You've Never Had A Day As Good As Hillary Clinton's Friday

If you were too busy losing your entire mind over "grab them by the pussy" yesterday, you might have missed that Wikileaks published what they allege to bepartial transcripts of Hillary's paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms.

I'll save you the trouble of reading them: Hillary Clinton is going to be the 45th President of the United States, and maybe later in her term, the first CEO of Western Hemispheria Inc., if the vision she outlined in her remarks to Banco Itau comes to fruition (more on this later).

There is just not much in these transcripts to kill any stirring of the loins you may have experienced lately, as Clinton has consolidated her lead like a boss in the election's final month. Granted, to overcome or even match "grab them" as the dominant weekend fixation, it would have taken a quote like "If you want my honest opinion, it was middle class whites that caused the recession, I'm a gay Muslim, and if Goldman Sachs was a vagina I would rub my own vagina on it most vigorously, inshallah" to come out of these transcripts. But she didn't say that, to Goldman Sachs or anyone else. Instead she talked about anodyne moderate centrist stuff like everyone kinda knew all along.

The leak itself is a trove of emails to and from John Podesta, a longtime Clinton henchperson.

The particular email that contains the Bernie Bait is very convenient for us, because it's basically a Clinton staffer's summary of all the stuff Hillary said to the banks that could be fashioned into a club to beat her with. The staffer even writes the attack-ad style summary of the text he's flagging, like so:

*CLINTON TALKS ABOUT HOLDING WALL STREET ACCOUNTABLE ONLY FOR POLITICAL REASONS*

But then you read the actual transcript of what she said, and it's a big Nothing McVoidburger:

“That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in February of ‘09, so people could, you know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere. Now, that’s an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom. And I think that there’s a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on all sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening? You guys help us figure it out and let’s make sure that we do it right this time. And I think that everybody was desperately trying to fend off the worst effects institutionally, governmentally, and there just wasn’t that opportunity to try to sort this out, and that came later.” [Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, 10/24/13]

Transparency, openness, politicizing, yada yada, I took the heat for you boys when I was Sec State, you're welcome. Nowhere does she say "only for political reasons." That wouldn't stop Generic Republican from saying that, of course, which is the point of this email.

Okay, yes, there is some stuff that's a little riper for use in an attack ad, like:

"There’s nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry."

On the one hand, that sounds a little bit like "bankers please write my financial regulations for me," but on the other hand, yeah, sometimes it takes a crook to catch a crook. Bernie would have raked her over the coals for this, but I don't think this hurts her now. This kind of thing is baked into peoples' views of her by now.

Here's the part that Breitbart et al. are twisting their neckbeards about:

“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” [05162013 Remarks to Banco Itau.doc, p. 28]

I don't think Hillary means she wants to drown our great culture in a blood tide of murderous Others, as the white nationalists are saying. Rather I think this is more of a utopian vision kind of thing. Open borders won't be an issue if we also have "growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere." I don't think this hurts her much either. Everyone scared of this kind of talk has had a Trump sticker on their car for months at this point.

Oh wait, did Hillary beg Mr. Money B. Bankerman and his banker friends for campaign cash?

*Clinton Said That Because Candidates Needed Money From Wall Street To Run For Office, People In New York Needed To Ask Tough Questions About The Economy Before Handing Over Campaign Contributions.*

“Secondly, running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and it’s also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who were really playing chicken with our whole economy.” [Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, 10/24/13]

Eh I guess she's kind of suggesting they give to her? It seems like if the Wall Streeters she was talking to were smart at all (not that I'm assuming), they'd think twice before giving their hard-stolen money to the reckless morons who tried to burn down the country to hurt Obama? Those dudes did not deserve anyone's money!

Ultimately, nothing that leaked would have been terrible for Hillary even if it was the only story of the day. Her actual words in these speeches are so mild -- when contrasted against the common view of Clinton as Shillary, Whore of Wall Street, and the fear among her supporters that she really did abase herself before the big banks -- that I'm much more relieved than worried that these came out. These transcripts leaking (and being a lot uglier) was about the only thing I was still concerned about.

So thanks, Wikileaks, even if you were actually trying to claim Hillary's scalp as some sick testament to your own power, which you apparently don't have that much of to begin with because Hillary's still kicking buns despite Russia spoon feeding you their spoils of nation-state cyberwarfare!

(This also assumes that the leaked emails are legit, which they may not be, as Megyn Kelly was reminded on-air.)

My gut says she probably would still have won the primary if these had come out much earlier, and she'd still be in a great position to win even if "grab them" hadn't blown up on the exact day that Wikileaks dumped these.

But as it turned out, they WERE leaked on the same day that the Trump campaign was dealt what will be remembered as its final, fatal blow. And, as it just so happened, on the day when we got Hillary, Bunny Defender as a nice little dessert cupcake of "Yeah, actually Hillary is gonna be a fuckin bomb-ass president."

Have you ever had a day as good as Hillary's Friday? I haven't.

[ HuffPo (they published the whole email and I'm not linking to Wikileaks) / Crooks and Liars ]