Hillary Clinton has convinced the media that it is biased against her, one of the great (and rare) successes of her presidential campaign, akin to her creation of the vast right-wing conspiracy responsible for conceiving a string of sexual and other disgraces in her husband's White House.
With classic chutzpah, Clinton would have us believe that in a campaign in which she has escaped the most basic scrutiny of her finances, her husband's business relationships and her claims of experience, she is hurting because of the media's favorable treatment of Barack Obama.
On the race itself, the media has time and again let itself be manipulated by a Clinton campaign deftly managing expectations, albeit in increasingly surreal ways. Only two weeks ago the consensus was that Clinton had to win Texas or Ohio by 20 point margins to have a shot at the nomination (at the time these margins still seemed plausible). In recent days, her campaign has put out the word that if Obama doesn't win all four contests this Tuesday, it will be a sign of trouble for him. Of course journalists, no matter how lazy or gullible, know this is stupid, but nonetheless, maybe in a failed effort at fairness, they now seem to accept that Clinton needs to win either Texas and Ohio by any margin. Suddenly gone is the original assessment that Clinton has to win big on March 4, despite the fact that it is mathematically verifiable that there will be too few contests after Tuesday for her to make up the delegate count if she doesn't put a big dent in Obama's lead now. This judgment has become more accurate daily as Clinton's superdelegate lead melts away.
Losing eleven contests in a row, mostly by far wider margins than anyone had anticipated, would doom any campaign (in fact, can anyone think of one major primary contender who has survived such a string of defeats?). Yet the media continue to portray Clinton as strongly viable, if not quite the frontrunner. Again, this is a remarkable feat by her campaign, and an utter failure by most journalists to accurately portray the state of the race.
Clinton has been able to twist these expectations because so many are still in awe of her and her husband, attributing near-mystical powers to their ability to come back from the dead (the latest example, we are told, was her narrow New Hampshire win two months ago). At the same time, she has set up the media as sexist and easily wooed by Obama. This may be true, but, if anything, this has lead the guilt-ridden mainstream press to soften its negative coverage of the Clintons. Nowhere is this more visible than in the complete lack of recent interest in the couple's finances: far more has been written about Obama and Rezko, despite the relative benignity of the charge, than about how Bill and Hillary have amassed the tens of millions of dollars that make up their fortune, starting with her Arkansas cattle futures deal and ending with his Kazakhstan connections. There is a rich vein of potential conflict of interest, corruption and misuse of power that the media should relish covering in great detail, but much of the discussion has been relegated to a few bloggers. A particularly opportune time for coverage should have been when Clinton pulled out $5 million seemingly out of nowhere, to finance her campaign, but we're still left to wonder how these long-time public servants have instant access to such sums, especially since no tax returns are available. In the meanwhile, journalists have been covering the cackle, the misty eyes and the pantsuit; Clinton should be eternally grateful for this, as it has distracted us from far bigger sins, made her look like a victim of the predominantly male political media's sexism, and rendered journalists insecure about their ability to cover her campaign objectively.
Of course, it doesn't help when Tim Russert interrogates her with that crazed look in his eye (he did this to Obama too, but it somehow didn't have the same effect), or John Edwards and Obama team up against her in a debate. Clinton is highly practiced at seizing such opportunities to prove her point: to this day, many credit her landslide win in her first Senate campaign to the outrage she fuelled about her male opponent invading her space and "yelling" at a debate.
On issues, too, she often gets a free pass, most gallingly on her empty and deceptive claim that her plans provide for "universal" health care. This is not the case. Journalists should know it, call her on it and report it, but it now seems accepted that her plan is "universal," despite the evidence. She also gets a free pass on the enforcement issue, which she has consistently refused to address.
On Iraq, Clinton also gets away with murder. In one recent instance, she asserted that Obama had decided that "George Bush wasn't doing such a bad job in Iraq after all." Again, this is stupid and yet it finds its way into the most mainstream of media, occasionally with a disclaimer that in fact Obama never said such a thing. But why is such drivel even reported on in the first place? In the meanwhile, Clinton's head is still spinning about an Obama mailer in Ohio that accurately questions her position on NAFTA.
Obama hasn't exactly been subjected to the third degree: this is not necessarily in the tradition of the US media, and he has skillfully sheltered himself from it anyway. But it is equally clear that Clinton has had at least as easy a time of it, making her claims of unfair coverage and of being tested and vetted sound particularly hollow. Much of the focus has been on what the Republicans will "do" to Obama come the general election campaign. A more accurate question would be what they would throw at Clinton, whose 35 years of experience include a succession of unsavory episodes and associations, many of them still unexamined, unexplained, and ignored by the mainstream media and the Obama campaign. Clinton should be grateful for this, but also fearful that John McCain would be unlikely to be as gracious an opponent as Obama has been.
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The strong to somewhat strong blues will go to either Clinton or Obama--or almost certainly given the very high Dem voter turnout. Winning those blues--large or not--isn't the key metric. Hillary’s high negatives will kill her amongst the middle.
Sorry Hope had to die such a premature death.
Mark my words, no matter what happens tomorrow, Clinton will win this thing - cost what it may - and the Republicans will dance a sweet dance. Can you say "President McCain" any one?
If a candidate is mired in sleaze, The Media should reflect that. Truth and democracy suffer when journalists allow themselves to be pressured into "balancing" every negative story about one candidate with a negative story about the opponent. It leaves the public cynically thinking that there's no real difference between the two.
BTW It is the Corporate Media. Named after those who own them.
P.S. There was and is a "vast right wing conspiracy that targeted Bill Clinton. That sex scandal was the ONLY thing they could pin on him after investigations ad nauseum. Just because I support Obama doesn't mean I have been blind for the last 15 years.
The Clintons have so many scandals past, present, future, it would be impossible for HRC to be elected to the office of President. Clinton supporters have screamed hysterically about media bias towards HRC, but I have witnessed entirely the opposite. Clinton has refused to answer questions about her IRS enforced mandated health insurance coverage and explain why the poor should have their wages garnished. There have been no questions raised about the Clinton's sudden 45+ million dollar wealth, from dubious foreign sources and business partners. Clinton's refusal to reveal her tax returns, or release her White House records is extremely questionable and worrying. Clinton has not been asked about her vote for continued use of cluster bombs in civilian areas, or her refusal to sign the treaty to ban land mines, or her refusal to sign a pledge to return constitutional liberties. Clinton has not been asked why her campaign has been funded by the same backers as Bush. Clinton has not been asked why she has more defense contractor contributions than any candidate, including McCain.
Clinton is a political opportunist, whose political career was born on the back of her spouse. HRC has consistently played the victim, manipulating the press and her ignorant supporters, when she is nothing more than a corrupt Neocon shill. HRC is more Nixonian than Nixon, and dangerous to the future of the Democratic Party. We are at a historically important crossroad in American history. It has nothing to do with gender or race. We must back away from the scorched earth politics of the Clintons and embrace transparency in Government and political accountability. Obama has championed ethics reform in the Senate, whereas HRC has simply voted lockstep with the Neocon agenda for the last seven years.
The media is once again is chiefly interested in "changing the narrative" every five minutes, and fearfully shielding itself from claims of "bias." And they're swinging the penduulum of coverage and punditry back and forth like crazy, in part, to keep people tuned in. Heaven forbid, we get bored!
What I want to know is this: doesn't half the country say consistently in polls that they can't stand Hillary Clinton and would never vote for her under any circumstances?
Has no one in the Democratic Party considered that visceral electorate bias (far more real than any media bias) and what it could mean to the party? Or the vast disillusionment of millions of new young voters, if they feel like the nomination was snatched away by the nasty Old Politics of the Clinton machine?
I'm very disappointed in Joe Wilson's column covering Sen. Clinton's misguided support of the Iraq War, of Paul Krugman's constant , surprising Obama-bashing and as you so articulately state, in the failure of the media to delve into the Clintons' far murkier financial dealings. Rezko sounds like a scum bag, who did help Obama get some kind of deal on his Chicago home. But the failure of Clinton to release her tax returns, and the cattle and mining deals by her husband, sound like far more extensive and potentially damaging problems.
Finally, the media loves that "comeback kid" narrative -- knock 'em down, send'em to rehab, and then gush over their rehabilitation. Suddenly, Clinton is a victim of sexism and charisma voodoo, instead of her own missteps, overpaid advisors and complacency. If we fall for this crap, poor poor pitiful us....
Hillary has perfected the victim routine. She cries in New Hampshire and when the media criticizes her for it, she uses it to show that she's a victim of media bias. She's been pushing this vast media conspiracy theory for months now. And the media, not knowing how to disprove it, feels the need to swing the other way. We saw this tendency for the media to cave in the 90s. When Republicans called the media liberal, they responded by giving airtime to people like Glen Beck and Tucker Carlson. Now the media has to back off on Clinton or else they look sexist. This is why people hate Clinton so much. She's not a victim and yet she plays one everytime she's down. As lousy as the media has been, they've been really, REALLY good to her. If they'd done their jobs, they'd be a lot tougher on her, and on Obama, than they have been.