The White House announced that it will block release of some of Hillary Clinton’s emails. The action will be based on precedent that keeps presidential records confidential until after the president leaves office.

These latest emails were “discovered” by the State Department who made several thousand more emails available on Friday. The emails show:

Mrs. Clinton engaged in conversations with various aides about security in Libya, discussing talking points after the 2012 attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and — on a lighter note — complaining about the lack of emoticons on her phone.

Here is some of the junk that investigators have to sift through – Hillary trying to figure out how to type an emoticon:

And in more than one email, Mrs. Clinton complained that her BlackBerry did not allow her to send emoticons. Emailing under the code name “Evergreen” in February 2012, she wrote that she was “quite bereft” at the lack of the tiny pictures. “Any way I can add them?” she asked. Two months later, she again sent a note to Philippe Reines, a top communications aide.

“On this new berry can I get smiley faces?” she wrote. Mr. Reines responded: “For email, no, I don’t think so — you need to type them out manually like 🙂 for happy, or :-I I if you want to express anger at my tardiness.”

When, exactly, would the Secretary of State of the United States of America ever have the occasion to use an emoticon in her professional communications? Has she not heard that smiley faces might take away from the decorum of the office? Perhaps she thinks a quick winky face at Papa Putin would soften the old tyrant. What a complete joke that this person is considered a serious candidate for any office, let alone President of the United States. Funny, I don’t remember the crowdsourcing effort that descended on Palin’s email treasure trove ever found any so inane as that.

As for the serious stuff, of course the White House says that it is not the content of the emails that is at issue:

White House officials said Friday that their refusal to release the emails between the two officials is not based on their content, but rather is intended to defend the principle that presidents must be free to receive advice from their top aides without fear that the conversations will be made public during their time in office. They noted the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will eventually become public many years after the Obama presidency ends, under the terms of federal records laws.

This policy has been used by many presidents over the years, and the content may or may not be explosive. Most likely not, since this administration knows how to keep things off the record. It’s better to speak in person than write it down in an email as Hillary’s aide Cheryl Mills told Huma Abedin in a little dust up between the two.

Mills responded the next day: “Huma: I am always happy to discuss organizational and personnel matters, we can do that in person rather than on email.”

For the future, Hillary should forget trying to insert emoticons into her electronic communications. Instead, she can just use ready-made images of her own that perfectly communicate her emotions with a more personal touch.

Laugh out loud, Hil:

Give some encouragement to your subordinates:

Let them know you are down with the struggle:

Anger at Philippe Reines’ tardiness would probably look something like this:

And this will probably come in handy on several occasions. Those darn Republicans…., Oh, Bernie…., Bill, I told you to let the dog out!

So while Obama’s White House will work to block any communications between him and Hillary, it’s probably just to save the embarrassment of him having to admit that he couldn’t figure out how to do emoticons either.