© RollingStone
Advertisers love to remind us "there is no such thing as bad publicity," but the 2016 presidential showdown between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has destroyed that bit of folk wisdom.
Media pundits have been nervously chatting up a storm over 'The Donald', but all that free publicity has not been a blessing for the Republican presidential nominee. Since July, Trump has grabbed significantly more media attention than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, but the overwhelming majority of that coverage (91 percent) has been hostile, according to a new study by the Media Research Center (MRC).
Is it just coincidence that every time the Clinton campaign hits a pothole, it's Trump who gets his suit muddied?
When WikiLeaks performed the function once reserved for journalists and released a batch of incriminating emails against Clinton, showing she had used her private server when handling thousands of classified documents, the media ran with the pulp fiction that Trump was conspiring with the Russians to infiltrate the US election process. That unsubstantiated bit of intrigue kicked up just enough dust to conceal the real story (the explosive content of those emails, of course). But when the Trump campaign hits the rails, as was the case with the release of the tycoon's lewd, locker-room comments, caught on tape over a decade ago, Trump feels the entire weight and wrath of America's media machine for days on end.
When WikiLeaks released proof of Clinton secretly hobnobbing with Wall Street power players, including Goldman Sachs, the investment bank once described as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity," Vanity Fair opened its report on the news with all the punch of a soggy firecracker: "Now that a small portion of the speeches that Hillary Clinton has made to Wall Street have been leaked (...) it's hard to discern why the Democratic nominee was so fastidiously paranoid about releasing the transcripts in the first place."
Why not just change your name to 'Vanity Despair' and get it over with?
Politico also breezed over the emails with a scratch and yawn, with the most damaging comment being: Clinton's comments about trade "could prove controversial after Clinton dragged her feet in voicing fierce opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that progressives loathe."
The savvy site then wasted the rest of my time providing lip service to some conspiracy theories about a Martian invasion of Washington, D.C. that would postpone this year's presidential election indefinitely... Well, not really. But we can dream.
Instead, Politico made journalism history when it quoted Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin, a part-time magician who pulled a spectacular hat trick straight out of his nether regions when he connected WikiLeaks, the Kremlin and Guccifer in a statement that should be cast in bronze and put on display at some media museum as the ultimate 21st century specimen of political propagandizing:
The US government removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump's candidacy (...) We are not going to confirm the authenticity of stolen documents released by Julian Assange who has made no secret of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton. Guccifer 2.0 has already proven the warnings of top national security officials that documents can be faked as part of a sophisticated Russian misinformation campaign.It really doesn't get more insane than that. Oh wait, yes it does.
Follow Weiner, not Clinton crimes
Over the weekend, FBI Director James Comey, perhaps responding to a nagging voice in the back of his head that kept telling him 'James, Clinton may not win the White House after all,' gave America its much-anticipated 'October Surprise' when he said the bureau had discovered additional emails that may be connected to Clinton, national security, and Anthony Weiner serial sexting images, er, to underage girls...
Nobody yell BOOM! just yet.
Yes, like so many other past 'gotcha moments', the vexed American voter is once again being dragged kicking and screaming down a dark, torturous path - not to the Kremlin this time, or Julian Assange's ambassadorial lair - but rather through the Red Light District of disgraced former New York congressman Anthony Wiener's tragic love life, which is apparently consumed by an inordinate amount of time sexting women of all ages and pedigrees. In fact, just this past summer, the wild Wiener was caught exchanging sexually suggestive messages with a 15-year old girl.
Who says American politics isn't fun?
Do you see how this media smoke and mirrors game works? You've probably already forgotten all about Clinton's emails, which is exactly what the media would like you to do. But let's try to keep out eye on the ball a bit longer. The silver thread that connects the notorious Weiner to the honorable Hillary runs through Clinton top adviser Huma Abedin, Weiner's now estranged wife. As the highly dubious story goes, while investigating Weiner's rampant sexting habits, the FBI stumbled upon Abedin's emails on Weiner's laptop, "with initial data showing those emails went through Clinton's server."
BOOM? Not so fast.
I have some real problems with this story. First, why would two young professionals, who both live in the ultimate fast lane, need to share a laptop? It's not so easy imagining Huma telling her Weiner to 'hurry up with that illicit Tweet because I have to send the US Secretary of State an email!' I think the Weiner household could probably afford a second laptop. The other question is (full disclosure, I know next to nothing about how computers work): How can a single laptop - and especially one that is connected to the lap of a full-time sexting fiend - hold almost one million emails? It's those kind of numbers that boggle the mind and make me suspicious.
In any case, FBI Director Comey apparently had sufficient reason to be concerned about one or more of the estimated 650,000 emails on Weiner's sloppy laptop to take the extraordinary step of reopening the investigation he had closed in July.
This begs another question: Why on earth would Comey throw a spanner in the already overheated electoral machine with just over a week before the vote? Is Comey a glutton for punishment? My personal hunch is that the FBI Director is simply hedging his bets. After all, Trump railed during the debates that should he win the presidency he will investigate Clinton's "situation." he even uttered the word "jail" during one outburst. And Comey knows very well that Trump will probably not choose him to lead the next Clinton probe, which could get very ugly very fast (which is why, in my humble opinion, Trump will never be allowed to set foot in the Oval Office except in his dreams).
So by opening an investigation against Clinton, Comey is simply playing it safe, and will be able to tell a future President Trump that he was hot on the trail of sorting through almost a million additional emails. And in the highly likely event Clinton gets her coronation ball, the media will happily sweep the scandal under Washington's very large carpet (I should also like to add the less cynical possibility that James Comey, as a man of real integrity, may be just carrying out his duty as his office demands).
In any case, Joe Public will soon lose the plot of this twisted political tale long before the next Monday Night Football match. In fact, it would be no stretch of the media imagination for them to suggest that Anthony Wiener, aka 'Carlos Danger,' is in reality a Russian spy sent to the United States on a mission from Putin himself to upset Clinton's chances of winning the White House by Tweeting unbecoming photos of himself in his jockey shorts to girls not old enough to drive legally.
Banana republic, indeed.
Indeed, the cracks are already starting to appear in the overloaded media machine, which is struggling to contain - like some sort of crazed, power-snorting Jekyll and Hyde monster of its own making - the fallout from its disastrous effort to protect Hillary Rodham Clinton come hell or high water.
Exhibit One
On Monday, the wheels went wobbly on famed Democratic strategist James Carville's state of mind over the FBI's decision to reopen its investigation into Clinton's private email server.
Not to be undone by Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin, nor by the late fiction writer Tom Clancy, Carville actually ventured the opinion on live television that the KGB, which was dissolved in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, is hacking American democracy.
"We also have the extraordinary case of the KGB being involved in this race and selectively leaking things from the Clinton campaign that they hacked," he screeched through bulging neck veins and spittle.
"It would seem to me that the FBI shouldn't be getting rolled by the House Republicans, that's what happened here — there's nothing else that's going on — and in the meantime ... democracy is under assault by the KGB," he said. "To me that's something we ought to be talking about."
No, Mr. Carville. That is really the last thing the American people should be talking about. But so long as the mainstream media has gained almost total purchase of the election process, heavily controlling what the voters see and hear, we will continue discussing the Russians, WikiLeaks and Anthony Weiner's unhealthy sexting habit.
Long live American democracy, late night comedy just isn't what it used to be.
About The Author
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist based in Moscow, Russia. His articles have been featured in many publications, including Russia in Global Affairs, The Moscow Times, Lew Rockwell and Global Research. Bridge is the author of the book on corporate power, "Midnight in the American Empire", which was released in 2013.
Reader Comments
To respond to the author's comment about how the email's got on Anthony Weiner's laptop/mobile device when it is unlikely that they would share one.
It would seem to me that can simply be explained by pointing out that if the two were on vacation together and Huma's cell phone or laptop lost power she could just configure Anthony's computer to receive her emails in outlook/thunderbird while she waits.
If that was the case, every time he would open his outlook/thunderbird it would send/receive all emails from all accounts.
Thus he would have been collecting them without doing it deliberately until she changes her password.
Just a thought.