Some criticism of Hillary Clinton

Anyone who knows me knows I lean heavily toward the Democratic party.  I generally support their policies though I reserve the right to disagree with some of them.  The current field of Republican candidates for President is highly disappointing.  The Republicans haven’t had a good candidate since John McCain. 

Having said this, Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email to conduct government business is alarming.  This is a basic breach of government policy, but this is also a basic breach of just about any company you work for.  Company/government business should be conducted through company/government email.  The reasons for this are obvious and I do not need to go into it here.  My point is this is basic policy even junior employees are expected to know and follow.  Yet Hillary apparently either did not know or did not care.  Either alternative is damning.  If she did not know this means:

1.       She cannot be trusted to learn about and know basic government policy.  This is not good for the Presidency or as George Orwell would put it, this is double plus ungood. 

2.       She has no comprehension of basic cyber security.  None whatsoever.  This is also not good for a President.  This is the 21^st century.  Just as we would have expected presidents in the 19^th and early 20^th century to understand basic concepts of industry and manufacturing, I think it is reasonable to expect our President of tomorrow to have a grasp of basic concepts for cyber security.

The other alternative, that she did not care, is more likely and more disturbing.  If Hillary feels she is above the law and can flout a basic principle of security whenever she wishes, she does not deserve to be the President.  What else might she flout in the future?  Just as Nixon felt he was above privacy laws and could cover up crimes, what would Hillary do if she feels she is so enlightened, that the basic rules do not apply to her?

I have seen Hillary take the “ah shucks” approach.  She would have us believe she doesn’t know about all this email stuff.  Well hello, one could argue America’s main threat comes from the cyber sphere.  Ah shucks doesn’t cut it.  I don’t expect Hillary to be a packet sniffing expert, or understand the intricacies of zero day attacks at the byte level, but I do expect her to understand that she does not understand these things in detail, and that she must therefore abide by the rules of cyber security.  Acknowledging what you don’t know is almost as important as knowing.  Perhaps it is more important.  So far, at least, Hillary has failed to live up to what I consider to be a basic expectation of a 21^st century President.