THREE MARTINI LUNCH: MARCH 11, 2015

National Review's Jim Geraghty and Radio America's Greg Corombos discuss current events. Today's Martinis: Hillary Clinton's pathetic press conference, a Turkish reporter's lame sexism question, and what the scandal means for Clinton's White House run.



WaPo: Senior Dems "wringing their hands" about Hillary's shrug

So... how did that press availability yesterday work out for Hillary Clinton? Judging by the reaction of the media and her fellow Democrats, she might have done better sticking with the Nixonian stonewall strategy. The New York Post had some fun with their front page:

New York Post cover going to leave a mark on HillaryLand pic.twitter.com/o4UKMPRkrO
— Rick (@StrokesofCandor) March 11, 2015

John Podhoretz writes that "Smart Hillary" has out-thought herself into "Dumb Hillary":

On Tuesday, she informed us that she used her own server for her own e-mail because it was too difficult for her to have two iPhones — so she was playing Dumb Hillary Clinton, with her implicit argument that it's easier to have your own server in your own house than to use a government device. Who believes that?

Mrs. Clinton informed us that she won't make her e-mails public (save the 55,000 pages she "printed out" for the State Department) because they include communications between her and her husband. That was Dumb Hillary Clinton, who seems not to know her husband's people told The Wall Street Journal only last week that he has sent exactly two e-mails in his lifetime.

The press corps covering the conference, and hundreds of reporters following it live on Twitter, seemed utterly agog at the falsity, the stonewalling and the flashes of anger that offered the only real indication she knows perfectly well how damaging all this might be for her. …

Mrs. Clinton is going to have to transform herself, to get rid of Dumb Hillary and find a new persona to cope with troubled times, because the person who made so horrendous an accounting of herself yesterday has no future other than ignominious defeat.

The Associated Press didn't come away impressed, either. They issued a fact check that demolished every defense Hillary offered for her actions.

The AP fact-check also scoffs at the "convenience" argument, noting that Clinton by her own admission has no problems with multiple devices now, and that Blackberries can handle multiple accounts (although as Scott Gration discovered, State doesn't want its staff taking advantage of that capability). They're equally skeptical about Clinton's claim that she didn't send classified material over e-mail, and the claim that the Secret Service provided adequate protection for the server. Basically, there isn't anything from Hillary's defense yesterday left standing except the implicit "trust me."

Also Read:

Does Hillary Clinton think that went well?

Have you seen... Hillary Rodham Gump, y'all?