Vincent J. Curtis
15 Sept 2016
CNBC is the outfit that caused its parent network, NBC, to
be barred from moderating any further Republican primary debates. The CNBC correspondents who moderated that
debate, John Harwood, Becky Quick, and Carl Quintanilla, acted like shills for
the Democrat party, and spent the entire evening either trying to start fights
between the candidates or disputing with the candidates with the fake authority
of a disinterested observer. In its
report of the event dated 10/28/15 Politico
headlined its story “Moderators lose control at third GOP debate: At
crucial moments, CNBC questioners, not the candidates, became the focus of
discussion.”
Although there are a few conservative and Republican
correspondents at CNBC, the overall bias is firmly on the Democrat side, as one
would expect from the Wall Street crowd.
With the rise of Trump in the polls, the scandals engulfing
the Clinton campaign, the “basket of deplorables” remark, and now her physical
collapse that revealed duplicity about the state of her health, the business network may
be starting to hedge its position.
Among the opinion pieces on the network’s website was one written by Jake Novak, a senior CNBC columnist. The piece revealed a whole different angle to
the hacked and released emails of Colin Powell.
It covers an observation of how Hillary Clinton actually feels about
Barack Obama. Most stories of Powell’s
emails concern his repugnance for Donald Trump and also Powell’s effort to get
Hillary from drawing him into her email scandal. Novak’s piece contains this:
From Jake Novak of CNBC:
“Far more damaging are the emails where Powell discusses
Clinton, her email scandal, her health, and her apparent hatred of President
Obama.”
“Even more timely are the references Powell makes to
Clinton's health in a series of emails with Jeffrey Leeds, who heads the Leeds
Equity Partners investment firm and is also a top Democratic party donor.
Powell is a member of the Leeds Partners advisory board. In one email to Leeds,
Powell writes that Clinton "does not look good" and is "working
herself to death." Leeds also weighs in on the Clinton email scandal and
added that "nobody likes her."”
“But the truly most damaging thing for the Clinton campaign
in this pile of hacked emails are the discussions about President Obama and how
Clinton apparently feels about him personally. Make no mistake, Hillary
Clinton's liberal supporters will clearly forgive her for almost anything —
from lying to the FBI to lying to everyone else about her health. But any
evidence that shows she does not like their untouchable hero in President Obama
will be the toughest pill to swallow.”
“In several emails from Leeds to Powell, Leeds says that
Clinton hates and envies the president in the extreme. Leeds adds that she will
sometimes refer to President Obama as "that man." Finally, Leeds
tells Powell that the Obama team wouldn't mind seeing Clinton lose. The timing
on this couldn't be more devastating — it comes just as President Obama is
taking to the campaign trail to help Clinton while she recovers from her
medical problems.”
“To be clear, this is secondhand information — it's
according to Leeds (and from his hacked emails, no less), not from Clinton herself.
However, if you ask me, it's still pretty damaging.”
Hillary’s contempt for Barack Obama – which if true is
likely returned in spades – is a new angle.
If believed, it may cause some of those who are supporting Hillary for
Obama’s sake not to bother voting this time round. Once again, Hillary is depicted as being a
not-nice person, as well as duplicitous.
The question here though is why would a solidly Democrat
outfit like CNBC allow such damaging information to see the light of day,
especially when Fox News is not covering that aspect of the scandal?
Perhaps even Wall Street has had enough of pay for play with
Hillary Clinton. They’ve paid a lot, and
it doesn’t look like they’re getting much in return. And if Trump wins, those hundreds of millions
in Wall Street donations to the Clinton campaign will have been wasted. Or, they may finally be sick of Hillary’s
duplicity.
Finally, if there is one thing more sacred to a news network
than progressivism, it is to be right about an election call. Getting the call right is how a news network
gains prestige among its peers. And
getting the call right is especially sacred to a network devoted to covering
the financial markets.
CNBC is seeing that a Trump victory is becoming more likely,
and has entered into the realm of a definite possibility. If present trends continue, with Hillary
sinking, Trump rising, and lots of duration left to Election Day, CNBC’s short,
out of the money call on Trump will end up in the money, and the network would
face the ultimate margin call.
Recognizing present trends is a way for CNBC to define it’s upside risk.
The worm is likely not turning at CNBC. After all, John Harwood is still working
there. But as a business oriented news
network, CNBC understands market forces better than most and it knows how to
gauge risk and limit its losses. This
piece by Jake Novak looks like upside protection against a Trump victory.
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