Bye Bye Brazile: In Clinton Land Fair Play Is For Suckers
It’s not often a single story can sum up an entire political season, but we may have one. If you require a snapshot of the turbulent U.S. presidential election look no further than the news that CNN has fired political insider Donna Brazile. Apparently the CNN “contributor” and Democratic National Committee hack was slipping questions to Hillary Clinton before herDemocratic debates with Bernie Sanders, the Washington Generals of candidates.
CNN actually canned her in mid-October, but it took till the start of November— when Wikileaks exposed another instance of Brazile providing crib notes to the putative president of the USA— that CNN made public the pink slip. Accompanied by a press release harrumphing about how scandalized the network is at the treachery of Brazile, who’s now retreated to her comfy sinecure at the DNC.
In between the WikiLeaks dumps, Brazile had played the persecution card when grilled by FOX TV’s Megan Kelly. “You know, as a Christian woman, I understand persecution,” Brazile told Kelly, “but I will not sit here and be persecuted because your information is totally false.” Whether Brazile was playing the race persecution card (she’s black) or the woman card is uncertain but hardly germane.
“Poor Bernie Sanders never knew what hit him. But in true 2016 form, the agitated socialist dummied up on how he’d been punked when Clinton offered him a plum Senate perk should she win.”
Again pressed on how Clinton got the verbatim debate questions discovered in the hacking of Clinton apparatchik John Podesta, Brazile stiffened her back and dealt the integrity card. “Well, Kelly, since I play straight up, and I play straight up with you, I did not receive any questions from CNN. Let’s just be very clear.”
Which was a Clintonesque fib. She may have received the questions from a CNN debate “partner”. But as the debate was a CNN production, they have to take responsibility for one of their contracted employees slipping the former Secretary of State a gift. Needless to say, Clinton’s wind therapists eagerly accepted the ill-gotten Brazile intel.
Poor Bernie Sanders never knew what hit him. But in true 2016 form, the agitated socialist dummied up on how he’d been punked when Clinton offered him a plum Senate perk should she win.
CNN’s president Jeff Zucker has reportedly described Brazile’s actions as “unethical” and that her behaviour was “disgusting”. (Meanwhile he’s still paying former Trump flack Corey Lewandowski as “a contributor”.) Why you’d almost think from the way he talked that the whole process was rigged.
Which is rich, as CNN has spent the better part of the fall eviscerating Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the election process is indeed rigged. Most Beltway boffins on CNN or MSNBC panels took this to mean the verbally impaired Trump was saying the polling places and machines were the problem. Little did they realize that Trump was saying that they, the chattering classes, were the greatest corruption in the election.
As a dazed public gets a peek at how they make sausage in Washington, D.C., the Brazile episode functions as a perfect distillation of Entitlement Incorporated, the biggest issue of this election. Political mandarins such as Clinton getting special favours from insiders. Race/ gender/ privilege cards dealt like it was a casino. Media stalwarts pulling punches. And, most critically, no one held to account for any of it.
In fact, president Obama had fulsome praise for the double-dealing, entitled standard bearer for his party. The president, said Obama’s echo chamber Josh Earnest, considers Donna Brazile a woman of integrity and honesty. No wonder Wisconsin governor Scott Walker tweeted, “If you liked past 8 years, you might be a liberal elite living off of the federal government in & around Washington. @TheDemocrats".
Trump is less forgiving of Brazile than Obama. It’s understandable the NYC blowhard might be peeved. While he’s been forced to weather the establishment manure storm without an umbrella, his opponent Hillary has the kindness of strangers to shield her from the products of her reckless behaviour. See the small army now mobilized to protect her from Emailgate Part Deux.
(For more examples of Clinton getting the breaks see Sharyl Atkisson’s timeline on the Email Imbroglio: https://sharylattkisson.com/the-clearest-no-spin-summary-of-fbi-report-on-hillary-clinton-email/) We should all have so many supplicants in our hour of need.
For her part Brazile still has no clue what she did wrong except get exposed by WikiLeaks. “It’s like you get hit three times,” Ms. Brazile whinged to the New York Times. “You get hit with the hack, with the fact that your information has been stolen, and then you get hit with trying to make sense of the nonsense.”
But that’s the point, no? The Martha’s Vineyard crowd can’t imagine themselves ever doing something that undermines the integrity of an election. Their hearts are pure, their bank accounts are full, their friends are hiring each other’s kids and everyone’s just got to go to the latest hot bistro in the Village. How could such as we be wrong?
Trump? The man probably eats with his knife.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy. Bruce is the host of The Full Count with Bruce Dowbiggin podcast on anticanetwork.com. His career includes successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports journalist, he is also the best-selling author of seven books. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald and the Globe & Mail.