ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but some marvelous work was done posthaste. Only 10 years was required to build the Colosseum, and Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in four. Vision and ambition can defy the ticking of the clock and the passage of the years. But despite the advantage of technology that moves at the speed of light, the State Department says it needs 75 years to produce documents that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides consigned to what she thought would be the oblivion of a private Internet server.

Hillary’s becoming the first woman presidential nominee has not freed her from the heavy baggage she has been dragging behind her for years. The electronic messages she stored on her personal server during four years in Foggy Bottom are still the subject of scrutiny. In addition to an FBI investigation into her reckless mishandling of the nation’s most precious secrets, the Republican National Committee has filed requests for the emails under the Freedom of Information Act.

Mark Toner, the State Department spokesman, told reporters the other day that by his reckoning the search for the documents might require 75 years. “That’s not an outlandish estimation, believe it or not.”