Though the words Clinton emails are sure to cause quickening pulses, the latest emails to come to light these ones hacked from Clinton campaign chair John Podestas account contain nothing scandalous, no doubt to the chagrin of most Republicans.
They do, however, provide a valuable reminder of something important about Washington. Its this: conspiracies are seldom true, and even the savviest operatives often arent sure what theyre doing....
Some of the interest in these emails will be just gossipy Chelsea Clinton and a guy from the Clinton Foundation were backstabbing each other! but what do they actually reveal? Well, theres a lot of back-and-forth between Clintons political advisers on how different issues should be handled. For instance, when she decided to come out against the Keystone XL pipeline, how should it be done? Should she write an op-ed? Just leak it to one reporter? Something else? Everyone has an opinion but nobody knows for sure.
It takes a mighty effort to turn this into something sinister. But some are trying, though....
Whats most revealing is how their indecision and uncertainty about matters like these shows that when it comes to politics, even supposedly shrewd professionals are often just casting about in the dark. These are some of the most experienced operatives in American politics, and they dont seem to know more than anybody else....
But most of the time, everybodys improvising, and even the smartest and most experienced operatives screw up. The best email in this batch is one from an experienced admaker, who goes on a stream-of-consciousness riff suggesting themes for Clintons upcoming campaign (all typos in original):
Neither change nor continuity.but The different way. The new way. HRC declares the old way of building partisanships flying the special interest flags. Is the root cause of America becoming the Status Quo. Nation where we as a nation are weak and a victim of change. No when we are our best. We are a nation of doers and dreamers. Builders and architects of the future we do not predict or fall victim of the future. We create the future. She champions with clear vision and grit. We will build not the partisans ships. But rather the Ship of State flying the American Dream flag
Have you ever looked at your hand I mean really looked at your hand?
The irony is that if theres anything that sort of resembles a conspiracy at work at the moment and we dont know if there is or not its not from Clintons side, and its a bumbling one. Russia (possibly) hacks the emails, passes them on to Wikileaks, who publishes them to Republicans glee, but when nothing really damaging is there, Donald Trump is left to spend time at rallies quoting from altered versions of one email, falsely attributing lines from a Newsweek article to the sinister Sidney Blumenthal a misconception he apparently got from either a Russian propaganda site called Sputnik News, or perhaps some alt-right chatroom denizen. Very few Americans know or care who Sidney Blumenthal is, but Trumps ardent supporters do, and know to boo and hiss at the mention of his name as though he were Haman in the Purim story. This will not, I can boldly predict, transform the presidential race. And again, we dont know whether this is happening, and even if it is, it seems more haphazard than conspiratorial.
Just to be clear, Im not arguing that Podestas emails arent newsworthy. Its always interesting to know what people are saying behind the scenes. The same is true of what we learned from Podestas emails about Clintons speeches to Wall Street firms which, again, were somewhat interesting though not nearly as scandalous as Republicans, and even some on the left, had hoped. But whenever someone tells you that theres a complex and wide-reaching conspiracy at work, one with multiple moving parts synchronizing to manipulate events while keeping itself hidden from public view, you should be very skeptical.
