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What she wanted to say

As a longtime watcher of Hillary Clinton, I can tell you that her session Tuesday with that media gaggle on the email imbroglio ended just in the nick of time.

John Brummett is blogging daily online.

She was on the verge of that dreaded scoffing stage.

I've seen that stage. I've endured its scorn. I can see it start to boil. I can hear the lid begin to clang. I can see the steam begin to rise. I can sense that the pasta is about to be overcooked.

It occurs when Clinton's limited patience runs out. Her dripping contempt for Republicans and reporters escapes forced concealment behind that smile she doesn't mean for a second.

So there she was, about to blow, enduring all those reporters' shouted questions about her emails as secretary of state.

She knew full well that what she'd said seconds before--about women's issues and the nonsensical letter Tom Cotton wrote to try to sabotage American diplomacy--was infinitely more important to serious people trying to do good work.

But there she stood among substandard people of the media who do voyeurism for a living, who think as herded cattle and who exist barely a grade above, if that, the National Enquirer and the paparazzi.

But then, after 22 minutes, her aide stepped in and Hillary said so long.

Unless I miss my guess, her smile vanished the moment her back was turned to the cameras.

It served to put me in mind of what she would have said if permitted unfettered truth and allowed her own devices--if, that is, Hillary was allowed to be Hillary, if the scoffer was allowed to scoff.

I suspect it would have gone pretty much as follows:

"Are y'all serious? Sure I have a bunker mentality. Danged straight. After all the [expletive deleted] that the Republicans put me through for all those years in the White House, do you really think I'd just let 'em read all my [expletive deleted] emails?

"Do reporters come from some other planet, one without air for your brains?

"We had this special computer server at our house because, as you might recall, I am married--more or less--to a former president. A former president gets stuff other people don't, like Secret Service and a secure home server. So I used it--the server, I mean. Well, the Secret Service, too.

"I'd tell you more about that, but I'm 67 years old and I wouldn't know a server if I was sitting on one.

"Now y'all can either trust me or not that I have turned over all my government stuff to the State Department and that what I've kept or deleted was entirely personal.

"Some of you will trust me. Some of you never will. We'll vote on that in November 2016. Count the votes.

"By the way, this guy, what's his name--Huckabee--he took all the hard drives from his entire governor's office in Arkansas when he left and gave them to a crusher to destroy. But y'all don't care. I guess I understand that. I'm going to be president and he isn't. Them's the rules.

"So I'm out of here, unless, that is, somebody wants to ask about the speech I just gave on women's issues.

"Didn't think so. Bye. Thanks for coming. I know y'all are in a hurry to get some Republican quotes to fill in your blanks. Congratulations on your Page One bylines.

"Oh, I almost forgot: About our accepting money from bad people to our foundation, let me just say that, yeah, we raise big money from bad people and then we do good things with it. So sue us.

"As for the idea that these bad people will have influence on me when I become president, let me just assure you of one thing: When I'm president, one person will be running things. And you're looking at her. I'm not standing up here putting up with this nonsense to let Saudi Arabia tell me what to do."

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John Brummett's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 03/12/2015

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