The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker must love his new position as the unofficial spokesman for Bill and Hillary Clinton. In a 30-paragraph front-page piece in Monday’s Post, Rucker declared Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes a “Young Senate Candidate, A Campaign With Star Power.”
Rucker goes on to offer a glowing profile of Ms. Grimes, who is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y) this November and insists that “Clinton’s popularity in Ky. Is a boon for Grimes.” The campaign article began describing how during President Clinton’s first inauguration “a 14-year-old girl from Kentucky presented the new president with a bouquet of red roses at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.” Rucker describes Clinton as an “uncle figure whom Grimes counts as a friend, mentor and advisor.”
Accompanying the front-page story is a radiant photograph of a young Ms. Grimes presenting flowers to Bill and Hillary, conveniently provided by Grimes herself. A similar picture given by Ms. Grimes is displayed on A10 with the rest of the article, which features Ms. Grimes and the Clintons smiling once again. The love-fest continued with Rucker commenting that Grimes is “celebrated as a star recruit…Grimes is living proof that the Clinton’s, both now out of office, remain the first family of Democratic politics.”
Other than a brief front-page mention in which McConnell is described as a politician “known for vilifying his opponents” the Kentucky senator is mentioned just once more, buried among a slobbering fascination with the Clintons. Rucker didn’t bother to include any opposing viewpoints in his article, and instead relied on a variety of Democrats to prop up the former president including Democrat Governor Steve Beshear who cheered how Clinton’s “got a big following there, as does Hillary. It’s a big boost for Alison to have President Clinton come in for her.”
Rucker then spent the next 16 paragraphs celebrating the relationship between Clinton and Grimes’ father, Jerry Lundergan, who Rucker says Clinton was “drawn to Lundergan’s rags-to-riches tale.” After briefly mentioning how Lundergan was forced to resign from the Kentucky General Assembly amid a “cloud of scandal” Rucker spent five paragraphs detailing how Lundergan “arranged for Clinton to stop by a dairy Queen near Maysville…the campaign did not publicize the visit, but after Lundergan called to alert the restaurant, word blew through town and hundreds of folds gathered in the parking lot.”
The Clinton-infatuated piece continued with Rucker delving into even greater detail about the Dairy Queen excursion:
But Clinton’s Secret Service agents did not want to stop at the Dairy Queen and drove straight through to the next event, a rally in Morehead. Lundergan, furious that they would skip his hometown, persuaded Clinton to order his security detail to turn the motorcade around.
Clinton soon pulled into the Dairy Queen and ordered a Blizzard. He shook hands with the kitchen staff and plucked french fries straight out of the deep-fryer basket. (This was before he got more health-conscious; he now is a vegan.) Then he walked out to the parking lot and stirred up the crowd.
“He can sing the Kentucky song,” said Terry McBrayer, a former Democratic politician and Clinton friend who introduced him that day from the bed of a pickup truck. “People down here relate to Bill Clinton. It’s one of those natural fits.”
The Clinton sycophant couldn’t let his Clinton-craze stop there, announcing that, “Clinton’s Kentucky friendships extend beyond the political realm. John Calipari, coach of the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team, said he has been close to Clinton since 1994, when the team he was coaching then, the University of Massachusetts, upset the president’s beloved University of Arkansas in an early season game.”
Rucker concluded his campaign piece for Grimes/Clinton by hyping how in 2013 “Clinton reached out to another old friend: Louisville Coach Rick Pitino, who over the years has brought in Clinton for locker room pep talks.” Pitino beamed how “I had 168 text messages and 34 phone messages, and I only kept one. “It said, ‘Hey, Rick, this is Bill Clinton. I’m in Abu Dhabi and I set my alarm at 5 in the morning to watch the game. It was wonderful. We’re so proud of you and the team.’ I remembered every line.”
It would be nice if the actual United States senator from Kentucky received such glowing advertisement as Rucker gave Ms. Grimes. Unfortunately for Senator McConnell, it seems as though the Clinton has both the Post and Rucker in his back pocket willing to do anything to help Ms. Grimes defeat Mitch McConnell in November.
