2016 Postmortem

have had anything to be investigating. Yes Powell used a somewhat similar set up, but he hasn't spent 25 years with the Republican party doing everything to bring him down. She could have avoided the problem entirely if she had followed the letter of the law. The Benghazi nonsense was a non-issue as it was clear she didn't cause that. The email server plays into the public perception that the Clintons flirt with the line of appropriate behavior.

You can argue it's not fair because Powell did it, you can argue the FBI shouldn't have interfered and you'd be right on both. But Clinton gave them the opportunity to do it and she didn't have to. The root cause is the email server given that a significant majority of late deciders decided for Trump and the sharp poll decline Clinton had after the Comey announcement.

It's a ludicrous analogy to compare the issue to Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt didn't have 25 years of the Japanese trying to take him down and then put the ships right at the edge of Japanese territory where it was questionable if they had the legal right to be there.