In an article with the cute title “Desconstructing Hillary Clinton’s apology,” Washington Post columnist Jena McGregor does an amusing little dance to help her favorite presidential candidate get back on track.

McGregor was just following a lead.  After all, what passes for analysis in the MSM is what passes for analysis in most of academia.  The facts don’t matter, you see.  What matters is how to “frame the narrative,” what “optic” or “perspective” needs to be “adopted” when faced with this or that “issue.”  The truth?  What’s that?

So, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s “apology” delivered during an interview with ABC News, it’s no surprise to find McGregor scrounging around in search of “evaluations” of Clinton’s “performance,” predictably concluding:

The reviews from communications experts were good -- indeed, some say she nailed it, offering her first unambiguous apology and issuing it in a short, succinct statement. The bigger problem was with when she said it.

There you have it.  “Communication experts” say Clinton “nailed it,” therefore she did, right?  If you buy that argument, I know of a famous bridge for sale in the New York City area. Cheap.

Unambiguous apology? Not even close. I hope the congressional committees that will interview Hillary Clinton next month saw through it – Republican members, that is.  Democrats don’t care. 

To explain away her use of private email to conduct official State Department business, Clinton so far has used the legalese “allowed” and “permitted.”  If her official use of private email was “allowed” or “permitted,” she did nothing wrong, right?

Not so fast.  Set aside whether Clinton used her private email to send and/or receive sensitive materials.  Let’s say she used her private email to talk about, oh, I don’t know, how many angels can sit on the head of a pin at Foggy Bottom.

The issue is whether Hillary Clinton was given permission by someone in authority at State to use her private email account to conduct official government business.  The congressional committee needs to “nail” this question.

Here are some “narratives” Clinton is likely to try:

• “I was familiar with the applicable State Department regulations and concluded that official use of private email was allowed.”
• “It is obvious that, as a private citizen, I was allowed to have a private email account, which I may have used to conduct official business.”
• “I knew that previous secretaries of state used private email to conduct official business and concluded I was allowed to do so because they were.”

These should be dismissed as dodging the issue à la her husband’s infamous “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”  Congress should ask Hillary Clinton the following:

• Did you request permission from the State Department to create a private email account that might be used to conduct official business?
• Did you receive permission from the State Department to create a private email account that might be used to conduct official business?
• Did you cc the appropriate State official whenever you conducted official government business on your private email account?

We can expect Clinton to dodge these questions as well, which she can do in a number of ways.  The point is that, following her testimony, the appropriate State officials need to be called in and asked the following related questions:

• Did the Department of State receive a request from Secretary Clinton asking permission to create a private email account for possible use to conduct official business?
• Was permission granted, on what grounds, and under what conditions?
• Did Secretary Clinton cc the appropriate State officials whenever she conducted official government business on her private email account?

I hope Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor, reads American Thinker.