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Much political chatter this week focused on a pivotal moment at Tuesday night’s CNN Democratic debate in Las Vegas: “I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Sanders was called upon to address the Democratic front-runner’s ongoing e-mail controversy after Clinton issued her standard defense. The Vermont senator’s defense brought an uproarious reaction from the crowd at the Wynn Las Vegas. Though hopefuls Lincoln Chafee and Martin O’Malley both chimed in on the e-mail stuff, Sanders had pretty well snuffed out the issue. “Thank you, Bernie. Thank you,” said Clinton after Sanders had ripped the e-mail stuff as a campaign-trail issue. In a chat with former New York Times television reporter Bill Carter on the SiriusXM show “The Bill Carter Interview,” Cooper put this moment in his basket of regrets over his handling of the debate. “I wish I had brought in one other candidate before I went to Sanders on the email thing because I knew Sanders would try to shut it down,” said the debate host. Perhaps that would have been a better way to go, though there was no guarantee. After all, Chafee commented that the e-mails drive at a credibility crisis in American politics. When Cooper asked Clinton whether she wanted to respond, she said, “No,” to the delight of her supporters. The assembled challengers weren’t prepared or disposed to mount a serious challenge to Clinton’s e-mail problem. That would have had to come directly from Cooper in a series of pointed questions. Posing them would have hijacked the debate, driving it into a homebrew rabbit hole; better to leave the prolonged e-mail cross-examinations to Cooper’s peers who sit for extended interviews with the candidate. Several such clashes have already taken place, and there are more to come, including Jake Tapper’s CNN interview with Clinton this afternoon.
