2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWhy the Russian Hacks of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Should Reassure Us All
Joe Klein @JoeKlein TIME 7:07 AM ET
In the midst of our bountiful October harvest of Trump grotesqueries, the Russians and Julian Assange organized a WikiLeaks dump of private emails from the Clinton campaign. These revealed a shocking and scandalous fact about the former Secretary of State: she is a politician. Indeed, the documents represent one of the most reassuring moments of this calamitous campaign. The overwhelming impression is of the candidates and her staffs competence and sanityand something more: a refreshing sense of reality about the vagaries of politics.
The headline revelation came from one of Clintons paid speeches. Clinton said it was necessary for politicians to have a public and private position on many issues. Gotcha! And even though Clinton had difficulty defending herself on this in the second debate, shes absolutely right. In one of his rare moments of candor earlier this year, Donald Trump agreed. He said his ludicrous tax-cut plan was an opening position that would be compromisedhe might even back higher taxeswhen negotiations began with Congress. This was deemed disastrous by conservative ideologues, and Trump quickly retreated from it. But he was, momentarily, speaking the truth.
Heres how Clinton put it in that 2013 speech, and be prepared, Im going to quote her at length: Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybodys watching
all of the backroom discussions and the deals
then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position. And finally, I thinkI believe in evidence-based decision making. I want to know what the facts are. Clinton is speaking an essential, uncontroversial truth about how things work in a democracy. And yet, for much of the publicand too much of our mediaher sentiments are perceived as shifty, further evidence that she cant be trusted, as if a willingness to compromise were a sign of weakness, not a necessary strength.
As for the rest of the emails, there are the occasional screw-ups and embarrassing moments of candor, butas with the WikiLeaks dump of the State Departments diplomatic cablesthe most striking thing about them is the careful, intelligent way in which the Clinton staff goes about the business of politics. There is substantive consternation about how to deal with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Wall Street, a careful massaging of where to come down on Warrens proposal for a new Glass-Steagall law to regulate banking. Clinton and her advisers believe that Sanders is being too simplistic, that they have an equally tough but more nuanced positionas indeed they didand they worry about how to communicate that difference. Watching the deliberations unfold, I found myself thinking, Boy, Assange has done a public service. Its good to know how policy develops in a political campaign.
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http://time.com/4529399/why-the-russian-hacks-of-hillary-clintons-campaign-should-reassure-us-all/
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)All emails relating to the Democrats. That's what scares them so much.
Tanuki
(14,919 posts)his staff, were hacked and released? The content would be grotesque and appalling, to put it mildly. I would guess those e-mails have in fact been obtained and are being cached by Putin and company for future blackmailing or punishment if the parties in question step out of line.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)I bet he uses fake names for those 'personal' email accounts and 'devices' used.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)whole bunch of nothing there... unless you really like to watch sausage being made
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)How much of a donation does it take to 'wikileaks' to buy a file? I'm sure he has to kick back some to the hackers, they're not stealing files for free are they?
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)that most are just insights into well run campaigns and that, even with that, very little of rises above gossip level? None of the real political venal corruption so many are sure exists has ever been revealed.
At a smaller but serious level there is that supposed Donna Bazile email allegedly leaking a debate question to Hillary, but it seems so out-of-normal unethical and such a dangerous thing to do for both sides that I'm waiting for the results of investigation. Bazile says the email was about another event Hillary spoke at before the debate; did Bazile know at that point that a similar question relating to the same subject would be asked at the debate? And if she did, would someone in the H camp be in on this or would Bazile be acting alone? Or was this email tampered with by the Kremlin?