[steve-b]

Apparently, she said, someone had tried to get into her laptop computer, which, she noted, could easily have been taken but was left behind.

OK, boys and girls, what's wrong with this picture, if one assumes that the intruder's goal was to suppress the manuscript? Let's not always see the same hands....

Really, this is goofy conspiracy theory stuff, fit for people who think that "Occam's Razor" is the brand of box cutter weilded by the 9-11 hijackers.

[pierstroll]

When I terrorize snitches I usually steal their lap tops.

Seriously, I wouldn't put anything past the country's favorite crime family.

[varon]

OK, boys and girls, what's wrong with this picture, if one assumes that the intruder's goal was to suppress the manuscript?

What if the purpose was not to suppress the book but to find out its contents, instead. If the Clintons know ahead of time what will be revealed they can execute a preemptive denial campaign or be ready with plausible deniability when the book does come out.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"OK, boys and girls, what's wrong with this picture, if one assumes that the intruder's goal was to suppress the manuscript?"

There is likely an agenda other than suppression at work.

These people are smart enough to know that people have backups of their manuscripts and disk drives, they send drafts to their editors, and so on. Suppression might not be possible.

No, it might just be that the burglars' gambit is to find out what's in the manuscript so it can be pre-empted in important ways. For example, the Clinton machine managed to discredit Gary Aldrich's entire book in the media by finding a single error in it; you can bet someone's going over the purloined manuscript with a magnifying glass right now. Or they could threaten or grease the palms of one or two folks quoted in Willey's account so that they are primed to claim she misquoted them or lied in some way. Or they'll trace (or fabricate) a financial or romantic linkage between Willey and some of the other players in order to establish a "sordid agenda" that can be spotlighted in the media. Or they'll connect her or her other witnesses to "discredited Clinton-haters and politically-driven Swift-Boat types" so that they can dismiss it all as old and stale, and "isn't it time these people move on?"

Just watch. There are dozens of ways of inoculating the Clintons against serious charges (again), and all can benefit from foreknowledge of what her book will say.

It's called getting their ducks in a row, and the Clintons are very very good at it.

[Antoninus]

OK, boys and girls, what's wrong with this picture, if one assumes that the intruder's goal was to suppress the manuscript? Let's not always see the same hands....

This is obviously less about a stolen manuscript than it is about intimidation. The person breaking in was trying to send a message that this wasn't just a random burglary.

[Danae]

no, they wanted to know what was IN it before it was published so they could spin out of it.

[ozzymandus]

Yeah, right. The clintons have never done anything suspicious, so why even consider them.

[Twinkie]

The intruder’s goal may not have been to suppress the manuscript as it would be only logical that it wasn’t the only copy of it. (Multiple copies of anything are the only way to deal with the Clintons as people have learned the hard way.) Not suppression - nope - people like the Clintons would only want to have a good preview of exactly what was going to be revealed about them and their business so they could go into FULL SPIN MODE.