Hillary Is No Patriot

What is a patriot?

The definition according to Dictionary.com is,

"a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion."

In my mind a patriot also puts the interests of their country over their own self interests.

For example, our Founding Fathers put their personal wealth, their reputations and their very lives on the line when they signed the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin uttered one of his most famous quotes upon that signing when he told his fellow patriots,

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Or consider all of the men and women who have put on the uniform of the United States to defend and protect their country. They are surely putting the interest of their country over their own self interest.

You can say the same about people like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Susan B. Anthony who were pilloried and arrested as they sought equal rights for blacks and women. They put themselves at personal risk for the bigger purpose of making our county better.

That brings us to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This is Ms. Clinton speaking to the National Defense University Foundation after she was awarded their American Patriot Award in 2013.

Source: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America via Zimbio.com

Can she be called a patriot by any sense of the word considering what we know now?

It would seem to be an impossibility if you look at her current problems.

Let's consider the facts.

As Secretary of State she chose to ignore the governmental email system and establish her email on  a private server completely outside of the control of the federal government.

Why did she do this?

It certainly was not because of any interest or concern about her country.

She appears to have done it solely to avoid any requirement to disclose the contents of her emails under the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act and to shield herself from any personal embarrassment or risk to her future political career. It was done to circumvent the laws of her country plain and simple. There is no other rational explanation for what she did.

What is Hillary's explanation for using the personal server?  Her personal convenience. She did not want the hassle of dealing with two email systems. She did not want to be personally inconvenienced. Does that sound like a patriot?

In doing so she appears to have allowed top secret and highly classified material to be placed on her personal email server thereby putting all of our country's citizens at potential risk. As a result, her actions placed her country and its citizens at greater risk solely to protect her own self interest. Does that sound like a patriot?

We are already hearing the parsing of words and tortured explanations that the Clintons are famous for as the email investigation begins to gain momentum. Of course, all of this could have been avoided if Hillary had merely used the governmental system or turned over all of her emails to begin with.

Consider the chronology of some of her statements about the emails.

"I did not email any classified material on my email" (my emphasis)

-March 10, 2015 -http://freebeacon.com/blog/five-sentences-that-explain-the-hillary-clinton-email-scandal/

Notice she says that she did not email any classified material but she does not state that she did not receive any.

"I am confident that I never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received. " (my emphasis) 

-July 25, 2015  -http://mashable.com/2015/07/25/hillary-clinton-classified-emails/

Notice that she then hedges on whether it was classified at the time she sent or received it.

Her campaign now is saying the following.

"She never knowingly sent or received classified information and that none of it was marked classified at the time."  (my emphasis)

- August 11,2015-  http://www.npr.org/2015/08/11/431704311/hillary-clinton-decides-to-release-private-email-server-to-justice-department 

She now says she never did anything knowingly.  I guess it all depends on what the meaning of the word "knowingly" is, right Bill?

Of course, remember that all of Hillary's current problems are being caused because she did not want to be personally inconvenienced.

Does that sound like a patriot?

I noticed one other interesting fact when reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding Hillary's emails that does not add up.

She claims to have turned over all of her work-related emails to the State Department for the period 2009-2013---30,490 in total.  However, she did not turn over 31,830 emails that were deemed "private and personal."

The "private and personal" emails were supposedly limited to matters such as "yoga routines," "family vacations," and "planning Chelsea's wedding." according to Hillary.

Does this seem as strange to you as it does to me?

My personal email volume is a fraction of what my business email volume is.

How is it that when Hillary Clinton was serving as our Secretary of State that she was receiving and sending more personal emails about vacations, yoga routines and weddings than business emails in the course of a normal day?

Who was she working for? What was her first priority?  Her country or herself?

It sounds like her Secretary of State duties was a part-time job if she had that volume of personal emails to send and answer every day.

Does that sound like a patriot?

Does that sound like someone who should be President of the United States?