What do Clinton’s 12,000 emails tell us about her

October 22, 2015 thawngno

“I hope we can achieve both power and poetry,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes to Jake Sullivan, one of her top deputies, before giving a speech in Berlin in 2009.

“You’re a softie underneath that tough-girl exterior — which I am too!” she gushes to Cheryl Mills, another confidante, in 2010.

“It snowed a lot overnight at my house and is still coming down,” she tells Huma Abedin, a third longtime assistant, early one morning in 2011. She frets about whether she’ll need to take a train back to Washington. “It is however,” Clinton pauses to point out, “very beautiful!”

Those are three of the released emails from the private server Clinton used in her four years at State. She erased a little more than half of the approximately 62,000 messages she sent or received in that time. Of the ones she did not erase, those her lawyers didn’t deem personal, nearly 12,000 have been made public to this point — more to come. For the better part of this year, they have hounded Clinton on the campaign trail, complicating her second attempt to be president. They have reaffirmed a perception many have of her as secretive and untrustworthy. They have been the the subject of such persistent press attention that even her rival, Bernie Sanders, said in the first Democratic debate that people around the country are “sick and tired” of hearing about them. On Thursday, they will hear even more, when Clinton testifies before the House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks. But more than anything, to read these emails is to get an unexpected and revealing window into her daily existence from early 2009 to late 2012.

The developing document trove is a slice of a slice of a slice, inherently incomplete, but in the emails are glimpses of Clinton, this baby boomer, this Methodist Midwesterner, this former first lady, U.S. senator and top diplomat, this wife of more than 40 years and mother for more than 30. To the various people in her inbox, she is Madame Secretary, Hillary, HRC, H — even, affectionately, Gertie or Gert. She praises her aides and deflects their praise in return. She sends goofy greetings and delegates the writing of letters of condolence. She is overscheduled and under-rested, head down, back up, a principal in Official Washington, free to roam the world but also a prisoner of the bubble of the Beltway, her BlackBerry, her “berry,” her “bb,” her primary lifeline out to others. All the best, she signs off. Love to all. As ever.

But often, too, chunks of text have been redacted, leaving behind white space, something that was there but is now covered up. At times, the most intriguing portions of her emails are the blank spots. The reader can’t help but linger, wonder.

It’s fitting, because there’s one truth about Clinton that trumps the others, dating to the early 1990s, heading into her Benghazi testimony — still, all these years later.

People see what they want to see.

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“I’m on a plane on the way to Papua New Guinea for the next 6 hours …”

“I’m in Portugal on Friday but back on Monday …”

“… off to Cairo and Tunis …”

“I’m getting ready to leave Iraq …”

“… am now in Singapore.”

“Happy Halloween from Abu Dhabi!”

In Washington, her days are jammed and tightly scripted. Her schedules generally land in her inbox the night before. Typically, they start with a driver picking her up at her house (DEPART Private Residence), and they end with a driver taking her home (ARRIVE Private Residence). And in between? Briefings and pre-briefings. Opening remarks and keynote speeches and commencement addresses. Swearing-in ceremonies and VIP receptions. Working lunches. Working dinners. Daily meetings and weekly meetings and senior staff meetings and one-on-one meetings. Meetings with the president, POTUS. “Drop-bys” and “pull-asides” and “press avails” and “photo ops,” these scrapes of interactions, duly documented. Shuttle flights from Washington to New York, from New York to Washington, back and forth, back and forth. She’s allotted four hours for her mother’s 90th birthday party. And call, after call, after call — down to the quarter-hour, with foreign ministers and heads of state. “Can’t wait,” she writes to Abedin, the roll of her eyes practically visible on the page. “You know how much I love making calls.”

She leans hard on aides — some highly paid Clinton loyalists since the ‘90s.

Are they directory assistance? Are they tech support? Yelp? Uber? Google? Just gophers?

“What is Tom Nides’ email address?”

“Pls send me David Hale’s email address.”

“My fax is broken!”

“… can you recommend a casual place that’s not noisy that I could have a quick dinner … near my house?” A world leader needing restaurant recommendations in her own neighborhood. “Help guide me to get something good to eat!”

“Can I pls have the service drive me in my van to the airport?”

clinton emails — OPTICS: A Look Inside HRC’s Inbox: From unsolicited fashion advice to White House movie nights, a few of Clinton’s most revealing emails. (Click to view photo gallery.)

“Can you pls tell me how many times I voted against raising the debt limit?”

“Can you find out for me what the NPR stations I can hear on Long Island are? I lost the WNYC signal half way down the island and can’t figure out from Google what the next stations are.”

“Can you get my berry and charge,” she writes to Abedin.

“Pls get me two hard copies of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers.”

“Pls print.”

“Pls call Sarah and ask her if she can get me some iced tea.”

Clinton can sound playful. “Ho, Ho, Ho!” she writes to Philip J. Crowley, the former assistant secretary of state for public affairs.

She can sound sarcastic. The Israelis? “They always sound cocky.”

She can sound like a competitive box checker. How does her travel compare to that of predecessors Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice? “… what I can’t figure out is which countries Madeleine and Condi went to that I didn’t?” she says to senior adviser Philippe Reines. “Will you pls enlighten me?” To Sullivan, she writes to ask about her meetings with foreign ministers, deputy ministers and other dignitaries: “I would also like an updated list of all the FMs, DMs and heads of State w whom I’ve met.”

She can sound like a not-half-bad boss.

“You’re doing a wonderful job,” she writes to Sullivan.

“I’m both delighted and honored to call you a colleague,” she writes to Deputy Secretary Bill Burns.

“I appreciate your efforts in producing such a first-rate product,” she writes to aide Dan Schwerin.

People have babies. People get married. People get promotions. People die. She pings aides, farming out the requisite formalities: “Pls do letter of congrats …” “Pls draft condolence note for me …” A woman thoughtful enough to notice and have her helpers send such messages? Too busy to do it herself? Too callous to care? At least she says “pls.”

For somebody who is objectively intelligent, she sometimes can appear surprisingly scatterbrained, or maybe she’s just pulled in too many directions.

“What’s my schedule today — I lost my copy and can’t recall.”

“I misplaced my schedule so need to know what it is — sorry!”

“I do not think I’m supposed to be here. Can you check?”

“Do you know yet when I have to go to UN on Thursday? Should I take a plane?”

“I’m sitting in the UN — anything I need to know?”

“Please get me a copy of Kissinger’s report on his China visit. Everyone seems to have one except me.”

“I’m on the way into the office if somebody can meet me I have a lot of stuff!”

“Were you able to find hard plastic file folders?”

“Do you have the yellow folder? I thought I had put it into my purse but can’t find it.”

Sometimes, for a person with an important job dealing with some of the most serious issues, what she’s thinking about and talking about just seems unserious, even trivial.

“Can you contact your protocol friend in China and ask him if I could get photos of the carpets of the rooms I met in w POTUS during the recent trip? I loved their designs and the way they appeared carved. Any chance we can get this?”

This article is originally posted in Politico Magazine