Amongst the emails released by the State Department is the following, which was written by a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines:
Now, there are two ways to cover this email from Philippe Reines to Hillary Clinton. Here's how the Huffington Post wrote about it:
If you click through, you'll find a pretty-much-straight-ahead write up, one that takes Reines at his word about the "ogrish" men who "rolled their eyes" (quelle horreur!) at Clinton when she started nagging them about how little attention they paid to women's issues. That bold Hillary! Always standing up for what she believes in the face of The Dread Sexism. SMDH.
There's another way to write about that email. A way that, I think, is a bit more accurate and more revealing about life in Washington, D.C. Here's how I might cover this missive:
I mean, seriously: Philippe Reines comes across like a snitty little tattletale, a suck up trying to make good with teacher who squeals on the cool kids who were passing notes in class. He sells his coworkers out at the drop of a hat in order to curry favor with a megalomaniacal boss who harangues her staff over stuff they clearly don't care about.
The story here, honestly, is that Washington, D.C., is exactly as portrayed by the HBO show Veep. This is exactly like something someone on Selina Meyer's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) staff would do, the sort of backbiting snitching that political operators engage in all the time in order to make themselves look better to the folks in charge and to denigrate those who might challenge them for a position in the boss' inner circle. You cannot parody Washington because Washington is a parody. It is a city filled with people like Reines.
I imagine the Russian and Chinese intelligence services had a good laugh while reading emails such as this one after they intercepted them on the way to Hillary's private, insecure server. I know I did.