Laura Clawson of Daily Kos thinks the flap over Hillary Clinton’s private e-mails is a “nothing-burger.” Charles Pierce of Esquire, perhaps because he's on a meatless diet for Lent, says it’s simply “nothing.” That left each to blast the media for their supposedly egregious coverage of what DKos is calling “eGhazi.”
On Wednesday, Clawson fumed that “political reporters are in an orgasmic frenzy at the chance to play out the tired narratives about the Clintons that they long ago bought from Republican operatives”; described Hillary’s Tuesday press conference at the United Nations as a “media circle jerk”; and, regarding HRC’s alleged dislike of the press, wondered, “Who the fuck could blame her?”
From Clawson’s post (bolding added):
The Hillary Clinton email story is getting ugly, showing the nasty side of a longtime D.C. institution. Not Clinton herself, though. The political media. Political reporters are in an orgasmic frenzy at the chance to play out the tired narratives about the Clintons that they long ago bought from Republican operatives…And because it's Hillary Clinton, they feel confident in explaining what's in her head, what this story Tells Us About Hillary, as if it's not a story that basically only a certain class of political reporter gives a shred of a damn about…
…[O]ver at the Meet the Press website, the crack team of Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann [commented,] "Folks, this is the Clinton Way. Secretive. Lawyerly. Dismissive of the press"…
…[Buzzfeed’s] Ben Smith also touched on that, writing that "she soldiered through Tuesday, looking at the press pack with undisguised dislike."
Serious question, guys: Watching this media circle jerk, who the fuck could blame her? I'm not some giant Clinton fan, but the spectacle of hundreds of reporters wetting themselves over this nothing-burger of a story inspires visceral disgust...Beltway political reporters are infinitely energized by a Clinton personality story. They will never be worn out with that red meat to feed on. But stories that matter...those they all too frequently get all jaded about, and let slide without serious investigation…
…[T]he run-up to the Iraq War in 2003. Talk about the other side of the coin when it comes to political reporters' intensity, excitement, and doggedness in covering a story. And that, guys—well, that and the fact that apparently the profession decided en masse that Hillary Clinton's email is more important than anything that happened at the U.N. in the past 12 years—is a great capper on how bad this whole story is making you look.
In a Tuesday item posted in the wake of Hillary’s presser, Pierce reflected that the e-mail uproar “looks even more like a kabuki revival performance of the Follies of '93 than it did before Clinton took the podium this afternoon. The ensemble mooing of the assembled press. The earnest attempts by people whose expense accounts depend on keeping this aloft to explain why anybody with a brain should take this seriously. All that was lacking was a lounge singer waving an exclusive contract from a supermarket tabloid.”
Pierce speculated that HRC’s current predicament may have her “seriously considering whether or not she's up to going through this nonsense for two years of a campaign, and then possibly eight years thereafter” (bolding added):
Clinton did not look at all comfortable [at the press conference]. There were moments when syntax temporarily abandoned her, and other moments in which she vanished into a cloud of lawyerly squid-ink. Perhaps even after all this time, and all her experience, she's amazed at the modern media's ability to make something out of nothing. Which she, of all people, shouldn't be. Or perhaps, and this is what instantly deprives the Democrats of their bejabbers, she's seriously considering whether or not she's up to going through this nonsense for two years of a campaign, and then possibly eight years thereafter. If there's one thing that's been made painfully clear since her husband got elected, and even clearer during the two terms of the current administration, it's that Republican members of the national legislature have no intention ever of allowing a Democratic president to govern as a Democratic president, and they will do anything, from ginning up fake scandals, to filing fake lawsuits, to writing mash notes to the mullahs, to keep a Democratic president from actually governing. If Clinton is at the moment wondering whether or not it's all worth it, you can hardly blame her.
Oh, and "Turn Over The Server!" is going to be the new "What About The Billing Records?" Guaranteed. Drinks all around at the Mena Airport Lounge.
