I ’m not easily startled by much of anything in American political life these days. But I have to say that I watched Hillary Clinton’s press conference this week with stunned amazement.
The Saga of Hillary’s Emails, in which official State Department business turned out to have gone through the Clintons’ own private email server, is not going to go away. There is far too much sense of deja vu for that. Even the week’s silence followed by an unapologetic attempt to brazen it out is reminiscent of all those unhappy Clinton adventures of the past.
Finally, on Tuesday, we got the brief press conference. However odd or irregular the practice may now appear, it was not, Hillary repeatedly insisted, disallowed under the rules of her office. But she recognised that her decision seemed peculiar in retrospect and so the obvious question had to be addressed: why on earth did she do it? Why would someone holding a great office, presiding over the most sensitive area of government policy involving matters of high diplomacy and national security, decide to conduct all her communications on the same email address with which she dealt with the plans for her daughter’s wedding and her mother’s funeral?
Well, that was just a matter of convenience. She did not want to have to carry “two devices” around, one with her private email and the other with a State Department one. And that’s it, apparently: the only attempt at an explanation that the country is going to get. It seems that no one in her professional entourage advised her that a single mobile phone is capable of dealing with more than one email address, or that she might purchase a larger handbag.
This is only likely to increase speculation even without Hillary’s decision to hand over only the 50,000 printed emails which she claims constitute official State Department business. In addition, she refuses to hand over the server itself, which could still retain records of those deleted personal emails, for inspection. This insistence on selecting the material that will be divulged and a blanket refusal to countenance any independent investigation is vintage Clinton.
At the very least, it is a risky display of arrogant defiance when you are (in every sense short of official announcement) running for the presidency. At worst, it is a reminder of everything the US electorate has suspected about the Clintons as a political phenomenon.
Bill Clinton used to call himself the “comeback kid” in recognition of his stunning ability to recover from a succession of scandals (sorry, Right-wing conspiracies). That he survived an impeachment attempt, in which it was clearly established that he had lied to Congress and to the American people, is a testament to his immense personal magnetism. He was certainly, like Ronald Reagan, a global political superstar who managed to remain personally engaging at the height of his power. Hillary, on the other hand, does not have that advantage. The nation may have loved her husband — much of the time — but it distrusted her and resented her (actually their joint) assumption that she had been elected as well as Bill and would share the governing of the country.
Americans, for all their talk of gender equality, prefer their First Ladies to be discreetly supportive and to limit their voluntary activities to family or educational issues. Hillary’s attempt at co-presidency, was seen as unconstitutional and presumptuous.
So whatever it was that Hillary might have been up to at the State Department, she is not going to be given the automatic benefit of the doubt that her husband enjoyed. And that leaves the Democrats - who do not have a Plan B for the presidential nomination - in an awkward spot.