Vote Comes Down to Liar vs. Liar
Clarance Page is off this week. The following column is by Carl Hiassan.
If the delegate forecast holds steady, Americans choosing their next president will pick between two known liars in November.
Donald Trump lies flamboyantly on a wide range of subjects, from his net worth to his business failures to his donations to veterans. He lies so often and so casually that it barely rates a headline anymore.
Hillary Clinton's style of lying is more calculated and nuanced, but we got a peek last week from the State Department's inspector general. He issued a blunt, damaging report about her controversial use of private emails while she was secretary of state.
The report didn't accuse Clinton of recklessly sharing classified information, but she was called out for lying on a key point. Ever since it was revealed that she'd used a private email server and a personal email account for official communications, Clinton has insisted that the State Department had "allowed" or "permitted" her to do that.
Not true, according to Inspector General Steve Linick.
He said Clinton never asked for permission to use a private server, and wouldn't have received permission if she'd requested it. Diplomats aren't supposed to email via private servers because of "significant security risks."
Apparently no one at the State Department instructed Clinton to use the agency's official email service, which was a bureaucratic bungle, but as secretary of state she surely should have known the rules.
And when the issue was later raised by two officials in the State Department's record-keeping section, their boss ordered the staff "to never speak of the secretary's personal email system again."
Subject closed, Nixon-style.
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