Well, you know presidential election season is gearing up when the scandals start rolling in, and the press starts to whip itself into a frenzy! November 2016 is still far away, but presumptive Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is already on the defense over a politically-charged scandal involving her use of a private (non-government issued) email server while working as the Secretary of State.
What’s the fuss over the use of a private email server? GOP officials and other public figures claim Clinton disregarded federal regulations stipulating all government-based emails should be conducted through a government-issued account. That’s right — Clinton opponents are essentially unhappy with Clinton having an email address that ends in “.com” rather than “.gov” (Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that, with transparency and accountability of all government-related correspondence being the main talking points of those arguing for Clinton’s political demise). Conspiracy theorists and Clinton-haters are taking the scandal one step further, claiming the emails hold some sort of Benghazi-related cover-up information or other Truther-movement nonsense.
The scandal forced Clinton — who has not even officially announced her candidacy yet — to hold a press conference in which she announced her intentions to turn over relevant emails from that time period for review. Of course, the GOP leadership, including House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are not satisfied with the partial reveal, and have called for Clinton to release every single piece of correspondence from that email server for official review by a select committee.
The media, of course, has latched onto this story like it’s the biggest news of the century. But truth be told, in a few months this will be all but forgotten, and some other scandal — real or otherwise — will be making headlines. Sadly, the extreme divide in the political sphere — and the downright nasty rhetoric that goes along with it — has launched us into an era where political news is like watching really boring reality TV, and it’s the regular Joe who ends up paying the price.
For the sake of our future, we hope this type of political theater ends sooner rather than later, so our leaders can focus on, you know, leading.
