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Why haven't Clinton WikiLeaks emails caused more uproar?

People seem to be seeing what they want to see in the latest batch of emails, making the net effect of their release relatively minor.

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Julio Cortez/AP
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, pictured here at the Sept. 26 presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., has come under fire for remarks revealed by WikiLeaks in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairman's personal account.

Hacked emails released by WikiLeaks expose Hillary Clinton as corrupt and duplicitous, like you always suspected.

Unless they don鈥檛, and instead reveal Clinton as the thoughtful, pragmatic leader you support.

A week and a half into the WikiLeaks organization鈥檚 steady release of communications stolen (perhaps by Russian hackers) from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, their net effect appears to be small, at least so far.

Few political minds appear to have changed as the result of their content. Clinton supporters, along with a number of mainstream media pundits, see the emails as confirmation of Clinton鈥檚 sober and perhaps too-cautious public persona. Clinton opponents view the same stuff as bombshells that expose the rot within her campaign.

Veteran Washington columnist Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times judges that the emails reveal Clinton as a 鈥,鈥 for instance. He writes that they show her as someone with moderately progressive views who is ready to accept less than perfect results and even backtrack if necessary.

The emails show that Clinton did judge the Dodd/Frank financial reform bill as flawed, and that is was passed for 鈥減olitical purposes,鈥 Mr. McManus writes. But they also reveal her telling financial executives to their face that more reforms were needed.

Similarly, Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy professor Dan Drezner that transcripts of Clinton鈥檚 Wall Street speeches released in the emails show a politician who generally says the same things in private that she says in public.

'Open borders'

That鈥檚 not the Hillary Clinton her opponents see in the emails. In part that鈥檚 because they focus on different things. The conservative news site Red Alert Politics, in a post titled 鈥淢ore corruption and racism in Clintonland,鈥 points to a 2008 email from a polling firm suggesting attack lines for possible use against Barack Obama in that year鈥檚 Democratic primaries.

鈥淥bama (owe-BAHM-uh)鈥檚 father was a Muslim and Obama grew up among Muslims in the world鈥檚 most populous Islamic country,鈥 , which was sent to John Podesta, among others.

But Clinton foes also see malign intent in emails her supporters interpret in a totally different manner.

Take 鈥渙pen borders.鈥 Clinton used this phrase in a paid speech to bankers in 2013. She , 鈥淢y dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.鈥

Some anti-Clintonites take those last two words literally. They interpret them to mean Clinton intends to stop enforcing immigration controls and otherwise erase the line that defines the US as a country.

鈥淭he term 鈥榞lobalism鈥 was invented for this,鈥 said Steven Crowder on a video featured by the , listing 鈥渙pen border鈥 as his 鈥渘umber one Clinton email fact you must know.鈥

But PolitiFact, among others, takes issue with this reading of the words. Clinton has proposed policies for border enforcement, the fact-checking site notes. In the 2013 the speech she instead appears to be talking in an aspirational manner about the flow of business, energy, ideas, and other aspects of international cooperation.

Saying that Clinton wants to throw open US borders, as Donald Trump has also charged, is 鈥渕ostly false,鈥 .

'Yup'

Then there鈥檚 John Podesta鈥檚 one-word reply to a scathing criticism of the Iran nuclear deal.

Last July, aides forwarded to Podesta a slam from Sen. Mark Kirk (R) of Illinois, who said, 鈥淭his agreement condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf.鈥

The subject line on the email was 鈥淩e: you call it.鈥 Podesta replied with one word: 鈥測up鈥.

Clinton opponents take this as confirmation that Podesta, the chair of her campaign, thinks the Iran deal is a disaster. As they do.

鈥淲e can conclude that Podesta agreed with Kirk that the centerpiece of President Obama鈥檚 foreign policy, supported by Hillary Clinton, is atrocious,鈥 writes Paul Mirengoff at the .

Well, maybe. US politics has seen stranger intra-campaign policy contradictions.

But the slightly strange 鈥渃all it鈥 subject line and the lack of context surrounding the email might also indicate that Podesta鈥檚 鈥測up鈥 refers to something else entirely. Perhaps Sen. Kirk鈥檚 Iran policy was an issue for Illinois politics, since he鈥檚 perhaps the most vulnerable GOP senator up for reelection this fall.

After all, Clinton in her last months in office pushed through key concessions to keep the Iran deal on track. Podesta himself reached out to key opponents, including American Jewish leaders, to try and convince them of the importance of the deal, . Would he have done that if he thought it meant nuclear war?

The bottom line: to this point the WikiLeaks effort has been overshadowed by sex assault accusations against Donald Trump and the general turmoil of the Trump campaign. No clearly damaging information has emerged from the drip of email revelations.

The drip continues, so explosive revelations could still lie ahead. But if Russia hackers are responsible for the email theft, as the US government charges, than Vladimir Putin might be frustrated with how things are going.

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