With controversy continuing to grow over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account for her correspondence as Secretary of State, what’s a Clinton defender to do? As an act of public service, I’d like to offer the following taxonomy of “homebrew” defense strategies, gratis:
But, but the Republicans… (tu quoque). A venerable strategy for avoidance. Argue that the fact that Scott Walker and Jeb Bush had private email accounts means that we should have no questions about Hillary Clinton’s own use of private email. A variant on this approach, advanced by Jennifer Granholm on The Last Word earlier this week, is the claim that Secretary Clinton was following “precedent.” (This argument conveniently sidesteps the differences in positions and their respective legal obligations — especially the fact that her likely GOP rivals for the presidency were not responsible for handling crucial national-security information.)
An aide did it (deflection of responsibility onto the help). Another venerable strategy in politics. Aides are always responsible for all bad things, while principals are responsible for all good ones. Hillary’s a genial grandmother — how could she know anything about a scheme to circumvent federal transparency requirements using a private email server!?
55,000 emails (repetition of big number, devoid of any context). Repeat as necessary. This gives the appearance of transparency through vague appeals to magnitude.
The plebs don’t care (dismissal of the scandal as a meaningless distraction). Insist over and over again that average Americans don’t care about the record-keeping of federal officials; they care about jobs, the war on women, the carbon footprint of school lunches, and so forth.
A vast, right-wing conspiracy (dismissal of the scandal as a partisan witch hunt). Remember: High-ranking government officials — especially those with the last name “Clinton” — are always the victim in a case like this. Be sure never to mention the fact that numerous Democrats are concerned about this behavior, too.
How dare you (delegitimization). Questions to a presidential frontrunner — especially regarding her prior government service — are totally out of bounds.
This is old news (the ol’ memory hole). Now’s a bit early to deploy this argument. But right around the middle of next week, after a few more tweets by HRC herself, this news will officially be old. And by that point, what difference will it make?