Anyone who occasionally reads a newspaper, turns on a TV or a radio has already been made aware of the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee. I purposely say “made aware of” rather than “informed. It’s been all over the news but what is it that you know? Unless you’ve been paying above average attention, all you know is that the Russians hacked into the DNC emails, Donald Trump is happy, and Democrats are outraged at both the Russians and at Trump.
If you want to accept that, read no further. On the other hand, a slice of reality follows: On the opening day of the Democratic convention, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Chairwoman, resigned her position in the wake of the release of thousands of DNC internal emails showing how the DNC conspired to sabotage the candidacy of Bernie Sanders and assure Hillary Clinton got the nomination. The emails were made public by Wikileaks who did not, and by design, could not reveal their source. Wikileaks is able to protect people with the courage to reveal those embarrassing secrets that governments and others try to hide because they receive information anonymously, so even if they wanted or were compelled to reveal their sources, they are physically unable to do so.
Astute readers may remember that in my April column I praised Tulsi Gabbard for following DNC rules by resigning as co-chair of the DNC before supporting Bernie Sanders. This was in the context of criticizing Debbie Wasserman Schultz for supporting Clinton with unilateral decisions such as manipulating the debate schedule to favor Clinton.
My comments drew the ire of Sean Bartlett, who gave his title as Senior Communications Advisor to the Chair for “accusations … about my boss,” even as he acknowledged that many others had made the same accusations. Apparently, he was upset because I stated it as a fact. West Hawaii Today printed a correction clarifying that it wasn’t factual, rather this writer’s assumption.
But then this news broke.
I emailed Mr. Bartlett for his reaction to the disclosure of the DNC emails and received this response: “Your message to bartletts@dnc.org couldn’t be delivered. Bartletts wasn’t found at dnc.org.”
Too bad.
Anyway, needless to say, Wasserman Schultz apologized and the DNC was quick to condemn the actions of the few bad apples that generated the 20,000 emails sabotaging Sanders’ campaign — or actually, not. Not even close. And this is what’s really got me irritated, to put it mildly. After Wikileaks released the emails, I’m not aware of anything approaching condemnation or even shock coming out of the DNC or the Clinton campaign. Rather, after resigning, Wasserman Schultz was immediately named “honorary chair to the Clinton campaign’s 50-state program,” whatever that is.
Then the DNC went into damage-control mode that would make Karl Rove proud. In a stroke of absolutely brilliant chutzpah, the DNC took attention off their own malfeasance by announcing that they had been hacked by the
Russians! It’s a cyber attack! Help! Help!! The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! No evidence was offered, not even the name of the alleged expert(s) who told the DNC it was a Russian hack job. With characteristic journalistic professionalism and skepticism, the media immediately enrolled itself in bamboozling the public. The story now is only about the Russians and the possible Putin/Trump nuptials. The content of the emails themselves and their proof that the DNC made every effort to deny Sanders the nomination has been completely supplanted by the irrelevant alleged Russian hacking into DNC servers, of which there is no proof whatever. Ignored are the emails themselves which prove conclusively that election tampering occurred at the DNC, by the DNC, for HRC in the USA (not Russia), OMG!
Jake Jacobs lives in Kailua-Kona and is a pilot. He writes a monthly column for West Hawaii Today