Can Hillary Clinton manage a presidential campaign?

It is certainly true that Clinton’s email practices do not amount to any kind of disqualifying scandal. It’s a violation of administration policy, not the law, and it’s not unique. It is also likely true that nobody will remember or care a year and a half from now; if the economy keeps creating a quarter million jobs a month between now and then, Clinton could probably win even if she turns out to have hosted her emails on a North Korean server. But all this misses the flashing red lights set off by this story.

The most alarming direct outcome is the possibility that demands by Congress and the media for her private email pry open some new, more serious motivations. The Clinton impeachment ultimately grew out of a spiraling investigation that began by poking into Whitewater, which turned out to be a non-scandal. The Clinton email disclosures grew out of the investigation of Benghazi, which was also a non-scandal that likewise surveys only in conservative fever dreams. Investigations that pry into internal correspondence, even those based on a groundless suspicion, can eventually yield, or create, meta-scandals of their own.

The larger problem for Clinton, though, is not the likelihood that her emails will turn up incriminating evidence. It is what this episode reveals about her political judgment and managerial acumen. Last year, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush wrote a deeply reported and highly revealing account of Clinton’s deep terror of the news media. Their fear of hostile news media, borne out of genuinely traumatic ’90s-era experiences in which right-wing pseudo-media drove the mainstream news agenda, left the Clintons paralyzed by suspicion of the press. They are reflexively insular. Their suspicion creates problems where none need exist.