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Ok. Let me explain how the analogy is conceptually wrong then.



It occurred several years after said transition though. If we were talking about the 2 or 3 times during the Bush administration when the Left screamed and howled because some members of his administration used personal emails to communicate and those *might* include emails relevant to some investigation and *might* even have been used intentionally to avoid said investigation, you'd have a point.

In this case, Clinton was still using a personal email account well after those aforementioned events in which it was made very clear that using personal emails was a "bad thing" to do. Also, well after the Obama administration made a huge deal about focusing on transparency in government (at least in part directly related to the personal email issue), and Clinton herself had sent memos to the people working in her department telling them that using personal emails for work business was not to be allowed. If we were to follow your analogy, it's more like if one of the very people who lobbied the city to set a lower speed limit along a dangerous stretch of road and to make clearer signs to demarcate the point at which the speed changed occurred, was caught speeding 2 miles past that point. There's no freaking excuse at that point.

Oh. And frankly, your analogy doesn't even allow for the biggest difference: She was operating this personal email account on a privately owned email server. Not sure how to even fit that in. She was operating a radar jammer to make it harder to clock her car whilst speeding along the stretch of road that she had to be well aware what the actual speed was? Dunno. Point is that there's a point where it should become obvious that the person didn't just happen to be speeding, but planned to speed and took precautions to avoid getting caught doing it. That's more or less what she was doing with her email.



That's incredibly misleading. No one's alleging that the use of private emails causes any harm directly. What it does is make it harder to determine if the person committed some other violation (which may or may not have caused harm, like in this case, maybe 4 dead US citizens in Benghazi and/or coverup related to such). At the end of the day, it's about the intent to conceal information that is supposed to be made available for exactly the sort of investigation that's underway.



What "others" though? Is it as big a deal as someone who's equating this to devil worship? No. I'm sure we can find some "others" who are placing more weight on this than it should deserve. But that does not justify placing zero weight on it at all. If this really wasn't a big deal then why were there several cases where the Dems made exactly as much of a big deal over far less egregious email practices by the GOP in the past? Seems fair to place at least that much weight on this case.



To my knowledge, no one at that level of government service has *ever* owned and operated her own private email server, much less used a private email account on said server to conduct government business. So yeah, this is precisely Clinton deciding to do her own thing. This wasn't just a case of her doing things that others had done before. If that was the case, we'd still be wondering why, when everyone else in the government is moving away from using personal emails for their work, she's continuing the practices that have raised concerns in the past. But she's not just doing the same thing, she's actively moving in the opposite direction and making her communications less transparent.

That is, as you say "a bigger deal".



I can't (and wont) speak for angrymonk, but I don't think anyone literally thought you were accusing her of speeding. I think everyone got the analogy, but at least in my case, I don't agree that your assessment of the analogous condition is accurate.

How about you finish your previous discussions before engaging others?

Alma, I'm more than happy to argue an issue. Generally far far far longer than most people. When I get bored of an argument because it's just going around in circles and I've said every single thing I can think to say on the topic, you can trust that I'm quite "finished" with the topic. Dredging up some old argument is a really really really silly way to avoid discussing the current one. And kinda strange, given that you seemed more than happy to argue your point, right up until I countered it, then suddenly it's "but you didn't finish <some other argument>". Um... Who cares?

You're kidding, right?

I responded to the words you posted. How the heck is that a tangent?



When I realize that no matter how many times I answer the same question, and how many ways I answer the same question, you will keep demanding that the entire conversation cannot continue until "gbaji answers my question", I get annoyed with you and stop responding to you. Look, I get that you want to keep drumming on one thing endlessly, but conversations tend to have a flow to them and they move on. At the point that you ask a question, and I give a response, even if you don't like the response, that's my response. You're free to ask for clarification or argue a point about said response if you want, and I'll gladly respond to that. But what you keep doing is insisting that I never responded to you at all. Which is pretty absurd for anyone who knows my posting habits.



Yes. As long as you continue following the thread, I'll continue responding to that thread and the conversation that's going on. You call that "taking the bait", but I call that "examining a different aspect of the issue/discussion". This whole thing is just bizarre to me because every time you do this, my thought is "didn't he read the last 5 times I answered that exact question"?

You talk about me going off on tangents and claim I'm trying to avoid discussing something, but I find that strange cause I'm pretty willing to discuss and argue anything, at great length even. From my perspective it looks like you are the one who wants to avoid discussing some aspect of the issue, and so use the whole "but you didn't answer my earlier question!" as a way to avoid the question/response I just made. This post here is a prime example. I didn't steer the conversation. I stopped posting over the weekend, came back, saw a couple things you'd posted in the meantime and responded to those things. I honestly don't even remember what was posted earlier in the thread. I'm just looking at those posts you made, not to me, but to other posters. Yet, when I responded to them, you seem to just want to avoid the points I made by insisting that I must respond to something else instead.

A. I don't know what you think I didn't respond to earlier, so there's that.

B. Given that you seemed to have no problems making the posts and carrying on a conversation with others, I'm not sure why you're singling me out as someone who's not allowed to interject with an opinion with regard to those posts.



Um... What? That doesn't even make sense.

It'll be here for you when you get back.

I know, right?

no u