WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty-one years after Hillary Rodham Clinton reluctantly ceded her treasured “zone of privacy,” there are still signs of separation anxiety.
Clinton’s news conference Tuesday, after a speech at the United Nations, was designed to put to rest questions about her decision to forgo using government email when she was secretary of state and instead use a private email account and server.
The likely presidential candidate was unapologetic. She insisted she’d only done it for convenience, had preserved all work-related emails and had discarded only those communications that were on personal matters such as yoga routines or her daughter’s wedding.
“I went above and beyond what I was requested to do,” she said.
Clinton did allow, though, that it would have been better if she’d run all her government dealings through a separate, government account.
Flash back to another Clinton news conference, in April 1994, and there she is — as first lady — assessing what’s left of her privacy in what came to be remembered as her pink sweater moment.
“I’ve always believed in a zone of privacy, and I told a friend the other day that I feel after resisting for a long time I’ve been re-zoned,” Clinton said then, answering questions about her family’s investments and financial dealings.
A look at her comments in 1994 and now.
___
2015, United Nations, wearing a black herringbone jacket and pants, standing before a throng of reporters:
“No one wants their personal emails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy.”
___
“Looking back, it would’ve been better for me to use two separate phones and two email accounts. I thought using one device would be simpler, and obviously, it hasn’t worked out that way.”
___
“I have no doubt that we have done exactly what we should have done.”
___
“I believe I have met all of my responsibilities and the server will remain private.”
___
“I feel that I’ve taken unprecedented steps to provide these work-related emails. They’re going to be in the public domain.”
___
“I went above and beyond what I was requested to do. And again, those will be out in the public domain, and people will be able to judge for themselves.”
___
1994, State Dining Room, wearing a pink sweater and black skirt, seated in a chair before reporters:
“I resisted it in ways that may have raised more questions than they answered, and I just don’t think that was a very useful road for me to go down.”
___
“I’ve always been a fairly private person leading a public life.” That sense of privacy “led me to perhaps be less understanding than I needed to of both the press and the public’s interest — as well as right — to know things about my husband and me.”
___
“Maybe I’m slow in kind of picking up subtle and not-so-subtle messages. But for me it was an evolutionary process.”
___
“I’ve always believed in a zone of privacy, and I told a friend the other day that I feel after resisting for a long time I’ve been rezoned, you know. And I now have a much better appreciation of what’s expected and not only what I have done, because I am extremely comfortable and confident about everything that I have done, but about my ability to communicate that clearly and to give the information that you all need.”
___
“This is really a result of our inexperience in Washington, if you will, that I really did not fully understand everything that I wish now I had known. And, you know, it’s a learning experience — sometimes a difficult one.”
___
“I’m not in any way excusing any confusion that we have created. I think we have created it, because I don’t think that we gave enough time or focused enough.”
___
Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nbenac
Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.