I really can't speak for BTD, but my own take on his post is that he probably believes -- as I admittedly do -- that this entire e-mail kerfuffle is a manufactured controversy which is motivated more by personal politics than actual substance, and that like Gertrude Stein's Oakland, there is no there there.

Private servers have indeed generally proven more secure than federal government servers. The director of OPM recently resigned after the security of millions of federal personnel records were compromised by online intruders.

Critics of Mrs. Clinton's use of a private e-mail account to conduct her business as Secretary of State are offering a merely theoretical argument about the ostensible security of the federal government's internal communications and records, which unfortunately -- given the recent and repeated breaches I've cited above -- has no real basis in reality.

No doubt, now that this particular myth has been put to rest, those critics will quickly pivot back to the usual charges that both she and her husband are clearly hiding something, anything, and everything.

If they are routine and the State Dept is over-classifying, then the dispute is over nothing.

Do you not think the original NYT headline and its initial reporting had everything to do with politics?  Have you watched a news broadcast recently?  Have you gotten from the media anything that doesn't make an effort to make this about Clinton?  Has any talking head you've seen in the last 48 hours taken the time or gone to the trouble of explaining that IGIC has taken issue with the State Department's classification process and standards?

Yes, it came up because there were 55,000 e-mails that had to be reviewed before they could be made public.  And they were Clinton's e-mails.  But the media is acting as if this is all some nefarious, deeply evil act Clinton committed, and the IG review is really about revealing just how evil Clinton is.

I thought you were smarter than that, Shooter.  Too smart to get sucked into Recon's Eddie Haskell act.  Too smart not to notice the comment Recon made where he quite clearly proclaimed his antipathy toward Clinton.  So don't act like it's just everyone else who's coming at this from a political point of view when Recon's got agenda written all over his comments.

First, there is the immediate point of the sloppy, inaccurate reporting being done by the NYT that originally contained so much false information it does cause one to wonder what its agenda was.

Second, if the NYT can now be believed, the issue the IG's office has is not with how Clinton treated her e-mails, but how State treated them.  Once in State's hands, and subject to FOIA requests, it was up to the State Department to vet them before making them public.  In that process, it decided to retroactively classify communications that Clinton did not consider to be of such a sensitive nature when she sent or received them.  If that's your issue - Clinton's judgment with respect to information that affects national security and foreign policy - I don't know how you have that discussion if you're not privy to the totality of her communications.  But I think you'd need to distinguish between material that really is sensitive to the operation of foreign policy, and information that the government just doesn't want people to know about because it's embarrassing in some way.

Should State Department policies or methods come under scrutiny?  Of course.  Does Clinton having been the Secretary of State make those policies her responsibility when she held that position?  Again, yes.  But having turned over her e-mails to a John Kerry-led State Department, how much responsibility does Clinton have for what State did after she left?

Third, e-mail is not the exclusive method for conducting State Department business.  Classified, highly secret and sensitive communications were and are transmitted by cable.  I'm sure they also have secure telephone lines, and of course, there's always the face-to-face meeting.

Fourth, with respect to the security and integrity of Clinton's private server, I have to believe that it was vetted, approved and was subject to more monitoring and care than the monolith that is the SD system could ever be - you know, the one that was hacked.  

Let me explain something to you that you understand but don't want to admit.

If someone mishandles a document that has classified information in it they are in deep dodo.

  The more widely known it is that a location exists that contains something someone might want the greater the risk such a someone might breach even the best security systems and protocols.

If it "should have been classified", whose call is it to make that it should have been? Why is it on her to know for absolute certain that whoever provided it to her screwed up?