Deja Vu All Over Again–Ash Carter’s emails

                    by David Parmer

If you are an overseas America-watcher, then the best thing to remember is that this is an Election Year. And while elections have always been rough and tumble, this year has set new precedents for lack of civility, nastiness, name calling and behavior that would not be tolerated in the average middle school.

Given this background, it is no surprise that the latest “scandal” involves a government official using private email for official business–but it is not former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this time, but U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. Carter? Yes. One could argue that Carter may well be considered one of the best Sec. Def. who has ever held the job in terms of experience, knowledge, grasp of detail and just plain smarts. So surprising indeed.

The Secretary admitted that he had made a mistake, and that he stopped using his iPhone account for business in December 2015. Moreover, nothing of a classified (i.e. secret) nature was in the more than 1300 pages of emails that were released on March 25 as a result of a Freedom of Information request filed by various organizations. CBS News reported that the content of the emails was mostly pertaining to scheduling and logistics, and Carter said that he did the emailing with his iPhone only “occasionally.” So, basically no harm done. (Unless you are running for office in an election year, say 2016, and then it is MAJOR…) But it is a mistake nonetheless.

 Will history judge him harshly for this? Probably not. Unless a pattern emerges of such behavior, this will be a minor footnote to his tenure as Secretary of Defense.

At any rate, Mr. Carter has a bright future ahead of him whatever happens–he has got another eight months in the present job, and then he will surely have his choice of many top posts in business or academia. On the other hand, if Hillary Clinton is elected President of the United States, she would be rather understanding of someone caught up in an email “scandal” during an election year.

CNN report  on Carter email 27 March 2016

Photo: Secretary of Defense via flickr