Where’s Waldo?

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Aug 2016

The Clinton campaign is taking a page from the playbook for the Benghazi Affair: Keep Hillary under wraps.

When the Benghazi Affair broke, it was UN Ambassador Susan Rice who was sent to appear on five Sunday talk shows to lie about it, and to relentlessly plant (as only she can) the story of the video as being the proximate cause of the killing of four Americans, including the US Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.  Rice knew nothing directly of the matter and was briefed (if that is the word) by the political side of President Obama’s National Security team, one Benjamin Rhodes.  It was Rice’s job to repeat the information and plant the story.

Hillary knew a lot about Benghazi.  She was fully aware of what was going on in real time as the affair unfolded.  Hillary was not the one chosen by the Administration to go on five Sunday talk shows and plant a false narrative that was to save Obama’s presidency in the election then about two months away.  The person who could be held responsible for knowing, and who actually did know, the facts about Benghazi was withheld by the Administration, and a talking Barbie doll was given a script, her string was pulled, and she was sent out to the networks.

Now, whether the cause of the killing of four Americans in Benghazi was due to a video or not, was quite beside the point.  But that narrative served as a red herring that drew attention away from the outrageous facts of the deaths and pulled the coverage down a rabbit hole.  The old and experienced hands who hosted the Sunday shows couldn’t cope with Rice’s relentlessness.  Not one of them confronted her and said, “I don’t think you know what you are talking about.”  Or say the same thing in even more colorful language.

Ben Rhodes’s contempt for 27 year old journalists is known because he boasted in print about how he fooled them about the Iran deal of 2014.  Rhodes has yet to express in print any contempt he holds for old and experienced media hands, but if he has any, the Rice incident proves that it would be well deserved.

Yesterday, another Sunday goes by and who appears on the Sunday talk shows, why another substitute for Hillary Clinton, her campaign manager Robbie Mook.  Not one host asked Mook in a friendly sort of way, “How is she doing?”  And then follow up with, “Why are you here and not her?  You aren’t the one running for president.”

The arrangement of interviewing a campaign manager is done occasionally, for variety, and when there is interest in the campaign of the candidate.  A campaign manager can say anything about another candidate: he can lie, make outrageous accusations, impute false motives, without his candidate soiling their hands themselves.  A campaign manager can be used as a sacrificial lamb, and they all know it.

This Sunday, Waldo’s campaign manager continued to insist on a dangerous Russian connection with Donald. Trump.  The connection occurs through the alleged hacking by Russians of the DNC computer and the alleged benefit it had for the Trump campaign.  Trump let Paul Manafort go as his campaign manager because of a story concerning Manafort to shady dealings with a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, but all this means is that Trump is being used as a Russian “puppet” in the race!

“We need Donald Trump to explain to us the extent to which the hand of the Kremlin is at the core of his campaign.”

“There are real questions being raised about whether Donald Trump himself is just a puppet for the Kremlin in this race.”  As if Trump’s denying it would satisfy one and all, or prove anything.  Besides, who is asking these ‘real questions?’

“We need Donald Trump to disclose all of his financial ties and whether his advisors are having meetings with the Kremlin.”

Mook also accused Trump of having ties with China.

Questions about the Clinton Foundation Mook dismissed as “right-wing attacks.”  (which doesn’t mean that the allegations are untrue!)

Mook also pointed to Trump’s apparent admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin, as if American policy towards Russia should be inveterately hostile.

Obviously, the old TV hands lost control of the interview with Robbie Mook.  These are wild accusations that, as tactics, are commonly seen during student association president elections at college.  Mook ought to have been shut down, or be made to affirm that he is speaking for Hillary and that she takes responsibility for his remarks.

Now, Hillary Clinton herself does have a problem with Russians quite apart from the failed Russian reset.  Hillary as Secretary of State approved a deal in which Russian oligarchs came to own twenty percent of America’s uranium production after husband Bill was given $500,000 for a thirty minute speech and $2.3 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation by these oligarchs.  This pay-for-play with Russian oligarchs story is out there, and if Hillary were to appear on a Sunday talk show and speak of Trump being a puppet of the Russians it would be too easy for the hosts to ask about her connections with Russian oligarchs.  With Mook doing it, the issue gets clouded in smoke, and like a squid disappears in a cloud of ink, Hillary’s problem with pay-for-play disappears.

Hillary’s campaign strategy of playing “Where’s Waldo,” and of sending relentless, uncontrollable spokesliars to do the Sunday talk shows on her behalf will to continue to the end of the campaign.  Hillary herself can’t make these wild accusations herself.  She would look ridiculous and leave herself open to questions of her own corruption.  Only if the shows insist that she herself appear could they force a stop to the practice.

Ben Rhodes’s contempt for journalists in Washington is well-deserved, be they young or old.

-30-