Letters to the Editor
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Thanks for your input
I'll buy your argument that he has sent out emails like this for all of the time that you've known him, without any filtering or point - that he's sending out a list of significant stories from a given day, not filtering the news for people. I haven't seen any of these emails, so I can't say. And what's more that seems like a sensible journalistic practice.
I do still have some questions, though, and I'm hoping you might answer them.
1. Is it really only "a dozen or more" people who get these emails? Seems like the author of the Huffington Post piece wasn't one of a very few, but rather part of a very wide audience. He lists 22 people who get the emails, suggesting there are more. Seems like a lot to me.
2. Does it not seem hypocritical to send out clearly false information as news? Yes, we can assume people are capable of reading the stories and developing opinions on their own, but when Sidney Blumenthal sends out a link to an article about how Obama's got a secret communist mentor it does carry some weight. Again, I haven't seen any of these emails, so it may be a thorough round-up of what's being written at any given moment, but I do have to question it based on the original article.
If these are indeed personal emails and not sent on behalf of the campaign then this is a non-issue. But you understand that there is a grey area there, no? Republicans often go on about how they're just hanging with their (rich, oil executive) friends (with policy issues they care about being discussed in congress) and nobody should be reading anything into that. Just because his friends are politically connected doesn't mean he's not trying to exploit those connections.