RangerDave wrote:
I really don't get how anyone could think it isn't a serious issue (though I fully recognize that many of her supporters have tried to downplay it). It obviously put classified information at risk for selfish reasons. It obviously raises all kinds of problems vis-a-vis transparency, accountability and oversight. And it obviously would have resulted in termination and likely prosecution for anyone who wasn't politically connected. So even if liberal supporters of Clinton don't care much about the national security risk, they should be incensed by the lack of transparency and the special treatment for the powerful.
RD, the reason is - and I am not including you here; I appreciate your acknowledgements above - that liberals have bought into this idea that scandals are something the right has, and the left doesn't. It's a zero-defects, or zero-tolerance mentality, where no wrongdoing can ever be acknowledged as truly consequential out of fear that this will create in the public mind the idea that the left is just as capable of dishonesty as the right - when in fact refusal to acknowledge that fact ultimately looks far more foolish. It's not limited to just politicians either - EVERY rape claim, no matter how absurd is defended, EVERY black man shot by the police is a victim, and it ultimately weakens the left on these issues rather than strengthening it.
Literally every accusation ever leveled at her is either a Republican conspiracy, because she's a woman, or both, and it's worn out its welcome.
Hillary with her e-mails and the idiots all over college campuses are very much like Colonel Jessup in
A Few Good Men, going from sitting there at his table talking about how he eats breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 Cubans to having a meltdown at getting arrested after perjuring himself and admitting to misusing his authority. We went from the condescending "it will remain private" as if she were a schoolteacher admonishing a student getting a bit too uppity for her taste to "well it's just a security review" (a term the FBI apparently is unfamiliar with) to trying to excuse it because Colin Powell did something similar since, you know, that makes it ok and policies regarding email definitely weren't far more immature in 2000 than in 2008 or anything.
Obviously any politician will have their die-hard supporters that will stick with them through anything (even Nixon did) but the Democrats and the Left had heavily invested themselves in Hillary For First Woman President since about 1992, and she's had a strategy of condescending her way to the White House the entire time. Acknowledging serious concerns about her means tacitly acknowledging almost 25 years of trying to immunize her from criticism with a combination of "right wing conspiracy!" and appeals to her genitalia.