Democrats and their media comrades are in a lather this week over Russia supposedly hacking the election. They didn’t hack the actual election, but instead are somehow responsible for a peek beneath the Democrat skirts of John Podesta and the DNC. A trove of emails, which no one is disputing the authenticity of, showing what Hillary Clinton really thought about voters and how the Democrat Party torpedoed the primary candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
Did whatever the Russians do or not do influence the election? Clinton won 48 percent of the popular vote. This was a good outcome since she was at or below 48 percent for most of the six months leading up to the election according to the Real Clear Politics moving average. If anything, she outperformed expectations. Since the WikiLeaks revelations occurred in the month leading up to the election, it is unlikely that the released emails, regardless of who acquired them, had a meaningful effect on the election results since her actual and predicted numbers were essentially the same.
What other revelations rocked the campaign? Remember Donald Trump’s hot mike moment with Billy Bush in 2005? The one where
Trump said, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” And added, “Grab them by the p—y.” Pretty vulgar stuff.
Enough to end his candidacy. At least Clinton’s media outlet Politico thought so. Their headline after the audio release was, “Is Trump’s campaign over?” Interestingly the article was written by Glenn Thrush, famous for sending his articles to Clinton campaign staff for approval before publishing. Don’t know if he sent this Trump article to Team Clinton for approval, but undoubtedly they would have given it a thumbs up.
Did that Washington Post article published on October 8 affect the RCP average poll? Trump was at 42.9 percent on October 8. Six days later on October 14, long enough for the polling to reflect the nonstop coverage of Trump’s comments, he was at 41.4 percent, a small but not insignificant dip.
Where did the Washington Post get Trump’s 2005 comments? They didn’t say. It was simply “A video obtained by The Washington Post” according to their article.
TMZ, which is typically Johnny-on-the-spot for such stories, didn’t know how or why the 11-year-old tape was obtained. All they could say was, “The Washington Post somehow obtained Access Hollywood footage from 2005.”
Was Access Hollywood hacked? Was the video released by a Clinton supporter to derail the Trump campaign? Were the Russians involved?
The New York Times believes the Russians exposed Clinton staff emails in, “An effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump” as they wrote last week. So why couldn’t the Donald Trump Billy Bush audio tape be a similar tactic? Only with the candidate names reversed?
We will likely never know. I’m raising the issue, but since I’m just an insignificant voice, a lone blogger, the story won’t go anywhere. The media will not investigate or speculate. The CIA, FBI, DNI and all the other alphabet intelligence agencies won’t have their directors or anonymous sources speaking to the media. The issue won’t dominate cable news shows.
There will be no call for Congressional hearings or independent investigations. The electoral college electors will not be demanding intelligence briefings. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest won’t stand in front of the cameras accusing Hillary Clinton of encouraging the Russians to hack due to her campaign ad a few weeks earlier highlighting “Trump’s insults toward women”.
Why not the curiosity? Maybe Vladimir Putin prefers a patsy president like Clinton rather than a hard-nosed Trump. After all it was Clinton who facilitated the sale of one-fifth of US uranium production to the Russians in exchange for a fat contribution to her personal foundation.
Far-fetched story I’m spinning? Maybe. But no more outlandish than the one about the Russians hacking the election and putting Trump in the White House against the will of the American voters. Why is one story getting all the attention and other ones are being ignored? Or is “fake news” a one-way street, legitimate only when furthering the left’s agenda?
Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, is a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
