On Sunday, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos spent a considerable portion of its broadcast on the ongoing saga surrounding Hillary Clinton’s issues with transparency after it was revealed that she failed to use a government email account while serving as Secretary of State.
While Bloomberg TV’s Mark Halperin suggested that this email scandal could disqualify Mrs. Clinton from 2016, Nicolle Wallace, former Communications Director for President George W. Bush, downplayed their significance and instead bizarrely claimed that “the media hyperventilation over everything that the Clintons do reminds me so much of how they treated Bush and Cheney.”
The segment began with moderator George Stephanopoulos noting “[g]enerally at the beginning the Clintons underreact, they hunker down, their critics and the media overreact. Is it different this time? Will it make any difference?” The ABC host then turned to Mark Halperin, host of With All Due Respect on Bloomberg TV, who insisted the Clinton email scandal could pose a problem for her:
I said a few weeks ago on this show that I thought she was easily the most likely President of the United States. I now think not only is she because of this as a symptom and a cause, I now think she's not only easily the most likely, I don't think she's any more than most likely.
In response, panelist Nicolle Wallace seemed to disagree that Clinton’s campaign would be hurt “because of emails” but Halperin explained that this represented a systemic problem for her:
Her husband can get through these things because he's a politician of a lifetime. She cannot. If this is the way she's going to run her operation, if this is the mind-set she's going to have, I don't think she's going to be president.
As the segment progressed, Wallace strangely argued that the media treatment of the Clintons was comparable to that of Bush/Cheney and then argued that her email scandal was more of a media problem:
I think their calculation is – and if you want to know what it's like to run for a president as a Republican, watch what Hillary’s is going through. The media hyperventilation over everything that the Clintons do reminds me so much of how they treated Bush and Cheney. And I said earlier this week and I thought someone's head was going to explode in the media. This is a media problem for her, no doubt.
Wallace concluded her remarks by sounding like a liberal and claimed that the private emails were being overblown because they did not contain sensitive information:
Journalism and journalists view themselves as the safeguard and the guardians of the public interest. They think the public has an interest and so do the Republicans on the Benghazi Select Committee. But these were emails not encrypted NSA taps. They will eventually come out and I think what's instructive to me is how the media is now writing her off because she didn't turn over her emails. We don't know yet if this is a political problem but it is most certainly a media problem.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos
March 8, 2015
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Mark, let me begin with you. I think we've seen a version, and Jon Karl hinted at this story about five or six times over the last twenty years. Generally at the beginning the Clintons underreact, they hunker down, their critics and the media overreact. Is it different this time? Will it make any difference?
MARK HALPERIN: I said a few weeks ago on this show that I thought she was easily the most likely President of the United States. I now think not only is she because of this as a symptom and a cause, I now think she's not only easily the most likely, I don't think she's any more than most likely.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s a big shift.
HALPERIN: Yeah.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Because of emails?
HALPERIN: Because of what this says as a symptom.
DONNA BRAZILE: Exhale.
HALPERIN: Not as a cause, as a symptom.
BRAZILE: Exhale.
HALPERIN: What she's doing here in terms of lack of response, lack of a sense of what people think of her and combined with what I thought was an extraordinary weak performance at her Emily’s List speech the other day, her husband can get through these things because he's a politician of a lifetime. She cannot. If this is the way she's going to run her operation, if this is the mind-set she's going to have, I don't think she's going to be president.
--
WALLACE: I think their calculation is – and if you want to know what it's like to run for a president as a Republican, watch what Hillary’s is going through. The media hyperventilation over everything that the Clintons do reminds me so much of how they treated Bush and Cheney. And I said earlier this week and I thought someone's head was going to explode in the media. This is a media problem for her, no doubt.
Journalism and journalists view themselves as the safeguard and the guardians of the public interest. They think the public has an interest and so do the Republicans on the Benghazi Select Committee. But these were emails not encrypted NSA taps. They will eventually come out and I think what's instructive to me is how the media is now writing her off because she didn't turn over her emails. We don't know yet if this is a political problem but it is most certainly a media problem.
