Thursday Hillary Bash - The Spirit of the Law

Character-related link: standards for thee, but not for me.

Time Magazine has a story about Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign team renting a list of email addresses to a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC that is readying for Hillary Clinton 2016.  There's nothing illegal about it and Time of course, does it's best to assure us of that, despite the obvious skirting of the intent of the law.

Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign has rented its email list to Ready for Hillary, the super PAC laying the groundwork for a potential second attempt at the White House.

On Sunday, the group emailed the Clinton list offering free “I’m Ready for Hillary” bumper stickers, but unlike dozens of recent emails from the group offering swag, this one had the return address info@hillaryclinton.com.

Seth Bringman, a spokesman for the super PAC, told TIME on Sunday that “Ready for Hillary rented the hillaryclinton.com email list to connect with her past supporters.”

It’s not uncommon for defeated political campaigns to rent out their email lists to causes their sponsors support. Several other groups, including the President Barack Obama’s campaign and EMILY’s List, have previously rented out Clinton’s list.

Super PACs are not allowed to directly coordinate with candidates or campaigns, but because Clinton is not a declared candidate there is nothing improper about the list rental.

Illegal, no.  But "nothing improper" seems like a stretch.  Everyone knows Hillary Clinton will declare her intention at some point in the future.  When the list rental ceases at that point, or even sufficiently prior to that point, the benefits of skirting the spirit of the law will already have been realized by the Hillary Clinton campaign.  This is dirty politics, but not illegal.  This is the type of twisting of the wording of the law that the Clintons are known for using ("I did not have sex with that woman" ring a bell?).  

It is the type of thing that any Republican candidate will have as a headwind.  It will be an even stronger headwind when coupled with the mainstream media's attempts to white wash the issue for her.  Consider what Time would have said had this been done by a candidate like Mitt Romney, or any other Republican.  It would have been presented as a dirty-but-not-illegal political malfeasance that shows the true character of the candidate behind it - someone willing to skirt the spirit of the law for strictly personal gain.

Back at you, liberals, back at you.  If you are a liberal reading this, ask yourself what Elizabeth Warren would have to say about this if she were to be fully forthcoming about her opinion.