On Tuesday night, BuzzFeed News reported the contents of private emails from former secretary of state Colin Powell. The emails, obtained by DCLeaks.com, include Powell’s judgment of Donald Trump’s campaign. His criticisms—among them, that “birtherism” is racist, and that Donald Trump a “national disgrace”—reflect widespread messages of Trump fatigue among the public; although Powell’s judgment carries more weight, his denunciations of Donald Trump are fairly ordinary.
Other emails, however, concern Powell’s actually acceptable use of a personal AOL account while at the State Department, which Hillary Clinton’s camp routinely cites as a model for her secretive private server setup. Powell has had enough. (Enough, even, to “throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton’s party” to get her people to lay off alleging he inspired her system.) Powell’s private assessments of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling scandalsinclude this gem: “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.
Nevertheless, in reporting the email dump, many media outlets have glommed on to Powell’s more run-of-the-mill comments (perhaps as proof he’s cool like us, after all?). Highlights from the tell-tale headlines:
Powell: Trump is ‘an international pariah’ —CNN
Colin Powell, in Hacked Email, Calls Trump ‘National Disgrace’ —The New York Times
Colin Powell Calls Trump a ‘National Disgrace’ in Hacked Emails—NBC News
Reports: Colin Powell calls Donald Trump a ‘national disgrace’ in hacked emails—USA Today
As of Wednesday afternoon, a Google search of the news found that none of these outlets had run stories leading with Powell’s comments about Clinton.
