She was a paid commentator who was never, to my knowledge, presented as a journalist or anything remotely resembling objective. That doesn't make her a "member of the press" in any meaningful way.

Good grief. This is a more ridiculous point of argument than what constitutes a remote road.

She was head of the DNC and employed as a contributor to CNN. If you want to maintain some fine distinction that she wasn't part of the press because she wasn't presented as a journalist, I'm sure I can't persuade you otherwise. But it's the same kind of fiction that the Democrat party tried to put over when it said it wasn't blocking Bernie in the primaries.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

It's not a fine distinction whatsoever: she was not a member of the press. She was a partisan operative hired by CNN to contribute to their political programming. There are dozens if not hundreds of people who do exactly that on cable news outlets who no one would ever consider to be members of the press.

A member of the media, yes, by virtue of her contract, but again, media and press aren't synonymous in today's infotainment ecosystem.

I'm not defending what she did, but what she did didn't violate any journalistic ethical standard, because she isn't a journalist, and never presented herself as one. She was fired because she used her foothold in the news business to help her party's nominee. She abused her position with CNN.

She doesn't need to have been considered a bona fide member of the press for people to universally acknowledge that what she did was inappropriate and warranted termination, or to recognize that this new media infotainment ecosystem is a breeding ground for this kind of nonsense.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

As long as the bar you are using to measure credibility is very close to the ground. Don't forget that he is, in essence, a prisoner in an embassy.

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I have a personality disorder, I don't drink coffee...

Alright. I'll accept your distinction between press and media. Does it make a difference to the overall discussion? The issue isn't journalistic ethics, it's the relationship between the media and the political party. You don't think it's a good thing to know that a member of the *media* was giving a candidate the questions ahead of time?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

That is truly comical, considering your post just before this one.

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#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

Hard to take anyone seriously who doesn't understand the difference between collaborate and corroborate.

IIRC The New York Times received the tax returns in the mail, not via hacking.

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I have a personality disorder, I don't drink coffee...

What qualifies as "credible names" for you? Apparently not the directors of the FBI and CIA and the DNI?

http://www.cbsnews.com/...n-and-favored-trump/

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

From who and how did they get them?

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#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

From whom? Don't rightly know.

http://www.alternet.org/...-leak-campaign-staff

http://nymag.com/...x-return-leaker.html

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I have a personality disorder, I don't drink coffee...

It's not an unimportant distinction, generally, but probably not all that useful here.



Of course it's good to know. Is it at all surprising, though, the way media has blurred all lines between information, entertainment, and journalism? Though I will admit I was surprised to see her given a role in the debate.

It was useful to learn that it happened. It would be even better if there were nothing to reveal; better still if it weren't a meddling nation doing the revealing for their own manipulative purposes; and ultimately best if we weren't more interested in conducting a circular firing squad in response, rather than training our attention on the actual offenses, both domestic and foreign. I can only imagine how the Kremlin is relishing our total ineptitude, or even the semblance of interest in mounting a credible and unified response. Shameful, really.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Somebody is lying:

"However, whether the Russians did so remains an open question, Comey said, adding that it was just as likely that the hacking was done by people who had no direct connection to the Russian government."

http://www.newsmax.com/...016/12/14/id/764008/