For months, Bernie Sanders supporters and surrogates have complained about unfair treatment from the Democratic National Committee—only to have these concerns dismissed by media observers as petulance and conspiracy-mongering:
The Sanders campaign, by propagating these DNC conspiracy theories, doesn’t encourage voters to be vigilant. They’re encouraging paranoia.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) December 26, 2015
This weekend, Wikileaks revealed thousands of hacked emails from within the DNC that showed what the New York Times described as “hostility” and “derision” towards the Sanders campaign from top party officials.
Revelations that the Democratic National Committee was working behind the scenes to undermine Bernie Sanders led to the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. (cc photo: Gage Skidmore)
While it’s impossible to know whether systemic pro–Hillary Clinton bias at the DNC was decisive in the 2016 Democratic primary race, we now know beyond any doubt that such a bias not only existed, but was endemic and widespread. DNC officials worked to plant pro-Clinton stories, floated the idea of using Sanders’ secular Judaism against him in the South, and routinely ran PR spin for Clinton, even as the DNC claimed over and over it was neutral in the primary. The evidence in the leaks was so clear that Debbie Wasserman Schultz has resigned her role as DNC chair—after her speaking role at the Democratic National Convention this week was scrapped—while DNC co-chair Donna Brazile, who is replacing Wasserman Schultz in the top role, has apologized to the Sanders camp.
Pro-Clinton pundits were quick to dismiss what was literally a conspiracy to railroad the Sanders campaign as nothing more than a yawn:
If you are shocked by the Wikileaks DNC emails, you probably have never worked in politics
Most surprising thing is how tame they are…
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 23, 2016
Whole thing seems a bit silly. Emails come from period where Sanders camp was attacking DNC daily. Surprising, no? https://t.co/Cz6c8GA6zq
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 23, 2016
So what was once dismissed out of hand—that the DNC was actively working against the Sanders campaign—is now obviously true, but not a big deal. This is a textbook PR spin pattern seen time and time again, what might be called the Snowden Cycle: X is a flaky conspiracy theory → X is revealed to be true → X is totally obvious and not newsworthy.
Instead, Clinton partisans decided to focus on the alleged Russian links behind the DNC hack. Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall (7/23/16) released a rather paranoid rundown the day of the leaks on how Putin was conspiring with Trump (a fairly good debunking of which can be found here), soon after dismissing the substance of the leaks as Russian propaganda white noise. Many soon followed suit: The DNC leaks as Russian spy operation was the preferred talking point of the day, omitting or glossing over what the leaks actually entailed.
The actual culpability of Russia for those leaks, it’s worth noting, is still unproven. The only three parties that have audited the hack are contractors for the US government, and the DNC’s initial story has since changed considerably. At first the DNC (and by extension their security firm CrowdStrike) said ”no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken,” but this later turned out not to be true at all.
Six weeks since the hack was first revealed by the Washington Post (6/14/16), no one in the US government, including the FBI and White House (who have reportedly reviewed the situation in detail), have implicated or even suggested Russian involvement in the leak–neither on the record nor anonymously. Thus far, all suggestions to this effect have taken place outside the organs of the United States government — a common and deliberate conflation that even led to this correction in the Vox recap of the situation (7/23/16):
Correction: I misread the Washington Post‘s story on last month’s DNC hack and misattributed the Russia link to the US government rather than independent security researchers.
Thus far, the Obama administration has avoided any such claims. Indeed, if one reads carefully, so have the security firms in question. Buried in the followup report by the Washington Post (6/20/16) alleging “confirmation” of Russian involvement is the admission by the three firms (the “experts” Clinton’s camp refers to) that they cannot be sure WikiLeaks’ alleged source Guccifer 2.0 is Russian, let alone an agent of “Putin”:
Analysts suspect but don’t have hard evidence that Guccifer 2.0 is, in fact, part of one of the Russian groups who hacked the DNC….
It is also possible, researchers said, that someone else besides the Russians were inside the DNC’s network and had access to the same documents.
The evidence typically cited to counter this discrepancy is from an alleged chat Guccifer 2.0 had with Vice (6/16/16) showing fingerprints of a Russian plot. But the two pieces of evidence in question–that Russian metadata was left on the files and the person in question couldn’t speak native Romanian–raise more questions than they answer. If this was such a high-level FSB plot, why couldn’t the once legendary “KGB” scrub routine metadata, or find someone who speaks native Romanian? Either Russia is an omnipotent threat wielding its influence over the US and Europe’s otherwise pristine body politic, or they’re a bunch of incompetent bumbling idiots. Meanwhile, actual evidence for Russia’s involvement, as Vox notes, remains elusive.
The DNC’s interest in painting this as a Russian plot also bears mentioning. Around the same time this was going down, Bloomberg (6/22/16) suggested the DNC itself was looking to play up the Russian espionage angle as a means of obfuscating what they knew would be “embarrassing revelations”:
A spokesman for Baker & McKenzie didn’t respond to requests for comment. DNC spokesman Luis Miranda said the party worked only with CrowdStrike and the law firm Perkins Coie.
If the Democrats can show the hidden hand of Russian intelligence agencies, they believe that voter outrage will probably outweigh any embarrassing revelations, a person familiar with the party’s thinking said.
This strategy, as explained by a DNC insider a month ago, is now playing out exactly as predicted: The “outrage” over Russia’s “hidden hand” is being used to outweigh the damning substance of the leak itself. Parlay this with the recent uptick in “Trump as Putin puppet” conspiracy takes, and what you have is a clear picture of a partisan media that would rather float pitches for a Manchurian Candidate reboot than confront the repeated attempts by an ostensibly neutral DNC to undermine one candidate in favor of another.
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
Such a deceptive title on this article by Adam Johnson. FAIR joins Bernie voters in saying this sub rosa campaign against Bernie was “a big deal”–even if mainstream media pooh-pood it or ignored it.
Now blaming the Russians? Gimme a break!
I don’t buy this attempt to placate or gaslight Bernie supporters.
There were all kinds of forces arrayed against Sanders. Bernie
was not even covered in the media, and double that in the South.
I don’t think you read the article.
thank you fair.org – Do not worry truth and justice prevails. Trump has broad shoulders and a huge heart and we welcome everyone to join the trump train with open arms. He is a huge norman vincent peale fan and we are all committed to making america great again. The Obama administration has deported a huge amount of people – more than double the previous administration. The corrupt elite lied about Bernie, they lied about trump and as this article points out they demean and attack those that don’t agree with them. If we want to have a democracy and not a polyarchy we need to stand up and fight – rather than sell out like bernie did. I have never been so proud of my daughter and other bernie supporters for standing up against these sleazy corrupt rich lawyers and politicians. Lets make America great again trump 2016
The average American is basically the equivalent of a battered wife who makes excuses for her husband. Just how much information needs to come out clearly showing the corruption of this two-party system before we say enough? It’s past time for us to take off our rose colored glasses. It’s long past time to stop settling for the lesser of two evils. Every American should be outraged by the content of this leak, but we’ll shrug it off, vote for Clintrump, and keep our attention focused on the Kardasians and Pokemon Go.
Best comment I’ve read in a very long time.
I agree. We have been suckers of an illusion of a two-party system. It’s been interesting to see politicians take up sides because I’m not even sure they know which side is which anymore.
The low info rubes don’t care. As long as there team wins. This is nothing more than cheerleading a spectator sport to them. The vast majority of Clinton supporters are no more sophisticated or intelligent than your average tea party gasbag.
Reads as if written by or for the DNC! Congrats.
WE MUST DEMAND #SpecialProsecutor (s) For The #DNCFraud & Clinton Financial Dealings.
How WE Respond Now Will Determine OUR Future!
If We pretend this is ‘no big deal’ We Will Be Further Victimized By These Corrupt and Abusive members of the Establishment/Oligarchy!
#GoGreen These Crimes combined with Trump idiocy Just Made A Third Party Candidate Win Inevitable!
Don’t worry, the author and the various people quoted by Twitter defintely are not Hillary voters, desperately attempting to spin a wretched situation. HAHAHA! This “article” is downright pathetic. The motives, so painfully obvious.
This article is the exact opposite of that though?
I love FAIR. But this is a non-story. We’re supposed to be surprised that the DNC worked to coronate a machine candidate? Since at least Slick Willie’s triangulations, that has been the raison d’etre for the DNC. Or perhaps even when Carter was feting the Shah at the White House contemporaneously with encouraging a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan so it could set loose the mujahideen jihad. You know, because secret police and murdering and torturing are what America stand for. Not openly of course. Only in practice, preferable in the shadows.
No one is surprised. The point is they denied they were doing it over and over. Then of course when it comes out they were doing it they try and pretend it wasn’t a big deal. That’s the point.
Thank you for correcting, potshot. It needed to be done. People who use that type of peel away all the layers of the onion logic often forget how bad it stinks at its core.
Well done.
Right, and if they didn’t think that favoring one candidate over another was wrong, why did they deny it over and over? Obviously, they knew it was wrong.
No one said you are supposed to be surprised. This is the most common thing said after large data set leaks which are becoming more and more common. The sarcastic “Is this surprising?” or “How shocking?” is not the point. The well informed electorate is not surprised of course, but an opaque system cannot be reformed without transparency. This transparency means previous claims by the DNC and it’s various appendages and surrogates will not longer hold water officially, and either new claims will be manufactured or the truth will be acknowledged. It means it is more difficult for DNC operatives to function in the shadows now that there is more light.
Sure some people are surprised – and you can ridicule them if it makes you feel smart. But most people are not surprised or shocked – this is what political realignment and reform actually feels like. Are you surprised?
I wish that weren’t true. I’m told that wishing for a thing doesn’t make it true, though. Humans are a nasty lot and democratic politics, by necessity, if fueled by the people. We have a lot of nasty people who believe in some nasty things (or so each of our side’s think) and can’t come together anymore on anything. This is the boxing ring in which hitting below the belt is part of the game. Dems now have a candidate who isn’t flinching so hard when hit below the belt, though. haha. This is exactly the kind of prize fight USA has always loved watching. You know what Murphy’s Correlation says? “The race is not always to the fastest, or the fight to the strongest, but that’s the way to bet.”
Can we stop saying the DNC tried to use his “secular Judaism” against him, with this unsettling veiled air of sinister boogeyman anti-semitism. The emails were clear that it was indeed his atheism and not his Judaism that would be unsettling to voters. A minor difference, perhaps, but wholly different in tone and implication.
“A minor difference, perhaps, but wholly different in tone and implication.”
No, not really. Just to your thinking.
“Can we stop saying the DNC tried to use his “secular Judaism” against him, with this unsettling veiled air of sinister boogeyman anti-semitism.”
You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Dermie? Sorry to disappoint you, but unlike Hillary-bots, we will not cooperate with (which is to say, submit to) the DNC’s efforts to brainwash folks.
Let me clear matters up for you. The email in question was a direct reference to perceived (and possibly even hoped for) anti-Semitism in some cohort of Southern Christian voters, and that these same voters also hate Atheists. But since they hate Atheists MORE than they hate Jews the DNC could take advantage of that as a means to attack Sanders and undercut his campaign. Sanders is a “two-fer”: in a non-religious Jew the DNC saw a target-rich environment.
In other words, the DNC strategy would be to appeal to religious bigotry to help one candidate against another.
With every crime it commits against the progressive base, the DNC helps to insure a Trump victory.
Nice going, folks, nice going.
Not so fast on the Brad Marshall email. There is nothig indicating this has anything to do with getting votes or strategizing against Sanders: Brad Marshall is the CFO of the DNC. A Chief Financial Officer wouldn’t have anything to do with determining candidate strategy in regard to elections.They have neither the time nor the expertise.
Its just as likely they were talking about getting him to say he’s Jewish rather than atheist because people (even Democrats) in WVA and KY would be much more likely to *donate* to the DNC for a candidate who identifies as Jewish than one who says he is an athiest.
Thats the problem with this whole story- there’s no context to any of these emails. Without that anyone reading them is forced to fill it in and *of course* confirmation bias comes into play.
The answer to all of Fair’s security questions is seven–you’re welcome.
Anyone else disappointed in how much of a Hillary apologist Josh Marshall turned out to be?
He blamed Bernie for what happened in Nevada–the supposed chair throwing, not the corrupt DNC maneuvers. He wrote that it comes from the “Top down.”
Well, Josh, I am no longer reading TPM, which I started reading daily back when W was Czar. The brown shirts on that site pounce on any uncharitable mention of HRC. It comes from the top down, Josh.
Will FAIR be updating their piece to explain how all are now reporting with info and sourcing (not just DNC spin) on the Russian element they were so dismissive of. Wouldn’t that be FAIR??!?!
So suddenly conspiracy is a real thing at FAIR?
Where have you been on those 28 PAGES, now released, directly linking Saudi intelligence agents to the 9/11 attacks? Is that also “no big deal” because that’s the government’s line?
Treason is actually a big deal.
Murdering 3000 in order to expand an empire and murder millions more is a big deal.
The ongoing cover-up is a big deal.
CIA hiding hijackers from FBI is a big deal.
Why no fairness or accuracy on that big deal?
The 28 pages do not “directly link Saudi intelligence agents to the 9/11 attacks.” I have seen zero proof of the government of Saudi Arabia “financing the 9/11 attacks” and it would make no sense at all for them to do so. All this careless talk is a reckless path to giving some people an excuse to start another war on another Middle Eastern country. And we know that the government of Saudi Arabia was trying to protect themselves from al-qaeda attacks within the kingdom by paying protection money to keep militants away. I have not seen any “28 pages” people admitting that fact and dealing with the difference between paying people not to attack you and “financially supporting the 9/11 attack.” I see selfish people with an agenda like Kristen Breitweiser and others spouting their opinions recklessly YET SHE WAS AT THE 9/11 HEARINGS WAS SHE NOT? She didn’t hear this testimony?!? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHely2_KkC4 or notice that it was not included in the 9/11 Report along with several other references to Israel? : https://youtu.be/RTiNAVq65Cg What kind of devious person plays along with the suppression of the main motive for the attack just because they want to protect a particular foreign policy?Kristen Breitweiser and others think it is OK for the American people to be shit on as Israel’s agneda takes priority over the American people’s right to know why they are being attacked and killed?!?! WIth all her research she certainly is aware that the two top commissioners ADMITTED that the agenda was to protect the policy of US support of ISrael so references were omitted and downplays so that they didn’t “risk” the American people reassessing the policy of supporting Israel. What kind of people are these. And they are the ones shooting off their mouths about the “28 pages” while ignoring what we do know: https://youtu.be/bzYM9ZnWsnk?t=54s Can you contact her and ask her what she has to say for herself? Americans citizens have been disrespected and robbed of the right to know (the MAIN MOTIVE should have been clearly reported in the 9/11 Report but it dramatically downplayed and several references to Israel were intentionally omitted. Is this the kind of people Breitweiser and others are? They care more about Israel’s agenda than fellow Americans?
Nothing like mainstream mentality.
Buy into all the BS that is being fed to you by mainstream government, mainstream media and other entities in mainstream society so that you can go along with the mainstream flow and be a good American.
If this describes you, then you probably haven’t figured out that it’s also mainstream society that determines how you must think and what you must do to be a good American.
Every day mainstream entities want us to bend over backwards just a little more for them while they do all they can to bend we the people over forwards so they can service us!
Meanwhile, stay tuned for episode 2 of Hillary Leaks, Season 01 commencing in 3…2…
It was 7 emails out of 20k. It was no whoopi but the real story is russian involvmrnt to suggest conspiracy. Russia doesnt like the US. They would love to create trouble as they have obviously succeeded. Putin wants trump in office for oh so obvious reasons. And that is the real story. So our ignorant brethren. Wake up. Its not about leaks. Its about Russians hacking us. That is terrorism.
I agree, I think as a few others pointed out, if this is the worst of what was sent between staffers and not sent outside the office – What is the uproar about? DWS said Bernie was a liar. Well, her response to him calling her everything but a human being. She did not express her thoughts to the press. Same with the other smidgets of emails posted completely out of context.
Were the DNC staffers sending recommendations to the Clinton campaign? If any of the handful of “incriminating” emails were forwarded outside the office then the amount of outcry we have heard over the past week would be justified.
When we consider that credibility is the stock in trade on site’s like Josh Marshal’s TPM, he certainly comes out the big loser here.
And this holds true regardless of who one supported in the primaries.
Trump statedon his website that he would continue sanctions. Is that what Purin wants?
We do not that DNC bias was NOT decisive in shifting the primaries towards Hillary. But there are numerous lawsuits trying to find out, and the voters need to know if a candidate is cheating before those November Elections.
Bernie ended his campaign with the dignity of John McCain making propaganda films for the Viet Cong. After making his propaganda pitch for Hillary, he’s going to do want Trump said: “Bernie is tired. He just wants to go home and sleep.”
Something about this reminds me of the when CBS news anchor Dan Rather reported on a large body of evidence that George W. Bush went AWOL during his military service. One small piece of that evidence turned out to be fabricated. What story did the American media focus on? Dan Rather’s negligence to verify the fabricated piece of evidence. Why the focus wasn’t on Bush’s AWOL flabbergastted me.
So now the story isn’t about the DNC’s machinations to prevent a non-establishment candidate from becoming a viable candidate, but rather on the questionable assertion that the evil Russians are trying to influence American elections. Moreover, even if the Russians are trying influence the outcome of an American election,,, well…, pot…. kettle…. black.
What’s more, the Clinton campaign and it’s media allies have seized on the unfounded allegation to connect a bunch of nebulous “dots” to paint Trump as “Putin’s man”, when in fact it was the Clinton’s that engineered a deal through their foundation in partnership with it’s, some might say, Canadian money launderer, Frank Giustra when Hillary was serving the State Dept. that resulted in Russia acquiring 20% of the entire US’s uranium production capacity.
What the emails revealed really is “politics as usual,” and in that sense only a “big deal” to people who lack background in politics. Does it need to be addressed? Of course. However, in the list of priorities, it would seem more important to continue investigating the many allegations of election fraud and tampering, which this focus on the emails is drawing attention from. I don’t think the reasoning behind the “no big deal” and “Russians!” rhetoric is solely to belittle the importance of what the emails contain. I think it’s intended to keep eyes of the more serious problem, one that can be too easily repeated in November.
That the two-party system is corrupt isn’t news. Political parties are as prone to corruption as any of those in positions of power. That we now have clear evidence of how the current model of the machine works is useful. The extended lesson, though, is that if they can steal one election, there’s no reason to believe they won’t at least try to steal another; and I included the down-ballot races in that. That Wasserman Schultz is not happy with the success of Tim Canova is patently clear, and that’s not the only example.
I’m beginning to think FAIR won’t be happy until come January 2017 we see the swearing in of President Trump.
How else to explain the constant barrage of attacks on Secretary Clinton. I never read anything during the primaries that even hinted at anything negative towards Senator Sanders. You have completely ignored Trump and the rest of the Republican candidates. So the only conclusion to draw, you don’t like the Clintons and you will do everything in your meager power to see her defeated.
First the DNC and mainstream media ignored Sanders; when he drew larger crowds than Clinton, they acknowledged him; and finally adopted some of his policy proposals — and the Clinton campaign began to call itself “progressive”. The disturbing thing is that the DNC/Clinton machine is already scapegoating Putin/Russia. This does not bode well for our future relations in the world.
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