Suddenly the mainstream and conservative media press critics are
in agreement — and not just about the shoddy journalism at the
New York Times.
Now that they suspect Hillary Clinton is going down for the
count, they feel emboldened to say it: she is not very nice and
neither is her staff. Imagine. In particular they do not like the
way they have been treated. Tucker Carlson lets
on:
They’re awful to the media: let’s be totally blunt.
They’re awful to the press. They treat the press like enemies.
[Clinton Communication Director] Howard Wolfson’s always calling
around threatening people. Threatening people! News organizations!
They do that! People hate you if you do that. I mean, they’ve
earned the enmity of the press, in my view. They have. I mean, it’s
been hard but they’ve done it.
He is not alone. Dana Millbank of the
Washington Post, who
usually reserves his venom for conservatives, wrote a play-by-play
account of a recent press conference. Describing an angry exchange
between Clinton staffers and the press over the
Drudge
Report published photo of Barack Obama in Somalian garb,
Millbank commented:
The brief moment explained everything about the bitter
relations between Clinton’s campaign and the media: [Campaign
spokesman Phil] Singer taunting the likes of [David] Broder, who
began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was
born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning
over Obama.
Well, conservatives can laugh heartily that the media has finally
discovered the politics of personal destruction. After years of
training their guns on Republicans, impugning the motives of their
opponents and smearing the gals who Bill Clinton left in his wake,
now the Clintons have really done it. They’ve insulted David
Broder.
THE LIST OF NEW critics of Hillary reads like a who’s who of
liberal pundits. Their criticisms are varied and their tone ranges
from the helpful suggestion of Jonathan Alter that she should exit
the race in high style to Richard Cohen’s more blunt assessment:
“Should Clinton come on strong? Should she go negative? Should she
be upbeat and positive? Here’s my answer: Stop campaigning.”
Fellow Postie Eugene Robinson bristled at the notion
that unfair press coverage was her biggest problem, noting that it
“wasn’t the media that decided she should take for granted all
those states that Barack Obama has been winning.” Even her hometown
columnists Maureen Dowd had to remind Mrs. Clinton of “some truisms
of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy.
Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence
beats whining.”
And in words that could have been penned by any conservative
blogger, Frank Rich wrote, “This is the candidate who keeps telling
us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1.
Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin resume, but her
disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her
thicker resume is the health care task force that was as botched as
her presidential bid.”
THE PUNDITS NOW SEE the object of their great sympathy and
affection, Obama, as the target of what the New York Times
described as a “kitchen sink fusillade” directed against favored
candidate. Suddenly, the Clinton tactics are intolerable, dishonest
and, they hope, inept.
There are some lessons to be learned here, aside from the
obvious confirmation that the press has been enabling the Clintons
in their behavior for years and that this media revolt really must
mean the fall of the Clintons is upon us.
First, much of the reaction is intensely personal. If you treat
people like dirt, they are not going to cut you much slack, at
least once they are reasonably certain you won’t be president. When
the press starts grumbling this week, as they started to do, that
Obama is not as accessible or not as interesting to chat with as
they would like, loud alarm bells should go off in the Obama
camp.
Second, when a hated figure falls from grace there is no one to
break her fall. Many politicians lose and many stories are written
in advance of defeat predicting their demise, but there are few
instances one can recall in which media figures took such delight
in predicting, analyzing and even trying to hasten a politician’s
demise. The closest example: Richard Nixon.
Finally, conservatives should be under no illusions. We are
entering the general election and it would be nice to think that
the media, having thrown Clinton under the bus, will now begin an
exhaustive and probing appraisal of Obama’s record.
With pressure from conservative and new media there will no
doubt be increased scrutiny but the liberal media, having dispensed
with the villainess in their drama now has their prince charming.
If there is a case to be made against him it will be up to John
McCain and conservative media.
The MSM, for now, is done with attacking Democrats.
