I'm a bit skeptical that the electorate's choice of the next leader of the free world will hang on the horrifying fact that "Even though department policy mandated throughout Clinton's tenure at Foggy Bottom that day-to-day operations should be conducted via authorized means, the IG report found no evidence that the secretary of state 'requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server.'"
Nor should it. Hillary's email "scandal" boils down to a high official's indifference to confused, bureaucratic fastidiousness. Such indifference — is it not? — is the conservative spirit. (I once worked with a libertarian fellow who had access to an "official" U.S. government "top secret" stamp, and he enjoyed plastering its red imprint all over the personal correspondence he was placing in the U.S. mails. This caused no end of convulsing frenzy within the hyperbureaucratic mailroom clerk who had to witness my friend's little rebellions against bureaucratic rules and regulations.)
Nonetheless, the Washington Post's editorial board is positively apoplectic about "Clinton’s inexcusable, willful disregard for the rules." I found this editorial passage intriguing (bold, here and later, mine):
During her tenure, State Department employees were told that they were expected to use approved, secure methods to transmit information that was sensitive but unclassified, or SBU. If they needed to transmit SBU information outside the department’s network, they were told to ask information specialists for help. The report said there is no evidence that Ms. Clinton ever asked, "despite the fact that emails exchanged on her personal account regularly contained information that was marked as SBU."
Again, the "U" in "SBU" stands for unclassified, stuff one could read most any day in the Washington Post or New York Times (both of which have, over the years, published classified material — and good for them).
Of greater enjoyment, however, is the Post's Oh-by-the-way nugget grudgingly dropped into its editorial conclusion of absolute outrage:
The department’s email technology was archaic. Other staffers also used personal email, as did Secretary Colin Powell (2001-2005), without preserving the records. But there is no excuse for the way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications.
Perhaps not. The paper's earthshaking point being?