ABC's Tapper Claims Hillary Probed Like "Cadaver on CSI" -- But What About San Fran?

In part of their coverage of the Coretta Scott King funeral this morning, ABC focused on the attention paid to Hillary Clinton and her 2008 presidential prospects and how "Republicans are scared." ABC's Jake Tapper was able to bring in RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman suggesting on "This Week" that she wouldn't do well because she's an "angry candidate" and then former NPR reporter Mary Ann Akers (now of the Capitol Hill paper Roll Call) fussed that dredges up old Hillary stereotypes. His most colorful language is that everything Hillary does is "dissected like a cadaver on CSI." His evidence was a New York Daily News story focusing on a new ring her husband gave her.

But Tapper did not focus on another New York paper whose coverage of Hillary has been ignored by most. Even I missed the chance to harp on her appearance in San Francisco at the end of January in that "interview with Jane Pauley" fundraiser for the local bar association. The New York Sun reported she had some nasty things to imply about Republicans and black voters (which might have been MORE topical after the King funeral yesterday). Apparently, Team Bush is delaying hurricane aid for political gain, a "deliberate policy of neglect," she claimed:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Senator Clinton told a largely friendly audience here Saturday night that the slow pace of government-sponsored reconstruction following Hurricane Katrina was the result of a deliberate decision by the Bush administration and may have been motivated by a desire to discourage Democratic voters from returning to the devastated region.

"I think that basically we are now watching a deliberate policy of neglect take root," Mrs. Clinton said during an appearance at a fund-raiser for legal services charities. "It is deeply troubling for any American to believe that your government would abandon such a huge part of our country and such an important part of our history."

Mrs. Clinton said she suspected that the assignment of President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, to oversee the relief effort indicated that political mischief was afoot. "Cynical minds might suggest that the destruction of the Democratic vote in Louisiana was a mixed blessing. If you rebuild New Orleans, all those Democrats might come home," she said during a 90-minute public interview conducted on an auditorium stage by a former television host, Jane Pauley.

Hillary, probed like a cadaver? Ridiculous. She is the probed about as often as the teacher's pet. She is the anchorman's pet. She's even more the anchor woman's pet, as the Jane Pauley event demonstrates.

UPDATE: Tapper noted at the beginning another New York paper: "An op-ed today in today’s New York Times calls Republican attacks on Clinton misogynistic." He held up a folded copy of a newspaper for emphasis. The "op-ed" is actually a column by Maureen Dowd (no link, it's behind the Times Select firewall). Before it predictably concludes that Hillary isn't angry and liberal enough (through her calculation, she has "marginalized herself"), she goes on a flight of fancy about Mehlman's critique for the Republicans:

"Now, in the distaff version of Swift-boating, they are casting Hillary Clinton as an Angry Woman, a she-monster melding images of Medea, the Furies, harpies, a knife-wielding Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction,' and a snarling Scarlett Johansson in 'Match Point.'"