Science tells us that we learn more from other people’s mistakes than our own.

James Joyce once wrote that “a man of genius makes no mistakes … his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”

Best to go with science, because after the following damning news out of the Pentagon Wednesday, nary a soul in Washington would regard Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter as a genius.

Why? One word: Hillary.

This from The New York Times:

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter relied on a personal email account to conduct a portion of his government business during his first months at the Pentagon, according to White House and Defense Department officials and copies of Mr. Carter’s emails obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Carter continued the practice, which violated Defense Department rules, for at least two months after it was publicly revealed in March that Hillary Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account as secretary of state, the officials said.

It is not clear when Mr. Carter stopped using the account. But an administration official said that when the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, learned about Mr. Carter’s email practices in May, Mr. McDonough directed the White House Counsel’s Office to contact the Defense Department to ask why Mr. Carter was relying on the personal account. had determined that he had been wrong to use the personal account.

“After reviewing his email practices earlier this year, the secretary believes that his previous, occasional use of personal email for work-related business, even for routine administrative issues and backed up to his official account, was a mistake,” said the spokesman, Peter Cook. “As a result, he stopped such use of his personal email and further limited his use of email altogether.”

No word yet on the number of work-related emails Carter sent out on the nongovernment-issued address. But, that figure will most likely trickle down the pike soon.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has some explaining to do, considering this is the second big cat security advisor he’s had under his watch pull this incredibly careless (or stupid, or shady?) stunt in recent memory. Republicans, as they’re wont to do in the case of the current POTUS, will show him no mercy in response to this icky and unsettling admission.

UPDATE: