Big-time political writers are busy people. With all the blogging, the parties and appearances on TV, skeptical examination of widely accepted beliefs seems a waste of time. The Obama campaign has done many a time-starved commentator a great service. It has composed the story for them — that Hillary Clinton can't possibly win the Democratic nomination and is a horrible person besides.
But now and then, the liberties taken with reality reach a pitch where protest is unavoidable and the bias against Clinton becomes the center of conversation. A recent barrage of ludicrous assertions has created another of those breaking points. The writers at "Saturday Night Live" should have an easy week.
The latest collapse started some days ago on what is normally a four-star destination for good journalism, PBS's "NewsHour." The news summary started off with this: "Clinton's fellow Democrat in the Senate, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, today urged her to leave the race for the good of the party."
The "fellow Democrat" also happened to be one of Barack Obama's most ardent supporters, but whoops, they forget to mention that. For days even mainstream media were portraying Leahy, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and other members of the Obama team as "elders" thinking only of the party.
Over at The New York Times, columnist David Brooks purported to explain how "it would be virtually impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either elected delegates or total primary votes." And to buttress this view, he quotes two writers for Politco.com quoting an unnamed "important Clinton adviser" who reportedly said that Clinton has no more than a 10 percent chance to win the nomination. "Now, she's probably down to a 5 percent chance," Brooks opines. And to give his instant statistic weight, he dramatically repeats it: "5 percent."
Who, pray tell, is that masked Clinton adviser? Could it be someone about to be fired? Or negotiating for a job with Obama campaign? Politico.com has real journalists, and so I'm going to assume that the adviser exists.
But how credible is an adviser who would drop that kind of stink bomb on his or her employer's prospects for success?
This comes a mere month after the Times suffered a prolonged spanking for a story that suggested a possible romantic involvement between John McCain and an attractive female lobbyist — based on the testimony of two former McCain associates who were never identified. (McCain and the lobbyist both denied the account.)
Clinton's misstatement about coming under fire in Bosnia — whether a memory lapse or a tall tale — was lamentable. But the stampede to portray her as a consummate liar, as opposed to everyone else on the campaign trail, was an extraordinary media pile-up.
No one made a big deal when Obama, eager to portray himself as an adopted Kennedy, said that his father had come to the United States thanks to Kennedy largesse. In fact, the clan had nothing to do with it. Obama also claimed to have played a big part in crafting the immigration legislation, which even his ally Dodd said was not so.
Thank goodness for the independent voices that have called attention to the ongoing gang warfare against Clinton. The Washington Post's media writer, Howard Kurtz, has listed the particulars of the obsessive "Hillary-bashing." Over at CNN, the tenacious Lou Dobbs hacks nightly at the weak assumptions underpinning the agitprop that Clinton can't possibly win.
Why do so few commentators worry about defending their Obama-centric viewpoints? Because much of the public already has been indoctrinated and believes them to be fact. The Obama campaign really knows how to plow those fields — those guys are good.
To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
|
 |
Comments
|
6 Comments | Post Comment
|
|
I enjoy listening to many different points of view, and I respect your right to feel as you do. However, I do not believe that you give those who oppose your support of Hillary Clinton the same level of respect.
I have not believed you to be a fair and balanced observer of the campaign since your article, Vaporous Obama Turns Off Many Centrists (February 19, 2008). Your supposition, both here and in that article, is that anyone who views Obama as an excellent candidate for the top office must be both naive and gullible. Your authority for that point of view appears to be based solely upon your own opinion that another candidate better fits the role. Quite frankly, that perspective is insulting.
Many learned and thoughtful individuals make up both campaigns, and the party is blessed to have two such capable individuals in the running. This is far less about choosing the lesser of two evils, and more about choosing the person who has the integrity to restore a measure of faith in the leadership of our great nation, both at home and abroad.
You happen to rest among those who believe that the person for that job is HRC, while many others share the belief that Obama is the proper choice. Yes, there are those on both sides who are bashing the other. Yes, it is difficult to believe the vitriol, or rancor, with which they currently view one another will somehow resolve itself into support for the party as a whole. However, I believe it is the position of those in a place of leadership to direct the masses toward keeping an open mind, rather than considering the opposition to be either "vaporous" or "evil."
You are such a person, with a responsibility to the people as a whole. If your are not careful, your characterization of those who support Obama as sheep, rather than as responsible party members, will help to turn off even party loyalists and hand a victory to the Republicans come November. Hopefully, you will think better of portraying yourself as a member of the Rush Limbaugh school of thought, where everyone who opposes your views is an evil idiot. Perhaps even you, a person who considers the thoughtful words of Obama to be meaningless tripe can realize that words matter, and that words are powerful. It is not for the view that people from new democracies make the pilgimage to Gettysburg. It is for the words, spoken in that place so long ago, that still resonate in the hearts and engage the minds of those who continue to fight for freedom today.
The writers of this message are a man who supports Clinton and a woman who supports Obama, so please do not try and make this into yet another bashing.
Before you continue down this path of destruction in pursuit of a feminist resolution to this process, please consider the cost of your words before you utter them.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Interested
Fri Apr 4, 2008 12:39 PM
|
|
|
|
Ms Harrop,
I have taken your advise and applied skeptical examination to your opinion piece.
Your website suggests that I ask my local editor to include your columns in out paper. I will not be doing so. I am not interested in reading the opinions of people who wrap their libel as innuendo and print it as opinion. You have hinted that PBS and David Brooks are attacking Hillary because the Obama campaign has told them to do. You offer no proof, just more innuendo. You also seem to be blaming McCain's trouble with "the Times" on the Obama Campaign as well as CBS's showing film to expose Mrs. Clinton's exaggerations.
Calling it a misstatement after Mrs. Clinton said it three times and Her campaign denied it twice, demonstrates that you have a bit of bias yourself. Did Hillary's campaign instruct you to do that? Maybe you should consider some skeptical examination of your own.
Please consider that the "onslaught" may have been because she it not address the issue honestly and forthrightly from the start and that the lack of an onslaught over the Kennedy thing may have been because Obama, admitted his mistake and corrected it as soon as it was pointed out to him.
Congratulations for getting yourself on a website that claims that you have talent.
I am skeptical.
Jack
Comment: #2
Posted by: Jack Sailor
Fri Apr 4, 2008 9:06 PM
|
|
|
|
The comment above, edited by me and formated for readability ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ms Harrop, ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have taken your advice and applied skeptical examination to your opinion piece. Your website suggests that I ask my local editor to include your columns in out paper. I will not be doing so. I am not interested in reading the opinions of people who wrap their libel as innuendo and print it as opinion. You have hinted that PBS and David Brooks are attacking Hillary because the Obama campaign has told them to do. You offer no proof, just more innuendo. You also seem to be blaming McCain's trouble with "the Times" on the Obama Campaign. Also you seem to be giving them credit for CBS's showing film to expose Mrs. Clinton's exaggerations. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Calling that series of lies a misstatement after Mrs. Clinton repeated them three times and Her campaign denied them twice, demonstrates that you have a bit of bias yourself. Did Hillary's campaign instruct you to do that? Maybe you should consider some skeptical examination of your own. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please consider that the "onslaught" may have been because she did not address the issue honestly and forthrightly from the start and that the lack of an onslaught over the Kennedy thing may have been because Obama, admitted his mistake and corrected it as soon as it was pointed out to him.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations for getting yourself on a website that claims that you have talent. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I however, am skeptical. Jack
Comment: #3
Posted by: Jack Sailor
Fri Apr 4, 2008 9:20 PM
|
|
|
|
THANK YOU FROMA -- YOU POINT OUT WHAT WE SHOULD BE EXPECTING FROM REPORTERS -- REPORTING -- NEWS, FACTS, AND PERHAPS WEIGHING THE PROS AND CONS. Columnists render opinions that help us to see an issue from a perspective. Have any of those on the bandwagon noticed analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics which says that as of Feb. 29, Obama's presidential campaign had received nearly $214,000 from oil and gas industry employees and their families? This report after Obama said he took no money from the oil industry. / R
Comment: #4
Posted by: Rita Watson
Sat Apr 5, 2008 1:21 PM
|
|
|
|
Non "partisan" simply means that they do not affiliate themselves with either political party. It does not mean that they are objective or that they do not have an agenda. Obviously they got that figure from Obama's disclosure of his donors. He knows about those donations.
He got 214 thousand dollars out of a total of more than 120 million. What is that? 2 tenths of one percent? It is reports like that that disprove that the media is NOT in Obama's pocket.
People and their families who work for oil companies are not oil companies or their lobbyists. They are citizens like you are. Obviously donations of 2 tenths of one percent is not going to influence his policy. Would you have Obama turn down a twenty dollar donation from a gas station attendant because her working shirt says "Exxon"?
That report and the news stories about is just the corporate media trying to make the world friendly to corporations.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Jack Sailor
Sun Apr 6, 2008 10:26 AM
|
|
|
|
Neutral Urban Legends/snopes.com investigated Obama's statement that his father benefited from tuition assistance from JFK and found that, in fact, he did, because Obama's father received a grant under a tuition assistance program for such foreign students that JFK helped push through the Senate. It was not Kennedy family money and it was not while JFK was president, as some pointed out came after Obamma's father left this country. But it was money made possible largely through the efforts of Senator John F. Kennedy. I think you need to check your own facts.
As to whether Hillary just had "a memory lapse" about being under sniper fire, you ignored her own explanation that she was sleep-deprived. She certainly didn't look sleep-deprived in the video of her arrival in Bosnia and she certainly wasn't sleep-deprived while writing her novel or reading proofs of it. She IS a "consummate liar." She says "nothing came of Whitewater," when, in fact, something like 15 people were convicted of crimes in Whitewater, including her partners, one of whom, Jim McDougal, was ready to testify against them until he died in prison. She avoided perjury charges before the grand jury by repeatedly using the gambit that she "couldn't recall" things. And she blamed a "vast right-wing conspiracy" for inventing the Monica Lewisnski scandal--not because she didn't believe it but because she didn't think anyone would ever be able to prove it. She knew of Bill's many infidelities over the years and--when friends asked her why she stayed with him--she said (as reported in Pulitzer-Prize-winning author David Maranis's book, "First in His Class,") she had put up with all that because he was going to the White House and she was going with him. She wasn't angry that Bill cheated again, but that he cheated right in the Oval Office and was dumb enough to get caught. Their standard practice is to deny the truth and hope that no one has actual proof. Then, when it shows up--like the video in Bosnia--she says she "misspoke."
Comment: #6
Posted by: Richard Teetsel
Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:59 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
