Former Washington Post journalist Howard Kurtz on Monday night excoriated Hillary Clinton's attempt to literally rope off the press at a parade over the weekend. Kurtz, now with Fox News and appearing on the Kelly File, derided what he saw as Clinton's contempt for reporters: "This is the most embarrassing political image since Mike Dukakis was riding around in a tank and kind of serves as a metaphor for a campaign that literally is trying to lasso reporters."
(In case one has forgotten the famous 1988 footage of Democratic presidential candidate Dukakis, see this video.) The journalist added that because of the "metaphor alert," "I think it really has resonance." Fox News digital politics director Chris Stirewalt attacked his fellow journalists: "There is something masochistic about the press's relationship with the Clintons, especially with Hillary Clinton."
He suggested that the Clintons think the press "are cattle out there on the street and they would get away with it."
A partial transcript is below:
Kelly File
7/7/15
9:43SHANNON BREAM: New fallout tonight from a Clinton campaign event this weekend that has some political observers suggesting the relationship between the democratic front runner, and the media that is supposed to be covering her has become at best absurd. Reporters trying to cover Team Clinton found them literally corralled by a moving rope line during a parade in New Hampshire, looked a lot like we were young cows on a Kansas City cattle drive. The Clinton campaigned defended the move saying it was a way to "accommodate the press." Joining me now, Howie Kurtz, the Host of Media Buzz right here on Fox News, and our own Fox News Digital Politics Editor, Chris Stirewalt, good to see you both, gentlemen.
CHRIS STIREWALT: Howdy.
BREAM: Chris, let's start with you. Howdy. It was like lasso, head them out, and move them out event on Saturday.
STIREWALT: Rawhide. Yeah. It was like that. Maybe a little 50 Shades of Gray comes to New Hampshire. The press, I've always said and Howie may disagree, he may agree, I don't know. But he's definitely seen these elements. There is something masochistic about the press' relationship with the Clintons, especially with Hillary Clinton. They beat him around, they treat them terribly, they abuse them, and for some reason they keep coming back for more. They're always back, they never say, you know what? We're not going in your corral. We're not going in the pen. We're going to cover you in a fairly dainty fashion. And in this case, you see they're abused and then they come back and say bad optics. Those optics weren't good. This was bad judgment. They should have used better judgment here. Well they used good judgment. The judgment that they used was they could treat the press corps covering Hillary Clinton like they are cattle out there on the street and they would get away with it. And they would deep the candidate where they want her which is, back ground, photo-ops, happy people of New Hampshire back there, and the press not causing trouble.
BREAM: Well, Howard, we do know that there were some people who were following her with signs. They were yelling about Benghazi. They were yelling about e-emails. I mean there were some people like -- anybody who is running for President is going to get heckled. It happens to GOP, democrats, Socialist Bernie Sanders, everybody gets it. But Howie, now we're hearing that she's actually -- her people are saying, we have done what we think is best -- she's best at which is the one-on-one retail politics. Now she's ready to start talking more to the national media and she's going to do a great job.
HOWIE KURTZ: Well, we broke that story online last night, Shannon. And Hillary's communications director confirmed to me that she's going to start doing national TV interviews this week, allow more media access. But it comes just in time. Because when you look at these pictures, I guess it was a rope-a-dope strategy. That would make us the dopes. This is the most embarrassing political image since Mike Dukakis was riding around in a tank and kind of serves as a metaphor for a campaign that literally is trying to lasso reporters. And, you know, if this had been some other campaign, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker's, it would have been a blip. Because there is this metaphor alert, this very difficult, at arm's length relationship between Hillary and the press corp relationship that follows her every move, I think it really has resonance.
