Hillary Clinton’s campaign seems to be sinking, and what’s amazing is that some reporters want to blame themselves. Somehow, the media are the ones who refuse to give Hillary a break on anything!
See overly glum Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel on Monday, citing a softball series of questions from NBC’s Chuck Todd about her e-mails on Meet the Press. As Todd cited an “alternative theory” to explain Hillary’s private server, that she knew Republicans were out to get her, she darkly called it “another conspiracy theory.” Weigel wrote:
The media's willingness to believe the worst about Clinton, and the long political history it can draw from, has been the single toughest external problem for her campaign. Call it Clinton's Razor: In analyzing her answers, the media usually chooses the one that assumes the worst intentions.
Weigel’s complaint carefully avoids the 800-pound gorillas sitting on his argument. Mrs. Clinton spent most of 2015 refusing to grant interviews to the media, and this army of alleged cynics passively let her avoid any attempt at annoying questions from the national political press.
Now that she's relented a bit, the issue of whether the questions – from Chuck Todd or John Dickerson or Wolf Blitzer et al – are too deferential to qualify as the “toughest external problem” Hillary faces.
Strangely, Weigel then turns back to a 2008 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley, asking Hillary Clinton if she believed Barack Obama was a Muslim. That only proved that CBS liked Obama better. Hillary was the first victim in their perpetual outrage that anyone would question Barack’s allegedly fervent Christianity.
Hillary also drew a mostly positive interview from Katie Couric on 60 Minutes, but that might ruin the theory that the press is out to get Hillary.
Weigel's theorizing continued:
In the 2008 and 2016 presidential contests, the fact that she has endured more scandals and brickbats that anyone else is meant to be a bonus for Democrats. (Her husband emphasized this in a separate weekend interview.) She would not enter the White House as a doe-eyed naif; she would enter it with a clear understanding of her enemies and how to beat them.
This primary season has suggested the existence of a tipping point for that argument. On one side: "She's tough enough to withstand anything." On the other: "Oh, no, do Democrats really want to suffer through four or eight more years of Clinton wars?"
That's not exactly right: the fact that she has "endured" more scandals than anyone else could be proof she's just sleazier and more corrupt than anyone else. Now that would be a cynical take to fit Weigel's lame theory about the media's hatred for Hillary. As the whine aged on Twitter:
Clinton’s Razor: When analyzing any answer from Hillary, the press assumes the most cynical intentions. http://t.co/dZeNNp4GDh
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) September 28, 2015
