Media starts its inevitable turn against Hillary

October 1, 2007

By all indications, Hillary Clinton had a pretty good week last week. She had another strong performance in a nationally televised debate; a New Hampshire poll showed her with a huge lead over her Democratic rivals in the first primary state; and the responses to the senator’s Sunday show performances were quite positive. What’s more, most fundraising talk hinted that Hillary would lead all candidates in third-quarter tallies.

In light of all this, it’s only natural that the media elite would announce … Hillary’s in big trouble. Consider this piece from the Politico’s Mike Allen and John F. Harris.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) last week flew into a sudden burst of media wind shear. After months of mostly rosy portrayals of her campaign’s political skill, discipline and inevitability, the storyline shifted abruptly to evasive answers, shady connections and a laugh that sounded like it was programmed by computer.

Clinton’s campaign attributed the change of weather to the vagrant attention span of the national news media, combined with the professional interest of reporters and analysts in ensuring a competitive race for the Democratic nomination.

But the intensity and sharp personal edge of much of the commentary was a reminder of a thread in American political culture reaching back to the early 1990s: the deep and mutual skepticism between the Clintons and the elite media.

Maureen Dowd slammed Clinton over the weekend, mocking the senator’s laugh and arguing, “Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar.” On the same page, Frank Rich added, “The Clinton machine runs as smoothly and efficiently as a Rolls. And like a fine car, it is just as likely to lull its driver into complacent coasting and its passengers to sleep…. Is she so eager to be all things to all people, so reluctant to offend anyone, that we never will learn what she really thinks or how she will really act as president? So far her post-first-lady record suggests a follower rather than a leader.” The NYT’s Gail Collins and the WaPo’s David Broder took some shots of their own.

As Joe Klein explained, “That sound you hear is the zeitgeist shifting on Hillary Clinton.”

I realize that it’s not as if the media elite gathered at The Monocle late last week, at which they agreed, “OK, everybody, time to switch!” There is no memo that goes out to those who shape the conventional wisdom, telling them that Clinton is up, so it’s time to bring her down.

It just seems that way.

Klein added:

It’s not just the laugh, either…. Whether you like it or not, style is an important question in presidential politics, if asked correctly. If posed incorrectly — to the exclusion of substance, for example — it can lead to the sort of trivial hen-pecking that so many people rightfully hate about political coverage.

You mean like the scrutiny of Hillary’s hairstyle? Or cleavage? Or marriage? Or laughter?

Look, I understand putting credible candidates through their paces; that’s what an effective media should do. Clinton is the frontrunner, and she is a cautious campaigner, sometimes giving the appearance, based on policy prescriptions, that she’s playing not to lose. For that matter, there are legitimate concerns about electability that are drawing reasonable scrutiny.

But the collective pushback from just the past few days seems excessive and shallow. Which has drawn more analysis lately on the op-ed pages — Clinton’s healthcare plan or the way in which she laughs?

Klein noted, “Clinton’s challenge is to show that she can transcend the food fight.” I suppose, but if the punditocracy would stop throwing junk food, the process would be far more illuminating.

Klein noted, “Clinton’s challenge is to show that she can transcend the food fight.” I suppose, but if the punditocracy would stop throwing junk food, the process would be far more illuminating.

Translation: It remains to be seen if Hillary can prevent us from destroying her.

  • The icing on the cake last week for Hillary was her vote in favor of Kyl-Lieberman. Just the kind of leadership we need!

  • The Press and James Dobson have a lot in common. For each, the most important thing is to preserve their own image as powerful kingmakers. The Press must always reinforce the lesson: we giveth, and we can taketh away. In that manner, they exact maximum control over the officeholders and would-be officeholders.

    Clinton should be scrutinized, carefully, and her positions should be tested and probed long before the general election and certainly before she would ever take office. But her neckline, laugh, and undergraduate correspondence? Not so much.

    And I’m not entirely sure it is a legitimate complaint that she is “playing not to lose.” In her position, that may well be a smart and legitimate strategy (although I would caution her team that I have seen many a sports team, and political campaign, try to stall out the clock and get away from what built their lead in the first place only to miscalulate and lose – in part because when you bore the Press they go after things like your hair and marriage).

    Finally, if the Press wants to complain that HRC is “careful,” perhaps they need to explain why that is a bad thing – and do so by comparison to Dubya and Cheney, two bulls in a china shop.

  • Maureen is right; Hillary wouldn’t be where she is without Bill.

    Politico is right; Hillary is a cautious self-promoter without any new ideas.

    By all means, elect her and watch her become a national disaster. We have serious problems in the wake of Bush II, and Hillary is not the person to fix them. If anything, she’s an enabler. Just look at her Iraq war vote and just recently the Kyl amendment about Iran.

  • Frank Rich nailed it for me.
    The vacuous pablum Clinton feeds the masses irritates me no end. I’d be doubly pleased if the media would focus on that. It would kill one in front of the others so they would learn.

    Death to triangulation.

  • I don’t know about y’all, but I’ll be voting for the first woman president, and I feel bad for the folks who will have to explain to their grandchildren that they blew off that historic opportunity because of some petty style issue.

  • Haik, that’s the spirit — vote simply for gender and not content!

    And CB, it’s not the laugh itself, but it’s what the laugh covers up… a real, honest answer!

  • JKap and Lloyd George –

    You are absolutely correct that her Kyl-Lieberman vote was shameful. But that only points out the problem with the Press. Not only is it unfair to HRC to focus on her laugh or her hair, it is unfair to the public – the press should be covering her K-L vote, which has been largely lost in a debate about her laugh. The Press should be asking her to explain it, and asking tough follow-ups when she answers. But it is a lot easier for the Press to say they don’t like her jacket.

    This is one issue that the HRC fans (hi, Haik!) and the HRC haters (hi, williamjacobs) should be in agreement on.

  • I don’t know about y’all but I’ll be voting against the Rethug nominee with whoever or whatever the Dems put up. Yes, I’d prefer it be Gore but no matter–how could they be worse than Bush? No sane Dem will stay home on election day. Of course, the Rethugs will do all they can to make sure they can’t vote…

  • I am not a HRC supporter, but, of course, I’d support fully if she were the nominee.

    What I think Rich is signaling when he compares her to Gore is that he intends ignore substance and to trash her just as he did Gore. This is why I’m not a big fan of Rich’s. The only Times columnist worth reading is Krugman.

  • Billary is everything to everybody, just ask her. She panders to the left while she votes with the right. (Iraq war vote, Kyl-Lieberman). Years from now, she will tell us she had bad intelligence again and didn’t expect President Douchebag to attack Iran. Her excuse on lack of intelligence on Iraq doesn’t wash because she was privy to all the facts her husband knew before he left office. Speaking of Bill, let’s not forget that he balanced the budget (by looting hundreds of millions of dollars a year from social security) and he improved US exports (of jobs by his uneven trade agreements). Of course, she is triangulating and calculating. She planned to run for president years ago. That’s why she chose to become a senator from New York instead of a senator from Arkansas. It wasn’t about serving the people of her state, it was about serving herself. Would Walmart have made her the leading Dem in campaign funding? New York has all the banks and corporation offices and years ago she planned to pander to them to get her financing for her run at the White House. Of course, they shouldn’t expect anything for all the millions of dollars they have given her, they were just being generous. She already admitted she will continue to take money from lobbyists. And you know what, her f__king cackle does grate on my nerves followed by the inevitable “Well” which is just another ploy to make her appear relaxed and give her time to plan her evasive answer.

  • wow.. looks like tko #13 has ‘penis envy’ in reverse. LOL It’s OK for ALL republicans to do all the things he hates in Hillary. Something wrong about that reasoning.

  • Maureen Dowd slammed Clinton over the weekend, mocking the senator’s laugh and arguing, “Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar.”

    Envy rears its ugly head.

  • Bruno @ 14, No, it’s not OK for Republicretins to do all the things I mentioned. If Billary, get nominated, I’ll hold my nose and vote for her in the general election because we can’t have any more f__ked up supreme court justices put in for life. You vote for your choice in the primary and I’ll vote for mine and obviously it won’t be Billary.

  • Hillary’s disingenuous explanation of her war vote; “I provided a loaded gun to a known idiot but I didn’t think that anyone would get hurt,” was the last straw for me. Her vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment just confirmed my worst views of her. When she and Robert Bennett (R-Utah) introduced a bill in 2005 making it illegal to burn the flag – a concept that even Antonin Scalia disapproved of as an unconstitutional infringement of political speech – my disenchantment with her turned to contempt. I guess that I’m not a sane Dem, Frak, because I won’t vote for her. I won’t be staying home though because my state allows you to not vote for anyone or anything on the ballot.

  • John F. Kennedy was the son and chosen political puppet of a rich, crooked Plutocrat; he was bigger on charisma and rhetoric than substantive legislative accomplishments the would suggest Presidential abilities; he ran with the elites including some of questionable ethics and his personal morality was even more questionable.

    Lyndon B. Johnson was a coarse, bigoted, hateful Texan and the ultimate insider’s insider, an authoritarian in the Congress if ever there was one. He continued an unpopular war and had little but scorn for the northern progressive left.

    Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist who wore his religion on his sleeve, favored nuclear energy, and took a technocratic approach to governing that made little effort to advance a progressive agenda. He faced a primary challenge from the left from Ted Kennedy.

    Bill Clinton was a “triangulator” (gasp!) who engaged ina variety of military adventurism and trade practices loathed by labor.

    What do they all have in common?

    They are the only Democrats who have won a Presidential election in my lifetime.
    And, they are all a hell of lot better than the Republican alternatives in their respective elections. And it is pretty clear that none would meet the standards expressed here.

    To paraphrase Schwitzer from Montana, there are two types of Democrats: those who are pure enough to please the blogosphere, and those who get elected.

    The Clintons win, the Clintons govern well to the left of Republicans, the Clintons appoint judges and justices who are much better on progressive issues than Scalito and Thomas.

    I understand preferring other candidates in the primary. I really do not understand the hatred that would intentionally help elect Republicans. But then perhaps some here would rather we hadn’t had any Democratic presidents in my lifetime.

    I happen to like electing Democrats. Even imperfect ones.

  • The media certainly does move in packs, and it’s proper–indeed necessary–to call them to account on their BS.

    That said, it’s even more proper and necessary to call a triangulating and dishonest authoritarian to account for her evasions and hypocrisies. If the press contributes to the derailment of the Clinton Machine–for that’s what it is–I won’t much care how or why they do it.

    The Clintons have substantially helped create this media environment, and they’ve thrived in its largely content-free ecosystem. I want the whole lot of them driven from the stage, and I’m just glad right now that the Dowds and Politicos and the rest have shifted from their previous starf*cking posture to something a little more critical.

  • The coverage of Hill’s laugh brings back memories of the Dean yell: the press’ personal destruction machine just kicked into gear.

    What I can’t figure out is if Hillary is such an insider, why are the beltway insider’s so scared of her? Though I have many of the same doubts about Hill that others have expressed, I’m beginning to feel strongly that if the Beltwy pundits dislike her, there must be some significant redeeming qualities to Mrs. Clinton. Anything that pisses off David Broder, David Brooks and MoDo has to have a silver lining.

  • ***bullshit tko*** that is just your low brow opinion. I don’t support Hillary for the nomination but I will support her if she wins the nomination. I liked her laugh, it was an excellent ploy and slap in the face of the sharks ambushing her with questions. It cracked me up because it was the perfect distraction and put the questions being asked into true perspective as all questions were attack questions. Hillary has already endured more scrutiny than our present “appointed” president ever did. She at least doesn’t appear at debates with an ear piece and being fed what to say. The process works on the basis of possibilities and it was always possible that Hillary could run for president and so she wouldn’t do anything to screw that up just like all the other candidates. Your scenario depends on a contrived fantasy plot. If Bush hadn’t been such a screw up disaster, in fact a horror show, Hillary would not even be running. Who else besides the dems running considered themselves viable candidates? By your definitions, they have all just been out there plotting away on becoming president and nothing else mattered but that. Bullshit. You’re just angry. I don’t support another corporate candidate either but Hillary is also very genuine in caring for the future of our country.

  • FRank Rich once again has it dead-on: “The Clinton machine runs as smoothly and efficiently as a Rolls. And like a fine car, it is just as likely to lull its driver into complacent coasting and its passengers to sleep…. Is she so eager to be all things to all people, so reluctant to offend anyone, that we never will learn what she really thinks or how she will really act as president? So far her post-first-lady record suggests a follower rather than a leader.”

    Let’s just recall which Democratic front-runner for President voted for Lieberman-Kyl, giving Little Georgie another blank check, this one for Iran. Not to mention she’s willing to say she will have American troops in Iraq in 2013 when her term ends – unlike any of the others.

    The one thing we can be sure of is that – just like her SOB husband – she’ll well represent the interests of Corporate America to our detriment (no solid protections for working people in NAFTA, China in the WTO, etc., etc., etc.).

    Triangulatin’ Tilly will never change. It’s why I am working for a 62-vote Senate and a 285-vote House, so we don’t have to worry which Republican asswipe is in the White House: Romney, Rudy, Freddy or Hillary.

  • Yak, yak, yak. She was married to Bill Clinton. Yak, yak, yak. CommiePinkoHealthsCare. Yak, yak, yak. Ewww, her laugh.

    Meanwhile it is still hard to find anyone who’ll criticise the fuck up in the White House.

    Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar. But then, without nepotism, W. would be pumping gas in Midland — and not out of the ground.

    I like the way she compares the president of Vassar to a gas station attendant.
    Twit.

    tAiO – VC 90

  • I only ever voted for a Clinton once, in 1992. I learned my lesson by 1996, and haven’t forgotten. Anyone who wants to know how Triangulatin’ Tilly will govern need only look at the trainwreck of her healthcare plan and – more importantly – her strategy for getting it done. She truly has a tin ear for how the system works (hint: rather than exclude everyone and craft her plan in secret, she should have brought as many “fathers” as possible into the mix, adopted anyone’s good ideas and brought them aboard, and thus had allies when the inevitable attack came). The comment above, calling her “authoritarian” is dead-on right, from all accounts of the way she ran her White House and now runs her Senatorial staffs.

    I’d really like to vote for the first woman president. But she’s not that person. JFK with all his personal faults and baggage, was the perfect guy to take religion off the stage (so long as we’re not talking about the Utah cult) and replacing it with competency and skill; Obama does a real good job of taking race off the stage and replacing it with competency and skill; outside of the “positive effect” of her marriage, Hillary demonstrates neither competency or skill and in fact she mostly sets back the work of feminism by her existence – she is not an “independent” candidate, but rather a creature of her husband, who can’t run again. That sort of thing is supposed to be an “advance”????

  • It’s an outrage I tell you when the candidate with the most money can’t lock up the nomination 6 months before the first primary.

  • I’ve wished for sometime that Hillary would say the things Kucinich does. For once I’d like to hear her say…”I couldn’t screw things up any worse than this idiot in the WH right now and because of him and the idiots who support him I don’t think I even believe in bi-partisanship right now.” If only she believed in Impeachment and accountability, of reigning in all this executive power Bush has acquired. If she would say we are going to have publicly financed campaigns in the future, and K-street lobbyists have got to go. We should be working with Iran not attacking her, and we should get completely out of Iraq and let the Iraqis rebuild their own country with our support. Yes, if only she would talk like Kucinich I’d support her in a heartbeat. The one time in our history when electability is not an issue, when democrats will win by default and yet that is all the press can focus on. All dems should just stop worrying about being cautious and stand for what they believe in doing…just like Kucinich…but we need to not hate them for their beliefs but nominate who we agree with. Laugh away Hillary, real or political, it’s music to my ears and disarms the bullshit.

  • tom, you’re mostly right, particularly on Lieberman-Kyl, but hillary is not the only one who hasn’t guaranteed no US troops in iraq by 2013. edwards and obama said the same thing. biden prbably did, too, if anybody cares.

  • “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahah”
    “Why do you laugh? I am just asking a question”
    “Hahahahah…well…hahaha..I just laugh sir.”
    “Do you laugh at us or the question?”
    “I just laugh sir”
    “But do you laugh at me, mam?”
    “Hahahahahahahaha…well…no…but I do laugh sir”
    “Well, yes, but do you laugh at me, mam, or the question?”
    “Hahahahahahaha…well, I do laugh sir.”
    “But why do you laugh. Is it the question?”
    “Hahahahaha… I do laugh, sir.”
    “But why, why do you laugh? It doesn’t sound genuine”
    “Hahahahahahahahahahahaha…Well…it should be obvious”
    “You are laughing at me, aren’t you?”
    “Hahahahahahahaha…Well, I do laugh sir…I do laugh”

    Wallace, Timme, Fox, Stephanopolis….Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. Perfect.

  • I am not a Hillary fan, but if she is nominated, I will go door to door campaigning for her. My intellectual purity is not as important as shifting the direction of the country. Her shift may not be as extreme as someone else’s but it will be a shift toward my beliefs. Any Democrat running is better than any Republican running. If she is the nominee and is elected, I will happily continue bitching about her policies. But again ANY DEMOCRAT is BETTER than ANY REPUBLICAN. If you don’t support our nominee and vote your equivalent of Green, you’ll get to relive the Gore defeat. That is much worse for the nation than the vote on L-K.

  • Hillary might win in 2008; there’s no way she’d win in 2012, however, and she would take down the Democrats’ majorities by then–if, indeed, she didn’t do so next year or in 2010.

    Jen Flowers kind of makes the point in her post: “If she is the nominee and is elected, I will happily continue bitching about her policies.” You assert that now, but after, say, 18 months of imperialist idiocy, no momentum on progressives’ domestic goals and more endless regurgitation of The Clinton Wars, will you still feel that way?

    Will you feel that way when Russ Feingold primaries Empress Hillary in 2012? Just how bad does a “Democrat” have to be for a progressive to want more than nominal victory?

  • I am not a Hillary fan, but if she is nominated, I will go door to door campaigning for her. My intellectual purity is not as important as shifting the direction of the country. -Jen Flowers

    You can skip my door, too.

    I don’t see how it matters if it’s Hillary starting another war with Iran or one of the GOP fools. I won’t support someone who will pursue the total war policies of the Bush Administration.

    Her vote on Kyl-Lieberman as well as her support of the Patriot Act and initial vote to authorize force in Iraq will prevent me from voting for her. Period.

    No lesser of two evils bullshit about swallowing my pride or holding my nose. I’m an American and I have a fucking right to NOT vote for someone who doesn’t meet my standards. I’ll tolerate disagreement on a lot of issues, but I’ll show up on election day and turn in a blank ballot if my only choice is who starts the next war.

    It’s not about ‘intellectual purity,’ and it’s not about voting for her because she’s a woman, Haik. It’s about doing what’s right for this country, and the country isn’t paying attention when they think that and enabler like Hillary is the answer.

  • There’s a reason the media is turning on Hillary Clinton, and it’s not because of her laugh or her gender. It’s because there’s a surprisingly large number of people out there who REALLY do not like her, and would do almost anything to not elect her. This is manifested in these attacks on her “style,” but I hesitate to dismiss it as some kind of petty attack on the fact that she’s a woman. I’d vote for a woman in a second if I thought she would make the best president, but it says a lot that I’d rather vote for almost anybody else in the world over Hillary. This inevitable turn against Hillary is just the panic of those of us who don’t want to vote for an inexperienced, smug candidate. Has nothing to do with her gender.

  • …I feel bad for the folks who will have to explain to their grandchildren that they blew off that historic opportunity because of some petty style issue. -Haik Bedrosian

    I feel bad for the folks who will have to explain to their grandchildren why they are still paying for and fighting a war in the Middle East because their grandparents blew off the historic opportunity to make a real change.

    But go ahead and decide your vote based on the symbol on the bathroom door they use. Voting record? Who cares about that?

  • The 9/29 episode of “SNL” opened with an animated skit featuring “Hillary Clinton” (played by Amy Poehler):

    Announcer: “The following is an address from the all-but-certain-to-be next President of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

    “HRC”: “Good evening my fellow Americans. A little more than a year from now, you, the American people, will go to the polls and elect me president of the United States. … And now a word to my seven fellow Democratic candidates for president, those I am about to defeat for our party’s nomination. I have so admired the pluck and determination all of you have displayed in what I can imagine for you must be an awfully discouraging campaign. You, Barack Obama, with your almost childlike faith in people’s basic decency and your near total lack of experience in government. And you, Chris Dodd, whose campaign fundraising efforts I have worked so hard to sabotage, often with violence or threats of violence. And you, Joe Biden, with those obvious plugs you seem to think no one notices. They are so very enormous and so very endearing. And you, Bill Richardson, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, but understand are part Colombian or Mexican, or something. And you, Mike Gravel, you dear, dear crazy old man. And you, John Edwards, you phony, two-faced, ambulance-chasing little rat bastard. And finally, my sweet, teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, miniature friend, Dennis Kucinich. Somehow, I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

    More “HRC”: “In 2016, when I will have completed my second term as president and will thus be ineligible to run again — unless, of course, the law is changed, and it really is a strange law.” \

    “Bill Clinton,” jumping in front of the camera: “I totally agree” (NBC, 9/29).

  • I haven’t forgotten that Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd were two stellar team members who did their best to attack Al Gore on baseless nonsense which helped give America its Worst President Ever, thousands of dead soldiers in a religious civil war, and a right wing Supreme Court bent on taking away our rights. Since they apparently liked the way the Bush Years turned out, they’re trying the same insignificant nonsense on Hillary Clinton. These kinds of writers shouldn’t be given a public forum in The New York Times.

  • Dean can scream if he’s happy, Al Gore can wear earth-toned clothing if he so chooses, and Hillary Clinton can laugh at a stupid question if she feels like it. Our country has serious problems to solve. MSM that worries about the cost of Edward’s haircut does us all a disservice and leads voters astray.

  • Zeitgeist,
    Pardon me if I am preaching to the choir. All you say is true but does not go far enough! JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs fiasco from the Eisenhowers’ Cold War CIA cowboys and was reluctant to second-guess the brass until the last minute when he refused air support for the invasion. Some of the survivors of the captured invasion force were part of the assassination team in Dallas. During the Cuban Missile Crisis ALL his advisors in particular Curtis LeMay of SAC wanted to go in and wipe out the Russians and Cubans. JFK held fast saying there are too many things we do not know about the situation. He was right! The Russians declared a few years ago that the military commanders in Cuba had the authority to launch Nuclear Warhead Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles into America if the US invaded Cuba: Total Nuclear War, anyone?
    I was in Keesler AFB in Biloxi when I listened to Kennedys’ speech. I traveled home to Moosonee Ontario, a Pine Tree Line radar station where I found that NORAD was on DEFCON 2, which meant that we had every B-52 bomber with armed nuclear warheads in the air, many over the Berents Sea on course to Russia, waiting for the go-code to continue on into Russia. Kennedy probably averted the extermination of most life on this planet.
    He formed the Peace Corps, an organization that to this day has seldom been accused of empire spreading, unlike missionaries and had few if any scandals to my knowledge.
    He also began the Civil Right legislation that Johnston was able to push through congress, while declaring, “we have lost the South for at least a generation”. He was right, but he caused the law to be enacted, anyway because he felt it was the right thing to do and was a man of honor. There is talk that JFK before he was killed, had gained enough confidence that he was considering pulling out of Vietnam.

    LBJ inherited the Vietnam mess from JFK, some of the more aggressive military officers who wanted the combat experience and the Republican Hawks. He knew and professed on a number of occasions that the war was going to kill his Great Society. He was right, it did. When Bobby Kennedy, a man of very mixed character and motives became a factor in the antiwar movement. LBJ considering the voice of the people, did the honorable thing and declared that he would not run again, thus leaving the field open for others to try to stop the war. He died soon after, of a broken heart some say.

    Jimmy Carter pushed for “Human rights”, around the world, to the scorn of the Republican Right who reversed this course as soon as Reagan came to power.

    Bill Clinton reduced the debt and presided over the longest stretch of non-inflationary expansion since after the Second World War, if I remember correctly.

    They were all men who had bad sides as well, of course, but when the chips were down they generally were on the side of ordinary Americans. I’m glad you like electing Democrats, even flawed ones. Democrats have many progressive acts to be proud of. Eisenhower was probably the last Republican who had a sense of integrity and honor.
    DC

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