The Daily Banter

MEMBERS ONLY: Hillary Clinton and the White House Are Fumbling Their Responses to the Email Non-Bombshell (So Far)

Written by Bob Cesca

For exactly one week now, Hillary Clinton has faced intense, and I would argue unwarranted scrutiny for using a private email account during her term as Secretary of State. It's difficult to dismiss the sexism in such a non-bombshell bombshell given how former Texas Governor Rick Perry is planning his 2016 campaign while literally being under indictment.

Sexism, possibly. "Hillaryism," definitely. There's an appetite throughout the press to attach scandals to the Clinton Christmas tree chiefly because it's really easy to scandalize them, resulting in a feeding frenzy among both Republicans, independents and anti-Hillary progressives. In other words, accusations that would normally fizzle when attached to other public figures will absolutely resonate when attached to either President Clinton or the former Secretary of State.

Even when compared with President Obama, there's no one quite as ripe a target for scandal-mongering as Hillary Clinton, which doesn't bode well for general sanity should Clinton win the Democratic nomination and the presidency. There will absolutely be many, many more "Hillary Homebrew Email" non-scandals in our collective future.

Knowing how this is the first of many, it's equally as harrowing to observe how poorly this has been handled by both the Clinton team and the White House. It was announced on Monday that Clinton will finally be stepping up for a press conference about all of this in the next few days.

The White House part first. As we discussed on Monday, how the hell does a White House, with six years of damage-control under its belt, come out twice in a week and explicitly announce that the West Wing staff only learned about Clinton's private email: 1) back in August of 2014, according to one source, and 2) when The New York Times published its ludicrously shoddy email article, according to the president himself? Which is it? Oh, and a third story was published Monday showing that the White House and the president had been receiving emails from Clinton's private account from the beginning.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the White House is trying to lie for Clinton, and it could be possible that the president simply didn't care enough... CONTINUE READING