The Zinoviev email
Dirty tricks and October Surprises are nothing new.
Four days before the 1924 general election, the conservative Daily Mail published a letter they claimed was written by a senior Russian Communist (Grigorii Zinoviev) to the British Communist Party. These were their headlines:
The letter made it clear that the socialist Labour government were little more than puppets of the Russians. The letter outraged and terrified the country, already in a state of red-terror. It contributed, at least to some degree, to Labour losing the election. Those undecided voters, you know?
Only problem was, the letter was a forgery. A fake. Possibly produced and definitely backed by the Intelligence communities of MI6 and MI5. (International and domestic, respectively.)
Any of this sounding familiar?
I am still puzzled as to what the big deal is with the emails. I guess I can understand the “carelessness” of a personal server however, just this morning on NPR, there was a story about the government’s aging IT infrastructure. In Pennsylvania, where I live, the state Revenue Department still uses COBOL!
Maybe government IT systems are not as safe and secure as they like to think.
I am legitimately perplexed by the frothing at the month over the “email scandal”.
I agree. And I agree with Bernie that really, we’re sick of hearing about it. If THAT is all you can find against her…
Because that’s all they have?
The Zinoviev letter was indeed a forgery an a great scandal at the time. However, many decades later, when the Berlin Wall fell, it emerged that the Soviets had been funding the British Communist Party in the hope of fermenting revolution. So, as it turns out, the forgery was telling the truth.
Not surprising that they were finding the British Communist party. But the Labour party isn’t the same thing. Well maybe some people think it is.
President Obama used a secret name/email to send emails to Madam Secretary at Clinton.com but only found out about it from reading the newspapers. It’s all harmless fun. No one was hurt, no one was killed. No one lied. They are all as pure as the driven slush.