[tasty_freeze]

This is not to excuse Clinton's email policy.

Let's agree that Clinton ran a private email server and it had a high risk of being compromised.

Let's agree that Clinton turned over a subset of the emails when it was requested, under the grounds that those were personal emails which aren't related to her actions as secretary of state. Let's agree that there is no clear boundary where to draw that line, so people will argue in good faith that the line was drawn in the wrong spot.

Now, let's imagine that instead of the above scenario, not just Clinton but most of the white house positions including the secretary of state used the DNC email server explicitly to avoid freedom of information act requests. Imagine that when this came to light, the Obama administration claimed to have lost over 5 million emails. When asked to produce the backup tapes, they said, shoot! The backup tapes are corrupted.

Do you agree that that scenario would have been far worse? And how many investigations and calls for impeachment would have happened by now? How many special committees would have called?

Well, the above isn't a hypothetical. The previous administration did exactly what I described, except that they used the RNC mail server of course. All the people who are outraged (outraged!) and think that Clinton committed what amounts to an act of treason didn't say a peep back then. And unlike the perpetual train of special investigations that are brandished for political ends, that whole affair didn't result garner even one tenth the amount of press Hillary has.

Let me be clear: I'm not saying what Hillary did was OK. I'm saying that if the previous administration did something far worse and nobody got body slammed for it, why would you be surprised that Clinton got off the hook too?

You should also read the juicy contents of the Secretary of State's emails. The vast majority were of the form "Can you contact so and so and see if we can put off the meeting until later." There are very few truly top secret things that crossed her desk.

[tanderson92]

Many nonpartisans as well as leftist Democrats (ordinary liberals are too much of institutionalist authoritarians to be too outraged) criticized both of these instances of direct evasion of transparency. The Bush administration was a disaster on transparency. I find it shameful that that is where the bar is set. It's embarrassing not just politically but institutionally.

Elected Republicans, of course, acted in bad faith, as you mention. Make no mistake, however, there are many who find the lapses of both administrations disturbing for a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people".

[tasty_freeze]

I don't disagree. abraca's statement that he was surprised that Hillary got let off the hook and thus Snowden should too. In a nutshell, my reply to him was that worse sins of the same nature have gone unpunished, so it isn't the least bit surprising that Clinton wasn't charged with a crime.