Hillary Clinton and MSM Showing Why They’re in Bed Together with Book Tour
You shill for me and I’ll grant you lucrative access. It’s as simple and obvious as that.
Hillary Clinton’s latest cash-grab, What Happened, went live last week and the two-time presidential loser has been blitzing the liberal wing of the mainstream media ever since.
CBS, which owns the book’s publisher (Simon & Schuster) and pimped the book the hardest in anticipation of its debut, coincidentally landed the first interview with Hillary about it. She’s talked to “The Today Show” on NBC, including that dastardly email-questioner Matt Lauer, which sold its puff piece as Clinton’s first live interview since the book’s publishing. Those hard-hitting journalists at “The View” got the honors for ABC. Rachel Maddow and MSNBC got their turn at the trough. Anderson Cooper and CNN got theirs. Clinton’s been on NPR’s platform at least three times, once interviewed by Rachel Martin, once by Judy Woodruff and once by Terry Gross. Hillary’s even pushed out to the fringes of the MSM, granting an audience with former aides to Barack Obama via podcast as well as one with Ezra Klein at Vox.
Keep in mind, this isn’t an exhaustive list.
It’s limited to the interviews I’ve personally watched or read. I’m sure there are plenty more available, but it hardly matters because two distinct themes quickly emerged from the ones I did consume. It’s safe to assume these themes apply to any other book-peddling interviews given the consistency with which they repeat themselves in the aforementioned gang of 10.
First, Clinton is paying back her staunchest allies in the media with earliest—and, consequently, most profitable—access. Second, she’s doing so because they continue to legitimize whatever false narrative she’s pushing with a sympathetic, enormous platform completely devoid of skepticism. Just as they did throughout her candidacy.
Despite the claims of Hillary’s most brainwashed groupies, the media was overwhelming in its support of her campaign.
It’s absurd any contrary argument gains the slightest bit of footing whatsoever, but here we are. So consider that 500 newspapers and magazines endorsed Clinton’s candidacy. Another 30 endorsed “not Donald Trump.” Every major, national platform falls in this group except The Wall Street Journal, which refused to endorse anyone. By comparison, a piddling 122 went with neither candidate (like the WSJ) or someone other than HRC. Meanwhile, television and web outlets like CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Vox—where Matthew Yglesias, in particular, seemed to be auditioning for the role of her never-actualized press secretary—Politico, ABC, NBC and CBS were thinly veiled propaganda shops for Clinton’s campaign. Furthermore, this dynamic extended back into the primaries, when the major media outlets in both print and otherwise were constantly hammering her opponent, Bernie Sanders. Even as his popularity grew, they dismissed him over his deficit in super-delegates and his overly ambitious platform while pulling underhanded garbage like The New York Times’ stealth-editing fiasco or The Washington Posts’ overtly anti-Sanders coverage.
Yes, these media players covered her email story extensively.
They did so because they had to, because it was a gigantic and important story. It arose out of an unprecedented action taken by a Secretary of State i.e. using a personal email account tied to a private server housed in the Secretary’s private residence in violation of guidelines established by the President. It involved official investigation and commentary from the FBI Director James Comey, whether appropriate or not. Most importantly, it demonstrated two of Hillary Clinton’s most notorious flaws: Her obsession with frustrating public transparency as well as her almost-instinctive tendency to twist the truth or outright lie to her detriment. No, she did not turn over all work-related emails. Yes, she did send classified information. No, there has never been a Sec State who set up a private server in his or her basement to establish exclusive control over all correspondence. No, Comey didn’t call her “truthful.” The story wouldn’t die because Clinton wouldn’t let it and nobody else was under any obligation to kill it.
Suggesting the media should’ve ignored or limited its coverage of the story is laughable.
To suggest the media’s insistence on covering it evidences an anti-Clinton bias is utterly, completely beyond reason given how many legitimate and damaging stories most media outlets did ignore or touch on ever so lightly. Stories like the lobbyist infestation of her campaign, the use of Clinton loyalists as analysts by media outlets without acknowledging them as such, the compromising content of the hacked emails, the immediate hiring of Debbie Wasserman Schultz after she was forced to resign in disgrace from her position as chairperson of the Democratic National Committee and on and on. In many ways, the email story gave the litany of other Clinton negatives cover. After all, besides the right-wing lunatics, who was not fatigued by the email tedium when November finally rolled around?
It is no coincidence, then, that when Hillary Clinton came out of pseudo-seclusion to launch a media tour by giving highly anticipated interviews, she chose the media outlets—and, frequently, personalities—she did. They gave her such compliant support before, why wouldn’t they do it again?
And, sure enough, that’s precisely what happened. Just watch the interviews.
Facing stiff competition, Ezra Klein at Vox has to take the cake for most shameful complicity. The entire 50+ minutes are pock-marked with saccharine exchanges and face-palmingly false claims by Clinton made while Klein dutifully nods along. At one point, Hillary actually says: “Ezra, you’re 100 percent right. I feel like, uh, we’re having a therapy session right here on camera.” At another, she claims: “I am not someone who will say things that aren’t true, that will not take responsibility.” Later, she tees this one up: “If you give me money, you will know [where I stand] because I will tell you publicly and privately what I’m for.”
Not only does Ezra let those go, the camera doesn’t burst into flame. Amazing.
The entire travesty must be seen to be believed.
The fawning shenanigans and unwillingness to push back against even the most ludicrous claims repeat themselves in every sitting with two exceptions. NPR’s Martin and Woodruff were willing to ask uncomfortable questions and press Clinton on a few suspect assertions. Nobody else did so despite several of the most dubious repeat themselves in virtually every interview with remarkable consistency.
For example, Hillary frequently claims Comey’s letter on October 28th changed history and cites Nate Silver’s assertion at 538 that she would’ve been President but for the letter. As a brilliant woman and a trained attorney, Clinton’s use of the but-for causal relationship is no accident. She knows exactly what it means. Namely, that Event A would not have happened but for Event B. Had this been Silver’s position, it would’ve been a bombshell indictment of Comey and the election’s outcome made by a well-respected pollster
The problem, of course, is Silver didn’t take that position.
Instead, Nate opened and closed his piece by saying the letter “probably” cost Clinton the election. He spends the rest of it walking back from that tepid assessment. He couches the whole thing in the conditional, emphasizes the many other factors that hurt her and acknowledges her lead in the polls had already started to soften before Comey re-entered the picture. Such caveated language cannot possibly be interpreted as saying the Comey letter was a necessary condition for Clinton’s electoral loss, but that’s precisely what HRC does.
It’s a classic bit of Clintonian obfuscation. Hillary exaggerates what Silver did write to the point of deceit in order to twist the narrative to her extreme benefit: Despite all the other self-inflicted wounds, she would’ve been POTUS except for the last-minute, arguably inappropriate intervention of a third party and even Nate Silver says so!
Yet none of her interviewers contest the point or question it. They simply let her put it out to the world as unassailable fact.
It’s a pattern that has been one of the most enduring hallmarks of Hillary Clinton’s political career and it resurfaces over and over again in the interviews.
Another go-to topic for the former Secretary of State during her press blitzkrieg is a discussion of how unbeatable Donald Trump was in 2016, how she always believed it would be a close race and how he now presents a “clear and present danger” to the country. The last of these allegations might very well be true; the former two are certainly not. Sure, nobody on the Republican side could slow him down, but that’s more a reflection of the clown car full of GOP buffoons and retreads the party wheeled out in 2016. Trump was the least qualified and most reviled presidential candidate in the history of the country, maybe the world. He was a dream opponent.
As evidenced by the Clinton campaign’s own words and deeds.
Hillary and her hand-picked staffers worked to elevate the Orange Combover because of his myriad and obvious vulnerabilities. As Salon documented via emails released by Wikileaks, Clinton’s operatives identified Trump as one of the so-called Pied-Piper candidates while developing a strategy to increase his chances in the primary:
“We don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates…we need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.”
Trump was their chosen adversary precisely because they thought he’d be so easy to beat. An argument reinforced by Clinton’s approach in the general election. Contrary to her insistence that she always thought the race would be close, Hillary and her merry band continued to pursue a landslide victory via a 50-state approach right down to Election Day. That is why her campaign focused on traditionally red states like Arizona, Texas, Indiana and Missouri. That is why her campaign diverted resources from Michigan in the face of ground-level intel indicating Wolverine State trouble, preferring to squander them in an Iowa feint. That is why HRC didn’t step foot in Wisconsin as the Democratic nominee for POTUS after losing its primary by a sizable margin.
A smart, competent candidate would not ignore teetering strongholds in favor of charging into uphill battles if she or he expected a close race. She or he would not work to strengthen an opponent viewed as strong and dangerous. The words and actions of Clinton and her campaign belie the revisionist narrative she consistently pushes on her book tour.
Yet, again, none of her interviewers contest the point or question it. They simply let her put it out to the world as unassailable fact.
One final example: Clinton repeatedly says Sanders failed to work diligently on her behalf and didn’t convince enough of his supporters to come over to her aid. She compares his efforts unfavorably to hers on behalf of Obama in 2008. In so doing, she ignores over 30 campaign events Bernie attended on her behalf and that a larger percentage of her supporters refused to vote for Obama in ’08 even though all of her supporters were Democrats while many of Sanders’ supporters were not.
Again, none of her interviewers voice much skepticism.
So it goes.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed favorable media coverage throughout her presidential campaign based on the implicit promise of lucrative future access. Access she is now delivering despite the election not playing out as anticipated. Although a conduit to the first female POTUS would’ve been a golden ticket, Clinton’s profile and billion-dollar network mean she can still deliver the profitable goods if her fluffers in the media play ball.
And that’s what we’re seeing.
In short, the charade continues. Same as it ever was.
