Supplemental: Two ways of telling the same “scandal” tale!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2015

The Post chases Clinton around:
In this morning’s Washington Post, it was the same olf story.

Another day, another Hillary Clinton scandal!

Hillary Clinton failed to sign the form that Fox has been talking about! Anne Gearan, a highly suspect performer, started her news report like this, hard-copy headlines included:
GEARAN (3/18/15): Clinton didn’t sign State Dept. exit form/
Paperwork certifies that employees have returned all documents

The State Department has “no record” that former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton signed a form certifying that she had returned all department paperwork when she left her job,
spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

Psaki said department officials are “fairly certain” that Clinton did not fill out the OF-109 form, a standard document certifying that departing employees have “surrendered to responsible officials” any classified and unclassified documents and other work-related material.

The form is at issue because of the revelation this month that Clinton maintained a private e-mail system separate from government e-mail systems, and did not turn over communications to and from that account until more than a year after she left office in early 2013. Clinton is expected to launch her bid for the 2016 presidential race as early as next month.

Republicans have seized on the form as an example of Clinton’s allegedly cavalier attitude toward transparency and regulations.
Hillary Clinton didn’t sign her exit form! The exit form she was supposed to have signed!

Fox has been having a nervous breakdown about this question for the past week. The channel has been promising viewers—this may be the illegality that sinks the S.S. Clinton!

Yesterday, Psaki made it official at State—Hillary Clinton didn’t sign the OF-109 form. At the Post, Gearan swung into action. It was scandal time all over again! Republicans see this as an example of Clinton’s cavalier attitude!

Surrounding the Clintons with plenty of scandal has always been fun for the press corps. Yesterday, we saw Amy Chozick playing this game in the glorious New York Times. Today, it was Gearan’s turn.

But uh-oh! In this morning’s New York Times, Michael Schmidt reported this same thrilling story. Below, you see the way he began.

Can you spot a tiny fact that Gearan somehow postponed?
SCHMIDT (3/18/15): The State Department said Tuesday that it had no record of Hillary Rodham Clinton, or the two secretaries of state before her, signing a form stating that they had no government records in their possession when they left office.
Say what? Condoleezza Rice didn’t sign the OF-109 either? Neither did Colin Powell?

That seems to put a whole different cast on this exciting “scandal.” Schmidt reported this basic fact right in his opening paragraph. Gearan made you read all the way to the end of her piece before she stuck it in.

Can we talk? If the last three secretaries of state didn’t sign the OF-109, it starts to look like this is a form such people aren’t asked to sign! Schmidt was right to include that basic fact right at the start of his brief report.

Gearan, who is highly suspect, took the “scandal train” out for a spin.

Hillary Clinton isn’t our idea of a perfect candidate. That said, liberals tolerated this type of thing every single step of the way when people like Gearan waged their two-year war against Candidate Gore in 1999 and 2000.

Our silence sent George Bush to the White House. By all indications, we're ready to let the Gearans and Chozicks perform this service again.

Will this go on every day for two years? Yes it will, as long as we liberals continue to sleep in the woods, dreaming our dreams of some more perfect candidate.

We gave the world George Bush this way. Are we planning to do it again?

Way back in the last days before Bush: Back in 2001, did Secretary Albright sign the OF-109 when she left State?

Yesterday, Psaki said she still doesn't know.

35 comments:

  1. "Say what? Condoleezza Rice didn’t sign the OF-109 either? Neither did Colin Powell." B.S.

    And neither of them were using a private server stashed in their Chappaqua basement.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So where and on what server were their personal/public e-mails conjoined. And how do we know that Condi and Colin turned in all of them?

      Delete
    2. "Report: Condoleezza Rice never used personal email at State Dept."

      "Condoleezza Rice reportedly had a State Department email address that she used for official business, an aide for the former secretary of state says."

      http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/condoleezza-rice-emails-state-department-115941.html

      Delete
    3. Ah, but did she have a private e-mail account as well? And how do we know she didn't also use that for "official business" as well as her "State Department e-mail address" unless she turns over every e-mail she wrote, personal and government, while she was Sec of State?

      Or do these demands apply only to Hillary?

      Delete
    4. Colin Powell did use private email.

      Delete
    5. "Report: Condoleezza Rice never used personal email at State Dept."


      What difference does it make, dittohead? The form doesn't just apply to emails, it is for all "official records". So I guess Condi is just as guilty. Oh what? What difference does it make?

      Delete
    6. @mm,

      Good HRC impersonation. Did you forget HRC didn't turn over the emails she selected to turn over until two years after she left Foggy Bottom. Is Dr. Rice running for POTUS? She would be getting the same scrutiny to the 10th power.

      "By the time Clinton took office, federal expectations for archiving electronic records were clearer than they were under Powell’s tenure. That does not absolve Powell for not being able to locate his records a decade later, or for not turning them over to National Archives back then. But it does mean that Clinton was held to a more definitive standard"


      2009 Electronic Code of Federal Regulations

      http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=86eb52e506c845f12d3c12cd60e8b207&node=se36.3.1236_122&rgn=div8

      Delete
    7. Hillary Clinton releases 55000 pages of emails;

      Media response: oh my God, it's going to take months for State Department to review them all before releasing them.

      Hillary Clinton releases 55000 pages of emails, unprecedented and more than any other Sec of State.

      Right wing response: why does she do things different than everybody else.

      It's hilarious. Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

      Delete
    8. cicero: you have to settle down and pull yourself together. Try to follow along as best you are able.

      YOU are the one bitching about the OF-109. I don't give a fuck about Condi's or Hillary's non-existent OF-109. YOU do. Try to keep things clear.

      Delete
    9. @mm

      Can you afford to pay attention? You are the one praising Hillary Dillary Document Dump as unprecedented when no other Secretary of State was compelled to abide by the 2009 Electronic Code.

      The way POTUS Obama still blames Bush 43 for all of his troubles, Bush Derangement Syndrome is still the reigning personality disorder among libs. .

      Delete
  2. "Update: Madeleine Albright, secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, did not use personal or professional e-mail while in office, Albright Stonebridge Group LLC spokesman Ben Chang told The Fact Checker.]

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/10/the-misleading-democratic-spin-on-hillary-clintons-emails/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Update: Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state from 1790 to 1793, did not use personal or professional e-mail while in office.

      Delete
  3. Foggy Bottom's Jen Psaki's latest trial balloon on why HRC never signed OF: 109

    “Secretaries of state often do not sign this form as it is a step to revoking their own security clearance,” the State spokeswoman said. “There’s a long tradition of secretaries of state making themselves available to future secretaries and presidents and secretaries are typically allowed to maintain their security clearance and access to their own records for use in writing their memoirs and the like. Hence, this is not a form that many would have signed.”

    Since it is only a "step" and not the final procedure to revoke security clearance, why didn't she sign the form again?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because she wasn't an employee of the State Department, she was the CEO baby, and any self-respecting republican should understand that CEO's make the rules.

      Delete
    2. It's perfect. If she did sign the form, she's guilty. But if she didn't sign the form she's guilty. Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

      Delete
    3. When Obama visited Phoenix in January, he was trashed for not visiting the embattled VA Hospital.
      When Obama visited Phoenix last week he was trashed for his cynical "photo-op" visit to the embattled VA Hospital.
      Same as it ever was. SAME AS IT EVER WAS!

      Delete
    4. Actually, POTUS & FLOTUS separate flights to L.A. sparked more criticism. Is this practice also "the same as it ever was?"

      "When the President and the First Lady hopped off the plane at LAX on Thursday to tape media appearances, they did so on separate flights."

      "A 2014 FOIA request to the Air Force from watchdog group Judicial Watch found that the cost per flying hour for Air Force One is $206,337. Cost per flying hour includes "fuel, flight consumables, depot level repairables, aircraft overhaul, and engine overhaul." At that rate, the President's flight to Los Angeles, which clocked in at just under five hours, cost over $1 million."

      "The First Lady's office would not provide specific details about the plane Mrs. Obama took to California. ​The Air Force lists the cost per flying hour for a C-32, which is frequently used for dignitary travel, at $28,834 in 2014, but notes that the costs for Presidential travel can be calculated differently."


      http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/13/politics/barack-michelle-obama-los-angeles-flights/

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    5. @mm

      You just now figured out why the form is missing?

      Delete
    6. They flew into different airports a day apart and left to different destinations.

      Delete
    7. No, it is not the same as it ever was. In fact it is so unusual that it was picked up and repeated verbatim on perhaps hundreds of right-wing blogs.
      By the way, it only proves my point. If Michelle Obama had been on the same flight as the President, she too would have been attacked for making a phony photo-op visit to the VA hospital.
      Damned if they do, damned if they don't,

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    8. @ gravymeister,

      But not repeated on left wing blogs? Why was that? They only allow stories about abuse of taxpayer funds when a Republican is in office?

      FLOTUS has enough trouble with school kids rejecting her lunches.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQPAj01ltv0

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michelle-obamas-school-lunch-agenda-faces-backlash-from-some-school-nutrition-officials/2014/05/29/6a8e4af6-e744-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html

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    9. @ 10:09

      The same day.

      "Mr. Obama flew to Los Angeles International airport last Thursday on Air Force One, arriving around 4 p.m. local time for an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

      Mrs. Obama, meanwhile, flew across country on a different plane earlier in the day to Burbank, California, to tape an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ show."

      The two airports are about 28 miles apart

      Delete
  4. It's nice how she printed the emails so they would be harder to search.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ 10: 24

      Flash drives and HRC just don't mix.

      Delete
    2. And you'd still be screaming about what she left off the flash drive.

      And you'd still be screaming, if she used two accounts, what she was hiding on her personal account and off the government server.

      In other words, cicero, when it comes to the Clintons, you and your buddies continue to bitch no matter what they do, no matter how trivial and no matter the lengths you will go to to make things up when nothing to bitch about exists.

      Delete
    3. @ 11:39

      Hate to tell you this, but liberal politicians and liberal comedians are scratching their heads about HRC's bizarre behavior with emails. It would appear that YOUR buddies are in full bitch mode.

      Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — “What I would like is for her to come forward, and say just what the situation is because she is the preeminent political figure right now," Feinstein said Sunday, March 9 on NBC's "Meet the Press. "She is the leading candidate whether it be Republican or Democrat to be the next president and I think that she needs to step up and come out and state exactly what the situation is."

      Chris Matthews — “I’m just asking, do you think it’s OK for a public servant at the level of secretary of State to carry on correspondence — official correspondence — but keep it to themselves, if they choose to,” the MSNBC "Hardball" host asked on his March 4 show. “Because that’s the option she has now, since it’s all her account."

      David Axelrod — "And it would be good to get out there and answer these questions. Why did she use a separate email? How did she secure that email? Was there another email for which she communicated with people?" the former top Obama strategist asked on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" on March 4. "By not answering these questions, they're allowing the story to fester in ways that are unhelpful and so, you know, lack of speed kills in this case."

      Jon Stewart — "The Daily Show" host suggested on March 4 the controversy wouldn't change voters' views, but also delivered a jab, saying that "future President Hillary Clinton may have to pardon former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."

      "Saturday Night Live" – Comedian Kate McKinnon portrayed Hillary in a sketch March 7, depicting her as obsessed with becoming president.

      Recently it was revealed that while I was secretary of State I did not use a government email. I used a personal one, leading many to believe I was hiding scandalous or incriminating emails," said McKinnon in the skit. "And to those people I'd like to say, 'Nice try!' Those emails are clean as a whistle. This is not how Hillary Clinton goes down!"

      Delete
    4. Lawrence O'Donnell — “This email system was set up obviously to defy the Freedom of Information Act," said the MSNBC host on "Morning Joe" on March 6.

      Mika Brzezinski — "This wasn't honest," said Brzezinski, the host of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," on her program March 6 about Clinton's handling of the private emails.

      Eugene Robinson — “Hillary Clinton will have many questions to answer. I just don't understand the how or the why of this whole thing,” said The Washington Post columnist in an online chat on March 3.

      Dana Milbank — “It is a needless, self-inflicted wound, and it stems from the same flaws that have caused Clinton trouble in the past — terminal caution and its cousin, obsessive secrecy,” the Post columnist wrote on March 6.

      Bill Press — “This email situation is the latest scandal for the Clintons, but I can tell you this…… It won't be the last,” the radio host and columnist for The Hill tweeted on March 6.”

      David Corn — “I was told by a Clinton advocate working for her that everything was preserved by the State Department. It turns out it wasn't, they lied — stuff that went to people outside the State Department were not preserved,” the journalist for Mother Jones told Chris Matthews on MSNBC on March 8.

      Robert Gibbs — “I think this is another one of those things the Clinton campaign, such as it is, is going to have to explain,” the former Obama press secretary said March 3 on NBC’s “Today.”

      Hilary Rosen ­— “What you don’t have is a proactive message about the direction she’s going to take the country,” the Democratic strategist and Clinton supporter told the Wall Street Journal March 5 about Hillary's difficulties responding without a campaign in place.

      Zephyr Teachout — The former New York gubernatorial candidate on March 5 called for Clinton to hold a press conference. "I don't think a tweet is a press conference. I think, honestly, all elected and appointed and executive branch officials make mistakes. I'm not going to slam her on this if it's a genuine mistake, but I think we have the right to know more about it," she said
      .

      http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/235073-left-turns-on-hillary

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    5. None of that changes the fact that whatever Hillary did, you be screaming about it.

      But I am amused with your "even liberal pundits and comedians say . . ."

      Somerby used to be linked like that a lot on some of your favorite websites until his hard right turn was complete and he was of no further service as "Even liberal blogger Bob Somerby says . . ."

      Delete
    6. Sometimes liberal defenders of HRC let the truth slip out.

      Carville: I 'Suspect' Hillary Used Private Email to Avoid Congressional Oversight

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpvDmWpg9R4

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    7. I notice you didn't use quotation marks around that bogus statement attributed to Carville. jackass.

      Delete
    8. @mm

      Watch the video. It's free That in itself must be Irresistible to libs.

      'I suspect she didn't want Louie Gohmert trifling through her emails." James "Lizzard" Carville

      Now you can tell us the difference between the two comments.

      * Gohmert
      Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
      Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

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    9. Let me explain to you the difference. Louie Gohmert is a clown, a punchline, a joke, an embarrassment to the United States House of Representatives. To quote Charles Pierce,

      "Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, perhaps the dumbest mammal to enter a legislative chamber since Caligula's horse, and Gohmert's only the half of that..."

      It is clear that you just don't understand Carville's wit.

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    10. Carville's attempt at "wit" was lost on the these liberals.


      ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: So basically James is saying it wasn't convenience, as Hillary Clinton said, it was to stop Congress from looking at her e-mails which are supposed to be publicly archived. With friends like that you don't need Ken Starr, I guess you might say.

      SAM STEIN, HUFFINGTON POST: Yeah, this is a problem I think, Andrea, because If you don't have someone who is disciplined giving the talking point that she herself put out, obviously a little late, but she put it out. If you don't have people actually out there echoing it but saying something entirely different, then it adds fuel to the fire -- it makes the story go longer and longer.

      And what Carville essentially said, you're right, it was she was doing this to hide stuff. And, you know, if you're going to be secretary of state in an administration that claims to be the most transparent in the history of administrations, then you're held to standards greater than she didn't want Louie Gohmert going through her inbox. I'm just sorry, that's the case.

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    11. Louie Gohmert is a horse's ass, as you are also. Not he, nor anyone else has the right to go perusing through a former Secretary of State's emails. No matter how upsetting it is to Andrea Mitchell, she also doesn't have the right to go sniffing around Secretary of State Clinton's underwear drawers. When Andrea Mitchell shows the same level of concern for Colin Powell's non-existent publicly archived emails, let me know. I still remember Andrea Mitchell, who gets paid millions by NBC news, counting the silverware and napkins on Air Force One after President Clinton left office. She can't possibly be that dumb to think that is what Carville meant. You on the other hand............

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    12. @mm,

      Of course the American public has a right to HRC's e-mails while she was Secretary of State. She was a public servant. In fact, the AP is suing her for them. HAve you never heard of a FOIA request?

      “The press is a proxy for the people, and AP will continue its pursuit of vital information that's in the public interest through this action and future open records requests."

      http://thehill.com/policy/technology/235329-ap-sues-state-dept-over-clinton-emails

      BTW: Congressman Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the House Benghazi Committee, has asked HRC to turn over her server to an independent arbiter. Since that excludes Gohmert, would that be Ok with you and Carville?

      Delete