Absurdity of Hillary Clinton’s Apology Tour

by Roger Aronoff

Mrs. Clinton’s much-publicized apology is, in effect, no apology at all. It is, instead, an attempt to still justify her actions, with the aid of the media

Hillary Clinton has been desperately trying to sell a number of lies to the American people about her inexcusable behavior as Secretary of State, but it is mainly the mainstream media who are buying her excuses. And even that avenue appears to be drying up as a source of support. Despite her protestations of innocence, it is clear that she has violated both the spirit and the letter of the law in an attempt to skirt accountability and stay on track to win the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2016.

However, most mainstream journalists are not interested in holding her accountable. Instead, news organizations run headlines about how Mrs. Clinton has finally apologized for her private server.

“As I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts,” said Clinton on ABC News on September 8. “That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility.” But the next day, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, in a show to air on Thursday, she was back to apologizing only for the “confusion that has ensued.”

Anne Gearan reports for The Washington Post that Hillary claimed that she “did not send or receive classified material on the account” and was making an effort toward greater transparency.

Each of these assertions are demonstrably false. Whether or not classified information was sent and received, not whether or not it was marked classified—which is the current iteration of her evolving explanation—is the real issue. As Secretary of State, most of Mrs. Clinton’s communications were highly sensitive, guaranteeing that at some point classified information would pass through her server.

According to The Washington Post, among the emails released to the public, at least six of those sent by Mrs. Clinton have been marked as containing classified information. Reuters reports that87 email threads to date contain information that should have been presumed classified.

Mrs. Clinton’s much-publicized apology is, in effect, no apology at all. It is, instead, an attempt to still justify her actions, with the aid of the media.

During a previous facile attempt at accountability, NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell actually stopped questioning this presidential candidate in order to avoid making her feel uncomfortable.

“Are you sorry?  Do you want to apologize to the American people for the choice you made?” asked Mitchell on September 4.

“Well, it wasn’t the best choice,” responded Mrs. Clinton. “And I certainly have said that.  I will continue to say that.  As I’ve also said many times, it was allowed. And it was fully above board.”

Mitchell told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on September 8 that she felt, after a dozen minutes of pressing Mrs. Clinton about her emails, that “out of concern that they would cut it off, obviously, that I had to move on.”

In other words, Mitchell allowed the Clinton campaign to set the tone of the interview, rather than doggedly pursuing the facts.

But the best line from Hillary in the interview with Mitchell was when she said she “was not thinking a lot when [she] got in. There was so much work to be done. We had so many problems around the world.” So therefore, she “didn’t really stop and think what kind of e-mail system will there be.”

Shannen Coughlin, a former George W. Bush Justice Department official, demolished that assertion. Writing in National Review, Coughlin fired off a list, starting each point with, “So she didn’t think when she…” For example, “paid a former campaign staffer to build the server and set up ‘Clinton.com’ e-mail addresses for herself and close State Department aides, including her deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin.” And, “So she didn’t think when she neglected to report her server to the Department of Homeland Security, as required by law, so DHS could audit the security of her system as part of its mission to protect the government’s Internet security.” You get the picture. It’s worth reading the whole article.