Moving beyond email servers to what really matters

By Brian Greenspun

Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Movies are about art imitating life, so let’s go to one of my favorites, “You’ve Got Mail.”

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks were masterly in this “chick flick” about emails and anonymity. It was released in 1998, so no one knew about smartphones or personal servers. It was just dial-up connections on AOL. Boy, was it slow — the connectivity, not the movie.

But the story wasn’t really about emails. It was a love story, and I admit I fell for it. I know I wasn’t the only one.

There is a real-life version playing out across our TV screens today, and the “chick” (please pardon the description) in the middle is former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The emails, of course, are the tens of thousands of communications she had with friends, family members, co-workers and colleagues during her tenure at State. And the plot thickens around the decision she made to not use the government’s server, choosing instead to use her own.

This tale about emails would be a yawner were it not for the fact Hillary is in a historic race for the White House, so anything and everything a candidate does gets scrutinized to the nth degree. Especially if her last name is Clinton.

Last week Hillary admitted she made a mistake in not using the State Department server — even though she acted legally in the circumstances — and said she was sorry. It is fair for some to criticize her judgment in this instance. But what isn’t fair — not to her but to the American people — is this nonstop harangue that is sucking up the oxygen and preventing real presidential politics from moving forward.

She said she was sorry, and that should have ended the political discussion. The American people know humans make mistakes. What they usually want is an acknowledgement and an apology. They now have both.

Isn’t it time to move on so we can enjoy the sideshow on the Republican side of the presidential campaign aisle?

There are congressional hearings and investigations galore trying to determine whether there was any wrongdoing, and those will play out on the political schedules of others. (For some reason, I keep thinking Whitewater and other conspiracies that never happened when I think of congressional investigations by Republicans). We may one day know for sure that there is no “there” there when it comes to all the allegations being bandied about. But, until that day comes, shouldn’t we be entitled to hear her vision for America and her plan to help us fulfill the promise that is the United States?

I have tried to put this issue in the context of movies — which I love — because our trips to the theater are supposed to allow us an escape and a chance to dream of better things. “You’ve Got Mail” showed us that love conquers all, even in a complicated world of emails.

When I heard Hillary say she was sorry about the mistake she made, I also heard her talk about her motivation for putting herself at such great risk — as all candidates do — in seeking the highest elected office in America.

It was her life imitating art.

Hillary has given her entire adult life to the service of others. She learned it from her parents, whose struggles have been well-documented, and she honed that attraction through her work with children early in her career and her indefatigable efforts to advance women’s rights and women’s issues all over the world as first lady, as a U.S. senator, and as secretary of state.

Her experience and credentials for the White House are unmatched.

And, yet, we’ve got this email issue that keeps getting in the way. Does anybody sane really believe she would intentionally pass highly secret information over email? Or that she used her own server to hide personal wrongdoing while secretary of state? Yes, some people believe that, but I qualified the question with the word “sane.”

I don’t know why anyone, anywhere uses email for anything sensitive. As soon as you push “send,” everyone you don’t want to know your business, including some 12-year-old in Russia or China, has it on their smartphone. At least that is the way we should think about emails, because secure servers are hacked all the time.

That is the world we live in, and that is the world Hillary believes she can make better if she were president. Why? Because she loves this country, its people and its problems to such a degree that she is willing to suffer — here comes some more art imitating life, courtesy of Mr. Shakespeare — “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” to help end them.

I believe that is why most people run for political office. They have a genuine desire to help and to fix and to make better. And we the people for some reason have managed to create a political environment that forces each of them to run a gauntlet of misery along the way. Some say it is a good hardening process. It makes the eventual winner tough enough to deal with the Vladimir Putins and ayatollahs of the world.

I suppose the real issue here isn’t what Hillary did with her server or how she handled her emails. It is more about people saying they have had enough with our broken politics and want to take their lives back. And that should mean they want serious people running for and winning the presidency, people who are willing to stand firm and not put up with the nonsense that emanates through the halls of Congress these days.

Whether Hillary gets the nod from the Democrats will depend upon the rest of the nominating process and whether her ideas and her personal strengths and her wisdom and experience give people the comfort to believe that our country will be well-served with her at the helm. In making that critical decision, the issue of emails and servers and congressional investigations for the sake of congressional investigations may play a small part. But it should be a part placed in the context of what our next president will and must do to make all Americans proud of their country, what it stands for around the world and what it offers to all who call the United States their home.

To paraphrase from another one of Hollywood’s great love stories, “The American President,” we are at a time in the life of the United States that calls for serious people to step forward into the breech.

It is time for the American voters to get serious, too. Enough with the emails and apologies.

Brian Greenspun is owner, publisher and editor of the Sun.