CHUCK TODD: Your name gets invoked a lot during this email controversy. Once and for all, can you explain what you did with your emails as secretary of state?Obvious inference: Hillary inherited the updated system and didn't need to fix anything to get started.
COLIN POWELL: You can read my book. I wrote a whole chapter about what I did in my latest book. It Worked for Me, Harper Collins, you can buy it on Amazon. But the point is I arrived at the State Department as secretary with a disastrous information system there. And I had to fix it. And so what I had to do is bring the State Department to the 21st century.
And the way of doing that was getting new computers. That gave them access to the whole world. And then in order to make sure that I changed the brainware of the department, and not just the software and hardware, I started to use email. I had two machines on my desk. I had a secure State Department machine, which I used for secure material, and I had a laptop that I could use for email. And I would email relatives, friends, but I would also email in the department. But it was mostly housekeeping stuff. "What's the status in this paper? What's going on here?" So it was my own classified system, but I had a classified system also on my desk.That's pretty hard to understand, actually. "Mostly" housekeeping? So, not all housekeeping (whatever counts as "housekeeping"!). The reason to use email is to "make sure" that the "brainware" has been changed? What is it about email that gives special assurance that things have changed, and what's the point of using the strange word "brainware"? I assume he means something like "wetware" (jargon for human brains), but "brainware" does not Google (other than as the name of a software company). I can't get to any online definitions of the word, which also appears nowhere in the NYT archive (other than as the name of that company). Is Powell being obfuscatory or is this just how the man talks?
But what we want to know is what Powell thinks of the invocations of his name in the context of Hillary's email controversy. Is what he did the same or different? Chuck Todd invites him to help us out here by asking "Do you believe this is a serious issue for Secretary Clinton or not? But Powell won't answer:
COLIN POWELL: I can't answer that. You know, we now have two IGs working on it, we have the F.B.I. working on it. Mrs. Clinton and some of her associates will be testifying, or be going before inquiries with the Congress. And I think it's best for me to talk about what I know and not about what occurred under Secretary Clinton's jurisdiction.Now, maybe what he's thinking is it's more dignified to keep silent and most useful for him to say what he did and let others figure out the comparisons. He has, after all, first hand knowledge of what he did, and it's only a matter of opinion how close that is to what Hillary did. And to state one's opinion is to undermine the value of that opinion, because everyone who's invoking his name seems to already be for or against Hillary. To say she only did what Powell did, more or less, is to reveal yourself as pro-Hillary, and to say what Powell did was different is to align with the anti-Hillary crowd. Therefore Powell has his best credibility if he keeps his silence.
But in that silence, there is enough material to see that Powell believes that what he did was different. The other machine was "on my desk" and a "classified system" in the State Department. Plus, he initially found himself in a "disastrous information system" and he "had to fix it." You don't need Powell to make additional statements that these are distinctions from what Hillary did.
Posts
21 comments:
Colin is an expert at walking the tightrope of tact.
What does he really think?
Only the Shadow know.
Why would anyone think Powell, much like Clinton, was not so filled with himself as to think he could flout known security procedures?
Hey, nobody's gonna' know, right? And it was just for housekeeping purposes.
Can anyone point to any "outside" interests the Colin Powell had that he might have e-mailed about from his desk in Foggy Bottom?
Or mixed those interests with government ones?
I had to watch Godfather II more than once before I understood why Frank Pentangeli's brother was at the Senate sub-committee hearing on organized crime.
I assume that there are people on Hillary's team much, much quicker on the uptake than me.
Powell's quote shows standard operating procedure with classified materials. It stays on the secure computer. No classified material should ever make it to the computer with email capability. They should be on different networks and unable to communicate with one another. So the real question is how did the classified material get to Clinton's laptop? Just copying the file from one to another is a major violation of national security.
"tellingly refrains from opining.... "
Gutsy.
He sure has changed.
Why would anyone think Powell, much like Clinton, was not so filled with himself as to think he could flout known security procedures?
Powell has spent a career in the military and the White House and knows about classified information and how to handle it.
Hillary has been a crook since Arkansas and doesn't know how to drive or cook. Why would anyone think she knows about stuff like the rules of classified communication ?
Just watching her fire the White House Travel Office as soon as Bill took office was an example of her ignorance. And her malice. The travel office staff had been there for years and knew every reporter in Washington. They had done favors for the reporters for years. She had no idea but marched in and fired everybody to put her own cronies in place.
Colin Powell has been a bit of a disappointment in retirement, but he did do well as a military officer and as Secretary of State (except for the Scooter Libby deal; I do not understand how Powell could keep quiet about Richard Armitage and let that go on).
Perhaps it is the knowledge that he could have been President, if he had grabbed the opportunity and run, that is eating at him.
But it is disappointing.
Actually, I think it is pretty much a sure thing that he would have been President if he had run.
Why is so hard to apply Occam's razor to Clinton.s wife? They set up the server to allow Clinton's wife to filter all of her emails and destroy those that proved criminality? The embarrassing? pfft, Her loyal media flacks are doing a good job of taking care of that, ignoring mostly, then bringing out Carville and Brock, to handle the character smears and out right lies about those presenting hard evidence. There is no more simple and probable explanation. Yet, no one, even the tin foil hate right wingers will proffer the explanation.
"changed the brainware of the department" seems to mean it's not enough to have the technology, you have to get people to start using it effectively.
"it was mostly housekeeping stuff." I think he's tactfully saying he was using the non-classified system to increase efficiency, but knew it wasn't the place for sensitive business or classified materials. The implication is that Hillary should have done the same, but didn't.
His simple explanation, you keep the classified stuff separate from the other stuff, is how you learn to operate. Its not complicated. The key word is learn, which she could not be bothered with, since the rules don't apply to her.
The issue is the SERVER. Did Powell have his own SERVER from which he did government business? He doesn't say, but I doubt it.
"Did Powell have his own SERVER from which he did government business? He doesn't say, but I doubt it."
I don't know. Perhaps there are others here who have more experience with the feds but many organizations have an internal e-mail system that everybody uses. I expect there is a non-classified dot gov system. There may be department wide e-mail systems as there are some many users. It should be easy.
Hillary has always been an outlier. The Secret Service guys said she and Bill were the most paranoid people they had ever seen.
Exactly how many times does Powell have to vote for a Democrat for President before it is acknowledged he is one???
Powell can't answer a question about Hillary's email use because he does not have the facts in the case.
Which has been the purpose of Hillary's behavior in this regard, and in so many others, all along.
I can see why he would use brainware over wetware. Wetware sounds too much like wetwork.
It sounds like he understood the need for an updated system more than he understood the workings of it.
To change the brainware is to replace "We've always done it that way" with "This is how we do it".
Question: Which is harder, fire all the staff and hire people who don't think that way, or change the mind of a bureaucrat?
"Did Powell have his own SERVER from which he did government business? He doesn't say, but I doubt it."
No one has ever indicated Powell was operating his own server - and I'm sure the Clintonistas would be repeating it ad infinitum if he had.
My impression has been that Powell was using public e-mail services like GMail, Yahoo, etc. Let us not forget the brief kerfuffle that erupted a couple years ago over some hacked racy e-mail messages between Powell and some Romanian diplomat - Powell sent those from an AOL account.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2382681/Colin-Powell-admits-sending-personal-emails-Romanian-diplomat-DENIES-having-affair-hacker-threatens-leak-intimate-messages.html
He takes a decent dig at both the Bill Clinton state department and Hillary by his response. He shares Obama's disdain of the Clintons
What precisely is a Republican position that Powell holds or espouses? In what regard is he a Republican other than as a convenient club for the media to pick up and use to cudgel his "fellow" Republicans. Any credible pretense at being a Republican should have been put to rest when he chose to endorse Obama over McCain who should have been Powell's ideal Republican nominee (other than himself, that is). And yes, the Armitage-Libby debacle puts paid to whatever claim he might have had on the American public as an honorable man. There has come a time when virtually anyone and everyone associated with governance should be greeted in each and every interview with "Have you no shame?" And it should be repeated until they come up with an answer that approximates "No."
That being said he's probably like the butter company who advertising slogan was "Good as any, better than most," as it applies to those who are prominent public figures and politicians. We are currently in a situation where it would be a blessing to be saddled with mediocrities.
Post a Comment