Americans have always been for “fair play” and against cheating. It is ingrained in our heritage.
When professional athletes are caught using steroids or tilting the odds, fans are not amused. That’s why “Deflategate” was such a substantial deal. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was fined and suspended for four games this season for improperly inflating footballs in a 2015 playoff game.
In 2008, baseball fan and fashion designer Marc Ecko made his disdain for fraud very clear. After bidding for $756, it went up to $752,467.t When Barry Bonds hit a home run to break Hank Aaron’s record of 755, Mr. Ecko conducted an online poll to determine the fate of the ball.
Fans had three options: return the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame as is; put it in the Hall of Fame with an asterisk because Bonds was suspected of using steroids; or shoot it at the moon. Almost half of the 10 million voters urged him to put a star on the ball. And so Mr. Ecko did, using a laser.
The ball landed in a glass case in Cooperstown, a reminder that while Mr. Bonds is one of the greatest players of all time, he, uh, cheated. So the record is tainted.
Likewise, most people do not share the view that someone is exploiting the political system, especially if they get caught doing so.
That’s why CNN was forced to cut ties with its reporter Donna Brazile when it was revealed she had cheated when asking questions of candidate Clinton before her March 13 appearance on CNN.
CNN announced Brazile’s resignation on Oct. 14, three days after WikiLeaks released a stolen email revealing the leak, according to DailyCaller.com. Another email shows she forwarded the question to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta ahead of the March 6 debate.
Like many before her, Ms. Brazile, who became chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in July, has made a seamless transition from Democratic political operative to network television. A classic example is ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who was Bill Clinton’s communications director and senior policy adviser and who does interviews for Democratic sympathizers. The major networks, with the exception of Fox, are indistinguishable from the Democratic Party’s public relations staff. Meanwhile, surveys show that public trust in the media is at an all-time low. Coincidence?
The liberal bias in this election cycle is so glaring that even non-news buffs are shaking their heads. Ms. Brazile’s departure was a compact step toward honesty, and the media has countless more to go if it is to regain a modicum of credibility.
Americans hate cheating. The Bernie Sanders movement grew out of the mistaken belief that the “rich” on Wall Street cheat everyone. That, and the desire to redistribute other people’s earnings to the Free Stuff Army. Bernie supporters are still rightly outraged that WikiLeaks exposed how Clinton supporter and then-Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz conspired to cheat him in the primaries.
The Trump movement grew out of the notion that America’s ruling elites were cheating the country in a number of ways, from mindlessly importing millions of illegal immigrants to treating taxing the already beleaguered middle class as entertainment, all the while lying about their motives.
When it comes to brazenness, it’s tough to top Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who met with Bill Clinton on a plane and then let Hillary Clinton get away with it, even though Clinton was “exceptionally careless” with her private email as secretary of state.
Now it has emerged that Deputy Attorney General Peter Kadzik, a repeat Clinton donor and close friend of campaign chairman John Podesta, is taking part in an investigation into the emails of Clinton adviser Huma Abedin.
Oh, and this: W e-mail from Mr. Kadzik to Mr. Podesta titled “Attention,” Mr. Kadzik outlined “likely questions” to be asked at a May 2015 House Judiciary Committee hearing on Mrs. Clinton’s improper exploit of a private email server to conduct State Department business.
Do you see any conflict here?
Meanwhile, Democrats have filed lawsuits in federal courts in four key states, arguing that because Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee urged citizens to volunteer to observe the election, their actions could be considered a “voter intimidation campaign.”
Really? This is coming from the same people whose Justice Department under Obama dismissed intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party, whose club-wielding thugs were videotaped threatening voters at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.
The lawsuits were filed in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Ohio, where Democrats say the Republican Party is violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and an 1871 statute targeting the Ku Klux Klan.
As far as we know, no election observer stood outside the early voting stations wearing a white sheet or even a white suit.
But the idea that someone is actually watching the fraud drives Democrats crazy. I wonder why?
