The controversy arising out of the e-mails between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, like the use of a private e-mail server, is another example of how really smart people, with good intentions, can do really dumb things when they are not sufficiently self-aware to step outside of their insularity and exercise objective oversight.

All that was needed to protect the good works of the Clinton Foundation and the good name of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to absolutely prohibit ANY communication between the two. But how the Clintons and their highly experienced and educated staffers and advisers missed this simple measure is the story of Clinton and her campaign, isn’t it?

Ironically, her lifetime of public service is both the raison d’etre of her campaign as well as its Achilles’ heel; it’s the source of her accomplishments as well as her protective palace mentality, which blinds her and her trusted advisers to the sensibilities of ordinary voters. This is a flaw, but for rational, fact- and policy-based voters, it should not be a fatal flaw, either of character or of any criteria relevant to a candidate’s fitness for office. This flaw means that Clinton is a bad politician, not a bad public servant, because the record so far reveals flaws of appearance, not of substance.

Vivian Tseng

Concord