding that the treatment accorded it on that date was something nobody should complain about (“beyond reproach”). That’s not what Mr. Cline intended to say, but that’s what he wrote.
Clinton’s statements were more carefully, less candidly, and (thank God) less effectively constructed, by a multitude of hands.
Picture an office full of political hacks, painstakingly assembling the famous formula by which Al Gore maintained, concerning certain actions he had taken, “There was no controlling legal authority that says this was in violation of law.” (Also picture these words being delivered in Gore’s arrogant, peevish, foghorn drone.) Can you imagine how many alternative expressions his assistants had proposed for every part of speech in that miserable little sentence?
Please transcend normal indignation at Mrs. Clinton’s impudence, at her cynical assumption that people who care enough to watch her interviews are dumb enough to be impressed by this kind of talk.
“There was no law . . . ?” “No, no. Too blunt.” “Well then, let’s start with a big set of adjectives. How about duly enforceable?” “No, sounds too governmental.” “Binding?” “You mean he wouldn’t be bound by the law?” “Then what about controlling? Maybe there was a law; maybe there wasn’t. The issue wasn’t whether he was bound to do something; it was whether somebody, or something — some authority — could control him.” “Say! That’s right! Nobody likes to be controlled.” “No. Nobody does. So call it a controlling legal authority.” “Sounds good! But we’re still talking about the law, aren’t we?” “Sure, sure. Tuck that in at the end of the sentence. By that time, nobody will be listening. They’ll still be trying to figure out what a controlling legal authority is.” “What is it, anyway?” “I don’t know — who cares? But if they start thinking about that, they’ll see that it can’t be a law, or he’d be in violation of it. Which, yeah, he was. But that’s the problem; that’s not the solution.”
So much for Gore. Back to Clinton. Imagine a conference of politicos, filling a space somewhat larger than the Royal Albert Hall. (Note: allusion to a Beatles song.) These people are assembled to craft some statement that will get Hillary Clinton out of her current jam. (Don’t you love that verb craft? It makes every dumb political dodge look like a fine piece of furniture.) The resulting words are the product of many kinds of verbal manipulation. It’s fun to try counting them. I’ll list the first few that come to my mind; you’ll find more.
1. The “Mistake.” Consider the words sin, crime, offense, violation, blunder, screw-up, error, mistake: Which is the weakest word? Mistake. Normal people say they made a mistake about what they put in the salad, or about the first name of their cousin’s second husband. These are mere mistakes, things you wouldn’t bother to apologize for. True, criminals often say they made a mistake when they robbed the liquor store, but that’s an attempt to minimize serious and obvious guilt. When sharply interrogated, they say they made a bad choice. But Mrs. Clinton didn’t even say that. Mistake was as far as she would go.
2. The Exculpatory Prologue. “In retrospect, as I look back at it now, even though it was allowed . . . “ By the time we swim through Clinton’s introduction and lie gasping on the barren beach of her mistake, the mistakenness is shrinking fast.
3. The Old Shell Game. If Hillary did make a mistake, where, exactly, was it? It wasn’t at the point where she did something that wasn’t “allowed.” She says that it was allowed. So where did she make the mistake? Maybe it was when she decided not to “us[e] two accounts.” But that doesn’t sound like much of a mistake, does it? Chris Cillizza, who dogs Mrs. Clinton’s heels for the Washington Post, is more of a Pekinese than a pit bull. But although he shows no teeth, he keeps on gumming his prey. Thus, while describing the ridiculousness of the Clinton campaign, he says that “last week Clinton decided to offer an unequivocal apology for her decision to set up a private e-mail server after months of insisting no apology was necessary.”
These are people who are intimately acquainted with their boss’ ruthless ambition, towering arrogance, and sickening greed.
4. The Aggressive Passive. Not that Mrs. C is ever passive, in the psychological meaning of that term; she’s always as aggressive as situations (and interviewers) permit her to be. Which is plenty. But should you ask, “By whom or what was it allowed?”,you won’t find an answer. The passive construction obviates the need for one. In fact, it aggressively denies any standing-room for such a question.
5. The Mysterious “It.” The more one reflects on Clinton’s “it was allowed,” the more one wonders what she means by it. When the interviewer “press[es her] to clarify” her meaning, she agrees to an innocuous-sounding phrase (“setting up a private email account and private server to conduct official business”), then shifts back to the shifty passive, “As I said, it was allowed.” Tell me, does that it include the things that other people really worry about: the exclusive use of the private server, the presence of classified information on the server, the hiding of the server, the (reported) deletion of half the messages on the server, the use of the server by other government employees and sort-of employees . . . .
6. Spread the Guilt. “There was no hiding it,” Mrs. Clinton says. Everybody, she says, knew about it, whatever exactly it was, and, by inference, approved of it. If you’re so worried, go blame all those people. But the guilt spreads farther. Proceed to No. 7.
7. You’re the Problem. “I’m sorry that it has, you know, raised all of these questions.” Have you ever had a conflict with someone who told you, as a means of “settling” the matter, “I’m sorry that you feel that way”? Did you take that as an apology? I doubt it. But what did you feel — respect or contempt? The second, surely. The contempt was directed at the speaker’s effort to make you feel guilty for his mistake. But such real-life responses have never occurred to the all-wise elite of the Hillary circle.
And that’s what’s really wrong, and really funny, in both senses of that word, about Clinton and her clones, about all those people who sat in that enormous room — actual or virtual — and figured out what she was supposed to say this time. These are people who are intimately acquainted with their boss’ ruthless ambition, towering arrogance, and sickening greed. Yet they are wholly unacquainted with normal human responses to such characteristics. They assume that everyone who matters speaks Clone, believes Clone, is a Clone, and that everyone else will simply scratch his head and utter a bemused “whatever” when smacked with the latest helping of Clonespeak.
There are media gurus still trying to save cuddly socialist Hillary from rapacious Wall Street Hillary — as if Wall Street and socialism hadn’t been working together for a hundred years or so.
Why else would they have her say what they have her say, and even brag about the nonsense she is about to say? Whenever their war elephant takes a detour into the swamp, which is all the time, they inform the Clinton-friendly media about the tricks they’re going to use to pull her out. Formerly, the media greeted these “confidential” insights with relief. Now they’re beginning to notice something about them that seems just a tad peculiar.
Dana Millbank of the Washington Post is one of the media gurus who are still trying to save cuddly socialist Hillary from rapacious Wall Street Hillary — as if Wall Street and socialism hadn’t been working together for a hundred years or so. Never mind; Millbank makes a good point about the smell that wafts from Hillary’s army. His article is entitled “The Clinton campaign puts the ‘moron’ into oxymoron.” He’s referring to Clinton’s scripted displays of “spontaneity.” In one passage he says:
We knew Clinton was going to be funny and warm because her aides told the New York Times she was going to be funny and warm.“Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say,” was the headline on Amy Chozick’s piece this week.
But to me, the most valuable article about Clinton’s absurd behavior is Guy Benson’s piece in the not-mainstream Townhall (September 14). Benson provides a crisp, clean review of the email scandal, emphasizing the bizarre isolation of Mrs. Clinton and her gang:
Amid sliding poll numbers, a growing credibility gap, intense media scrutiny, and a federal investigation, the Clinton campaign was caught off guard by challenging questions? That crosses the line from counter-productive insularity into shocking ineptitude.
Several of the Republican candidates, led by Carly Fiorina, have started talking about the incompetence of “the political class.” Liberty has used that term for years, so it’s gratifying to see it spread. There’s a need for it, because there is a distinct, and distinctly repellent, political class in this country. It never wants to admit it’s a class; like other classes, however, it declares itself plainly by its peculiar ways of communicating or not communicating with the rest of the populace. What has aptly been called “the Clinton world” is the clearest representation so far of the ways in which the American political class isolates itself within its own rhetoric. May the isolation continue, and become complete.
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