Let’s be real. The hacked DNC emails, though showing inexcusable bias against Bernie Sanders, do not show any rigging of the primary process. But Fox News offered a friendly platform for RNC head Reince Priebus to wrongly claim that the DNC “perpetrated a fraud.”
The New Republic writes about what the hacked emails, released by Wikileaks, actually say:
Sure, there’s an email by a finance staffer ineptly trying to play communications staffer. But his suggestion that the DNC attack Sanders over his religion, or lack thereof, died without anyone acting on it.
[...]
Wikileaks’s tweets conjured dark and menacing conspiracies, but these are not borne out by the emails themselves. Take the group’s claim that the “DNC knew of Hillary paid troll factory attacking Sanders online.” The highlighted email isn’t some secret communication laying out nefarious plots. It’s a summary of a panel discussion on Fox News Sunday.
But forget the emails for a second. The main problem with the notion that the DNC rigged the results for Clinton is that it requires one to assume the improbable. The DNC had no role or authority in primary contests, which are run by state governments. Clinton dominated the primaries. The DNC, through state parties, had a bit more influence over caucuses … where Sanders dominated Clinton.
None of the thousands of leaked emails and documents show the DNC significantly influencing the results of the nomination. Furthermore, if it is true that last fall Clinton campaign chair John Podesta tried but failed to have DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz sacked, the underlying premise of the entire WikiLeaks dump—that Wasserman Schultz machinated to deliver Clinton the nomination—is hard to believe.
Furthermore, the real issue about the hack, TNR notes, is Russia's attempt to manipulate our elections.
But, of course, “patriotic” Priebus and Fox News host Stuart Varney didn’t seem to mind so long as the Russians are on the side of a Republican candidate. No, Priebus only seemed to care about attacking Clinton:
PRIEBUS: The fact is, is that the DNC colluded and perpetrated a fraud upon their own grassroots and their supporters and delegates, but they perpetrated a fraud against the American people, and now you have Hillary Clinton and she’s illegitimate as the presumptive nominee of their party, and they’re going to have to contend with that now this week, and it’s a tough job, especially now they don’t have, well they do have a chairwoman, but they really don’t have anyone seemingly in control of this convention.
Perpetrated a fraud? Illegitimate? Varney didn’t challenge any of the false accusations.
Watch it below, from the July 25 Your World.
Doocy. Dead man talking?
While we’re at it, lets release the FOX News internal emails exchanged between the Foxies and Der Furor. All the milkshake bribes O’Reilly sent The Donald. All the strategy sessions between Roger ‘The Pervert Dodger’ Ailes. Transcripts of all the sweet whispers Hannity emailed while he had his head shoved up Trump’s golden ass. Oh my, what a treasure trove all that’d be!
You had the likes of Obama supporter Ted Kennedy pulling the “superdelegates should support the candidate who wins their state” card—until Massachusetts decisively went for Clinton; then, suddenly, “superdelegates should be free to support whomever they feel is the better candidate.”
There was the nonsense with the Florida and Michigan delegations being stripped of their delegates because their state legislatures chose to move the primaries before the “permitted” date; interestingly, Clinton won the majority of each state. Then, when the Rules Committee finally decided to “let” the state’s delegates attend the convention, they were punished by only having each delegate’s vote count as “half.” AND, then the DNC rewarded Obama by giving him nearly half of Michigan’s delegates, despite his name not even being on the state’s primary ballot (he’d voluntarily removed his name from the ballot).
And, then, there were NO hearings into the allegations of intimidation of caucus-goers in Texas, a state which held a primary and a caucus (the primary provided about 2/3 and the caucus provided about 1/3 of the state’s total pledged delegates). Hillary won the primary by 100,000 votes, earning 65 delegates to Obama’s 61. But, the precinct caucuses (the first round in the caucus delegate selection process) were a travesty. Even now—8 years after the fact—there is NO accurate accounting of how many people participated in the first round; the Wiki article on the 2008 Texas primary and caucus can only provide results for 41.1% of the precincts. The Clinton campaign asked for results to be verified before the second stage of the caucuses were held, only to be turned down and the DNC refused to intervene. Plus, there were a number of reports of people being turned away from the caucus sites they were told to go to and some reports of caucus-goers (mostly white and older) being threatened by Obama supporters and some claims that people were too late and wouldn’t be let in (while others who’d arrived even later were admitted with no problem). Some people claimed they were asked for proof they’d voted in the primary (which was a requirement) on that day (which was not; people who’d voted absentee were authorized to participate in the caucus). But, despite State Party officials saying they’d investigate, nothing came of it and the DNC refused to step in as well. (Just imagine the results if this had happened this year and Sanders and his supporters had been on the receiving end of this treatment!)
But Priebus isn’t really one to talk. As I recall, HE was doing his best back in February and March to keep tRump from becoming the Party’s nominee.
I know that part is circumstantial, but there is a Russian/Trump financial connection also. American banks are too wise for Trump to get a loan, but the Russians are willing to loan him money. And it doesn’t stop there. Trump made changes in the republican platform that would compromise NATO to help Russia.
So where’s all the right wingers who back in the day were foaming at the mouth about fluoridated water and commies behind every corner???
One can argue that some of the comments in the leaked emails aren’t friendly to Sanders. Some of the comments are themselves offensive. But there’s nothing to indicate that the DNC sanctioned nastiness or impropriety. If anything, various emails show DNC staffers scolding people who were making inappropriate comments.
Having read a series of what were considered the “Most Damaging” emails, what see is not a concerted effort to “rig the system” against Sanders but rather a frustration with his supporters’ repeated attempts to disrupt primary events and caucuses. Schultz’s angriest statements came after the awful behavior by Sanders supporters in Nevada when they threw things and made threats after a parliamentary gambit of theirs failed. Granted, the DNC must remain neutral (and in many emails, the staffers say exactly that), but there’s nothing inherently wrong in politicians knowing the way the polling reads for the remaining states after April.
At this point, Fox News and the right wing are doing everything they can to blow this stuff way out of proportion, since they’re hoping they can make it sound stranger than the dark circus they inflicted last week in Cleveland.