It was an Unethical Quote of the Month, and a Kaboom, as it blew the top of my head straight off. Significantly, none of the Hillary defenders among the regular commentators tried to spin it, and in just ten months, it has been buried by so many other smoking guns and examples of signature significance regarding this woman’s unshakable conviction that normal rules of conduct don’t, and shouldn’t, apply to her. Indeed I had forgotten it myself. Its last sentence was,
“I really don’t know how supporters of Hillary Clinton can look at themselves in the mirror. I really don’t.”
That statement is easily twice as true now as it was then. Here is the post, titled, Unethical Quote Of The Month: Hillary Clinton (And By The Way, KABOOM!)…..
“I was surprised that he used personal email account if he is at State.”
—Hillary Clinton, responding to a 2011 e-mail sent by senior aides about a dispatch from John Godfrey, a State Department employee.
This wasn’t the most explosive of the Clinton e-mails revealed today by the court-ordered State Department release, but it’s the one that made my head explode. How long did Hillary claim that her using a private e-mail sever for official communications was “permitted,” that she did nothing wrong, that no State Department procedures or policies dictated otherwise, four years after she expressed surprise at the irregularity of Godfrey’s conduct? Hillary wasn’t just careless or clueless—she knew all along that using a personal e-mail account was wrong and risky. Why else would she be “surprised”? Who is surprised at employees doing what is allowed and appropriate?
My head didn’t explode because I was shocked that Hillary has been lying all along. I always assume she’s lying. It exploded because her brazen hypocrisy is mind-blowing. This is worse than her saying that victims of sexual abuse have a right to be believed. This is like Bill Clinton saying that the victims of sexual abuse have a right to be believed.
For those whose brains didn’t migrate to the ceiling, the headline-maker among the e-mails revealed today was the one she sent to a top aide, Jacob J. Sullivan, instructing him how to strip sensitive material of official markings and send it in a “nonsecure” way, probably to her private server. “If they can’t [send the material via secure fax], turn into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” Clinton wrote. “Non-paper” is jargon for a discussion draft or memo that does not represent the official position of a government or negotiator. This suggests that Clinton instructed a subordinate to breach the laws that cover how classified material is handled. Recall that Hillary said that she never received any material marked classified on her server. Ahhh! Because she had staff unmark it! It all depends on what the meaning of “marked” is!
I really don’t know how supporters of Hillary Clinton can look at themselves in the mirror. I really don’t.
Ethics Alarms 
It’s not the losing that bothers me that much, honestly, Jack. It’s not even the presidency that follows, eventually you remember that who’s up top really doesn’t affect your daily life that much and get on with things. It’s the preening and boasting by my Hillary-supporting friends that’s going to follow for at least a week, with memes, articles talking about the pantsuit that conquered the world, how she’s the greatest example for every little girl everywhere, and so on. Either I am going to have to unfollow a lot of folks, or I am going to start dropping people. And, to paraphrase the Mordant Mommy, who wrote a looong post about how unfriending over Trump support isn’t about “politics” it’s about basic decency, unfriending over Hillary support isn’t about “politics” it’s about honor. I can take voting for her because you think Trump is worse, or you disagree policy-wise, but I can’t take all the fawning, fangirling CRAP about her being the greatest president and the greatest example for everyone with 2 x chromosomes everywhere. It’s utter garbage, and anyone who spouts it is corrupt, and guess what? I don’t choose to be friends with the corrupt.
Yeeeesssss…this is becoming a greater and greater problem for me as well.
Given that I remain fully unconvinced of Hillary’s relative superiority to Trump (they are equally horrible in my analysis) and fully unconvinced of Trump’s relative danger to the nation (they are equally disasterous in different ways) I am still compelled to vote third party.
As I said, no choices are truly binary. Sometimes you have to fight a losing battle if only to be the toe hold for follow on action.
I have the luxury of living in a state in which Trump has exactly 0% chance of winning. So I can cast a meaningless vote for him as a a tiny, meek protest against Clinton feeling as though she has a mandate.
It’s like the reference in the Bible to casting a fishnet and bringing in all kinds of things, then sorting out what’s worthwhile from what’s not. I have friends on both sides of the spectrum who appreciate the pictures I post and sometimes the more generally applicable historical stuff or thoughts on life stuff. However, some exclude my feed from theirs because the occasional conservative post is something they can’t handle, and others will make controversial posts, but not welcome engagement on what they say unless it is agreement. My personal fave was a yoga instructor who said she loves my nature pictures and I should message her when I post them, because she ducks my notifications lest she see one of my albums of vintage planes or parading soldiers and it shatter her peaceful state of mind.
I have also unfollowed some folks who made their position clear a long time ago, who continue to post snarky liberal memes or just their own snarky thoughts. I don’t need a verbal mugging before my morning coffee kicks in or a nasty rant as I am slowing down for bed.
“all the fawning, fangirling CRAP about her being the greatest president and the greatest example for everyone with 2 x chromosomes everywhere.”
Who do you know that is saying this? Everything I read and everyone I talk to characterizes this election as a choice between two evils, the two weakest candidates in a generation, holding your nose and picking the least of two evils.
Genuine raving starry-eyed Hillary fans? I don’t think i know a single one. So the good news is, maybe you won’t have to unfriend anyone.
I’m not going to name names, but hmmm, let’s see… At least two singers from the UK who haven’t a clue how our system works but hate Trump, one person from Ireland who says the US will now finally catch up to Ireland in having a female president (trusting you remember Mary McEleese), at least three housewife-types who post two and three Hilary-boosting memes a day…Need I go on?
You can say all you like about me being wrong on substance, Charles, but don’t say I don’t know my own experience. That’s called gaslighting.
You don’t know any starry eyed Hillary fans? Almost every Hillary voter I know is voting for Hillary for how great she is, not trudging to the polls to vote for the lesser of two evils. It is rather remarkable.
So true. The only Hillary voters I’ve heard bemoaning Hillary are on this forum (and I suspect that some bemoan her simply because they don’t want to show their true colors.
Oh please. If we wanted to be patted on the back for our political thoughts, we’d be on a more liberal forum.
I am here because I like to be challenged — that’s how I grow and refine my thinking. But, sometimes it is hard to be a liberal voice here.
Self-conscious much? I didn’t say you. In fact I have commended you for being one of the few courageous Lefties on this forum.
Not self-conscious, just arrogant. I speak for all women and lefties on this blog, didn’t you know? 🙂
I also don’t think you come here to strut and preen, and I don’t think strutting and preening are your thing. They are very much some other folks’ thing. That said, I can’t absolve myself from gloating, although I dialed it way back in 2014 from 2010, when I just kept sharing article after article about the election results, frequently with snarky, pithy comments. I posted a few times on the actual election night, one time just saying the GOP had the +6, another poking fun at Alison Grimes and Wendy Davis, who both got crushed, and a third wrapping things up. I then moved on.
As for it being hard to be a liberal voice here, well, politics isn’t beanbag, and talking politics is by nature unpleasant, that’s why religion, politics, and sex are normally no-nos for discussion. It’s gotten much more unpleasant this year because of the very unpleasant nature of this election and the lousy choice of candidates. It’s triply as unpleasant because of the unyielding and jerky nature of the bases on both sides, and I don’t see that getting better.
Read Pew research–actual data– to see how wrong you are.
http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/21/in-their-own-words-why-voters-support-and-have-concerns-about-clinton-and-trump/
I think Steve-O’s response to you suffices.
EO I don’t doubt your characterization, but will note you must have a very peculiar set of friends.
Pew Research says as many Hillary fans are voting primarily against Trump as Trump fans are voting primarily against Hilary–around one third in each case. Really quite amazing you’ve not run across any of them.
If I recall, Jack himself, who hosts this salon, is planning to vote for Hillary, and I get the faint impression that it’s not because he’s a fanboy.
http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/21/in-their-own-words-why-voters-support-and-have-concerns-about-clinton-and-trump/
I guess I do have a peculiar set of friends. I don’t know whether that says more about me or my friends.
I am willing to give Hillary (and Trump) voters leeway if they admit that as between two awful candidates (and people) they are voting for what they see in their opinion as the least awful. I have found a lot of Trump people who admit as much, but I have had a hard time finding those people on the other side of the aisle, however. They do exist – but the people I run into are more likely to echo Bill Weld’s comment that Hillary is the most qualified candidate for President ever, which is laughable.
Charles. Charles. C’mon now.
You cite an article that says only 32% of self-professed Hillary voters are voting for her because “She is not Trump” and completely ignore the remaining 68% who cited other reasons–each and every one of them positive of the candidate–for supporting her. This completely undermines your position; it doesn’t support it.
Okay, but there is definitely a secondary take-away that 32% is a very large percentage of respondents and large enough to be significant in and of itself.
But it’s actually tied with the “Experienced / Will get things done” category at 32%.
So . . . nope.
Sorry, Charles, but that article doesn’t say what you are claiming it says.
–Dwayne
Dwayne – I cited the article NOT as proof of a particular proposition, but as COUNTER-PROOF to Steve-O’s original claim that the world is full of Hillary-lovers. His words, if you read them above, cite “my Hillary-supporting friends,” and “either I am going to have to unfollow a lot of folks, or I am going to start dropping people.”
I suggested that a fact-based study showing one-third of Hillary voters are very cynical about her was quite enough to suggest that his particular collection of Hillary supporters appeared to be skewed.
My point was simple: Steve-O rather loosely suggested that all Hillary voters were fans of Hillary. That’s just not true, and the statistical proof I cited that one-third of the datapoints vary from his experience is quite sufficient to suggest he shouldn’t generalize from his own data.
Or, as my marketing prof said on Day One of my MBA program, “Never do market research on yourself.”
I hear you say things like this, then I also remember you pretending like a choice between some of the Moderate, Civil, and more importantly UNCORRUPT Republican options and Hillary Clinton was a “tough choice” for you, but that you’d still end up having to settle for Clinton.
So, it always makes me wonder if there isn’t a little bit of “Go Hillary” beating around in there…
I will admit that there is a piece of me that will be ecstatic to see a woman become President. Hillary was not my candidate, but I will still be happy for her to win over Trump. This election was the first time I voted for a woman, and while I didn’t vote for her because she was a woman, there still will be an immense satisfaction of seeing that glass ceiling shatter.
I voted for a woman governor, twice. Objectively I am OK with a woman president, and she wouldn’t be the first in the Western world, nor the first of a consequential nation – Maggie Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Angela Merkel, etc. I am not OK with her objectively as president, due to all the baggage and corruption she brings.
Sincere question…would you feel that same sense of pride if it were Fiorina vs Bernie (assuming, you would be voting for Bernie)?
Yes. Fiorina is competent, like Clinton. I did not feel that way about Palin however. She is not a bright woman, and the “first” at anything has to be up to the task.
Condoleeza Rice was competent. Susanna Martinez was competent. Christine Whitman was competent. Jan Brewer was reasonably competent. Ella Grasso (remember her?) was fairly competent and at least set a reasonable bar. Sarah Palin was not especially competent. Kathleen Blanco was not especially competent. Hillary is probably smarter than any of them with the possible exception of polymath Rice. That’s great, but I don’t think any of them have anything like Hillary’s amount of baggage, nor did any of them seek power for its own sake.
The first of anything does need to be up to the task, but also needs to set an example that those who follow can look up to. Hillary is not an example I would want my daughter to follow – ride the coattails of a powerful man, ignore infidelity, threaten others, peddle influence, lie as easily as you breathe, go into vicious attack mode the moment anyone crosses you. But I guess none of that means anything, right?
Low bar. None of those women would be considered Presidential material if they were men, especially Rice, who is all resume.
I agree about Condoleeza. I remember hearing her first response to some crisis (I forget what), and recall vividly thinking, OMG that is the response of a university proctor, not a statesman. And then I remembered that is EXACTLY who she is.
For once charles is possibly on to something. He has, with very good reason, demonstrated why one ought to be wary of academics with executive authority, given that this example and this example were both appalling blights on American governance after devotion to a career in academia.
Texagg, by the end of this campaign, there’s very little “Go Hillary” left in me. I think Jack’s view is the majority view – hold your nose and vote for the least offensive. Maybe Jack’s right, it’s that I’m not on Facebook (whew), but in surveys of the population I don’t think you find many raving Hillary fans in general. She is, as is generally noted, a vastly imperfect candidate.
As to the “moderate, civil, and more importantly UNCORRUPT Republican options,” I will certainly grant you uncorrupt. And maybe civil. But moderate? No way.
Let’s dispense first with the clown car that the GOP allowed to appear on stage without a cage: the Santorums, Huckabees, Jindals, Carsons.
But more importantly, take the “mainstream” GOP folks: Christie, Graham, Rubio, Bush, Kasich. All are fans of the intellectually corrupt ideology that goes by the name “supply side economics,” championed by the number one economic liar Paul Ryan. All are climate change deniers, most would or did vote against things like Zika virus rather than add to the federal budget; and all indulge in precisely the dog-whistle politics that brought down a venerable political party and turned it over to Trump.
Very simply, the “mainstream” GOP peddled religion, guns and anti-gays to the masses, while consistently voting to cut taxes and regulation on big business. The Tea Party began to call them on it, and then they got caught in the perfect storm called Trump. The Dems have barely escaped the same fate, only because a more-socially-acceptable kindly uncle named Bernie legitimized the complaint within the party.
In that vein, it wasn’t that hard for me to choose Hillary. But please don’t confuse that with me being “fawning and fangirling,” to use Steve-O’s term. I think more of her than Jack does, but that’s saying very very little.
This country desperately needs a valid center-right party: it is arguably a center-right country, and to see how the high-minded “conservative” wing of the party sold out, turning legitimate lower-middle-class victims into pitchfork and torch-carrying crowds is a very sad thing.
It wasn’t that long ago that the GOP had people like Rockefeller, Lindsay, Kemp. Somewhere around Gingrich, the party took a sick turn, and the path to Trump, in retrospect, looks fairly clear.
Obvously just my opinion.
CG, I think there’s still lots of starry-eyed-ness for HRC. I can’t find it, but yesterday I read an article about Wellesley grads of all ages campaigning for HRC because she’s so wonderful if you really know her. And there’s this. 1.9 Million members of pantsuit nation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/07/inside-the-huge-secret-facebook-group-for-hillary-clintons-biggest-fans/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_clintongroup-09pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
You may live in a refreshingly discerning group of friends an acquaintances,
Regards.
I’ve got nearly 500 FB friends, and would estimate that at least 2/3 are enthusiastic Hillary fans.
Actors
Your 2/3 exactly mirrors the 2/3 that Pew Research found. Your FB friends seem to mirror reality, unlike Steve-O’s, who according to him are 100% Hill-fans. It doesn’t seem to be a FB issue, it seems to be a who-you-hang-with issue.
You read it here folks. This is a clear demonstration that when you are so far Left that even moderates or just right of center look like the extreme right you have a major credibility issue.
If you are suggesting that the likes of today’s GOP candidates were “moderate or just right of center,” you have no sense of history or geography.
–Historically, every single last one of them was to the right of Ronald Reagan.
–Geographically, nearly all of them on nearly all issues are to the right of nearly all European conservative parties.
And I’m not even talking about the wacko fringe who drove out that flaming commie John Boehner from the House.
I hope you really don’t think it’s a profound observation to say that American politics is on average more right wing than European politics.
It isn’t profound. Not to anyone familiar with politics in general and definitely not to anyone familiar to the horrible flaws are trying to apply “left” and “right” labels ACROSS international lines.
But it is more evidence that you’ll grab on to any thing with favorable propaganda potential to bolster your extremist position.
I think there’s a disconnect between the media and actual people (Perhaps the understatement of my life), even between the media and actual liberals, with whom they share some bias. Have I actually heard a real person say that Hillary is great? No, come to think of it, I have not…. Although I admit that could be my fishbowl. But have I heard various pundits say that Clinton is supremely qualified, honest, everything right with politics, and the second coming of Christ? Weekly. (Except for that last one, they won’t outright SAY she’s God, they’ll just compare her to God. http://forward.com/opinion/350768/hillary-clinton-is-a-flawed-candidate-just-like-god/ ptooey.)
Bingo.
Read the comments; they all called bullshit on this.
They called BS on Humble’s comment?
So far I’m the only one who’s responded to Humble’s comment…
You obviously don’t spend any time on Facebook, Charles.
Which speaks well for you..
I spend probably TOO much time on it, as much as a platform for my photography as anything else.
Hmm, interesting. I’ve read a bunch of fan-girling stuff that turns my stomach (it does any time that stuff happens — in politics, in news, in whatever. As a woman, yes, I would be happy that this barrier might be broken, but that’s not a good enough reason — that’s not ANY good reason — to vote for her. Just as having Obama as the first African American president and breaking that barrier was not any kind of good reason for voting for him. Just as having Kennedy as the first Catholic president was not any kind of good reason for voting for him. And in that case, in 50 years there hasn’t been another one — so much for barrier breaking.
Ignoring the clay feet of any candidate is, literally, ignorant.
Starry eyed Hillary fans, like Hillary is the Devil advocates, are out there, indeed. I know some. Just as I know some I’m-mad-as-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore Trump fans. I don’t really know any ignorant people who think Trump is Hitler reincarnated, because it’s not ignorant to analyze his character to see how dangerous he is.
Jack, you have been very vocal about Hillary being the lesser of 2 evils, but your recent posts have been merely pointing out the facts as they unfold. Do you still hold the same view of Hillary as you did 3 months (or whatever) ago. I can’t imagine you voting for Trump, but I am beginning to wonder if my imagination has become inert.
NYC thought they were doing themselves a favor with bringing in a black mayor with David Dinkins. How’d that work out? And in 23 years there hasn’t been another – there probably won’t be another. I doubt there will be another black president anytime soon, because both of these guys were supposed to be Jackie Robinson and turned out to be Pumpsie Green instead. Novelty is a rotten reason to vote.
Thank-you for the Robinson-Pumpsie reference!
I don’t know. I know a few Democrats who, even though she is saying she has no interest, want Michelle Obama to run. She’s much more popular then her husband.
Nothing could make me vote for Trump. As for actually voting for Hillary…I’m having some issues…
It’s okay. You can vote for Clinton. Any other vote is irresponsible — especially in a swing state.
How is it irresponsible to vote for Gary Johnson.
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Crap. Tex is a Terminator too? I thought it was just another commenter here. Time to reboot Tex!
If you need me I’ll be drone proofing my house and preparing multiple exfil plans.
Ah ha ha ha ha good one.
Also, what is a Leppo?
If the Republicans had nominated Condalezza Rice, this election would have been over months ago.
Condaleeza Rice wouldn’t run, Colin Powell wouldn’t run. There are many people who would be great (perhaps!) at the job who would NEVER run for such a position; and far more who would be awful who do run.
Do I gather that you can, in fact, write a name on a ballot paper over there? Here in Oz that would invalidate the vote.
Most of the people who would NEVER run would consider themselves duty bound to accept the position if it was pushed on them.
That’s my Conflakes packet Psychology Degree take on it anyhow!