The Liberal Media’s Alternate Reality: Is Hillary Being Unfairly Treated By The Press?

Hillary Clinton is a viable candidate for President only because she is treated as delicately as fine china by the mainstream media. Yet, Howard Kurtz has written a piece echoing the Clinton line that the press has been unfairly brutalizing her. Here’s an excerpt from it,

After weeks of bad news, Hillary Clinton and her strategists hoped that winning the endorsement of Iowa’s largest newspaper last weekend might produce a modest bump in their media coverage.

But on Sunday morning, they awoke to upbeat headlines about their chief Democratic rival: “Obama Showing New Confidence With Iowa Sprint,” said the New York Times. “Obama Is Hitting His Stride in Iowa,” said the Los Angeles Times. And on Monday, Clinton aides were so upset about a contentious “Today” show interview that one complained to the show’s producer.

Clinton’s senior advisers have grown convinced that the media deck is stacked against them, that their candidate is drawing far harsher scrutiny than Barack Obama. And at least some journalists agree.

“She’s just held to a different standard in every respect,” says Mark Halperin, Time’s editor at large. “The press rooted for Obama to go negative, and when he did he was applauded. When she does it, it’s treated as this huge violation of propriety.” While Clinton’s mistakes deserve full coverage, Halperin says, “the press’s flaws — wild swings, accentuating the negative — are magnified 50 times when it comes to her. It’s not a level playing field.”

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman says Obama’s coverage is the buzz of the presidential campaign. “While they don’t say so publicly because it’s risky to complain, a lot of operatives from other campaigns say he’s getting a free ride, that people aren’t tough enough on Obama,” Fineman says. “There may be something to that. He’s the new guy, an interesting guy, a pathbreaker and trendsetter perhaps.”

In the last election, the press devoted endless hours to the “George Bush went AWOL” story that, in the end, turned out to be a dry hole that Dan Rather’s career fell into.

Yet, with Hillary, all of the scandals she was involved in during the eighties and nineties are treated as boring, old news. The numerous fund raising scandals that surround her? Yawn. Whether her husband, who is a sex addict prowling the country looking for new conquests, is having affairs? The press is willing to have reporters stake out Mitt Romney’s lawn, but not Bill Clinton’s hotel rooms on the road.

Moreover, even when Hillary does something as on its face laughable as claim credit for good things that Bill did in the nineties just because she was married to him, the press takes her seriously. Typically, her interviews are nothing but puff pieces and any sort of attempt to actually get her to answer uncomfortable questions are talked about as if they’re staggeringly unfair.

In other words, Hillary has nothing going for her beyond the fact that her husband is Bill Clinton and the media babies her along. Now, there are even complaints about that? Give me a break.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!