The press — especially the Associated Press — wants everyone to know that the email controversy "swirling" around her is partisan and distracting. Why anyone would worry about its national security or legal implications is almost completely lost on them. That's their story, and they've been sticking to it for months.
The latest installment from the AP came tonight from Lisa Lerner, Eric Tucker and three other contributing reporters. Even though it's at the core of the firestorm over her undisclosed use of a private server out of her home, the term "national security" didn't appear until Paragraph 17 — and even then it was in a quote from a Republican. The big problem, from the AP team's perspective, is capsulized in their report's pity-party headline and opening paragraphs (bolds are mine):
NEW INQUIRY INTO CLINTON EMAILS FUELS POLITICAL QUESTIONS
A new letter by intelligence investigators to the Justice Department says secret government information may have been compromised in Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server, underscoring an inescapable reality for her presidential campaign: Email is forever.
Clinton, the former secretary of state and now the leading Democratic presidential candidate, wants to focus on the economic issues she and her team believe will drive the next election. But they remain unable to fully escape the swirling questions surrounding her decision to run her State Department correspondence through an unsecured system set up at her New York home.
Darn it, why won't these people just let her "escape" reality and all these "questions" so she can "focus" on the economy, and we can tell everyone how wonderful those ideas are?
The AP team continued in that same vein a couple of paragraphs later:
Though the referral to the Justice Department does not seek a criminal probe and does not specifically target Clinton, the latest steps by government investigators will further fuel the partisan furor surrounding the 55,000 pages of emails already under review by the State Department.
A statement from the intelligence inspector general, I. Charles McCullough, and his counterpart at the State Department, Steve Linick, said that McCullough's office found four emails containing classified information in a limited sample of 40 emails.
"This classified information should have never been transmitted via an unclassified personal system," they said.
For Clinton, the news amounted to a major distraction on a day when she'd hoped to focus on unveiling a new set of economic policies. Instead, she opened her New York City speech by addressing the controversy, decrying some reports as inaccurate.
Here's the fun part: The AP team spent so much time whining about the "distraction" that it too failed to write up anything about Mrs. Clinton's supposedly wondrous economic policies. Those who believe that the wire service avoided going there because those policies are more stale than a 1940s Henry Wallace manifesto and destined to fail spectacularly aren't too far off. Here's part of CNN's related coverage:
Clinton's speech, however, was short on rhetoric aimed directly at Wall Street and big banks, something progressives are hungry to see from the former New York senator who has deep ties to the financial industry. Clinton's aides set expectations early, telling reporters before the speech that Friday's event would not be chock full of the Wall Street red meat that liberals are pining for.
Instead, Clinton outlined a series of policy proposals that she hopes would rebuild "a connection between companies and their workers, so that workers are seen as assets rather than costs," her campaign aides said.
"It's time to return to an old-fashioned idea," Clinton said, "that companies' responsibility to their shareholders also encompasses a responsibility to employees, customers, communities and ultimately to our country, and yes, our planet."
Clinton notably endorsed New York City's plan of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food workers, but did not go as far as endorsing a $15 federal minimum wage.
Zzzzz ... zzzz ... zzz ... oh, excuse me, this stuff is so tired I couldn't help but doze off.
Of course, unlike Clay Waters at NewsBusters, who described the matter nicely earlier today, the AP failed to report that the Clinton team demanded and got changes to reports on the situation at the New York Times. The Times reporter Michael Schmidt has admitted that revisions were made at Team Clinton's request.
Even if those requested changes were accurate, the Time's failure to retain its original report so readers could see the changes it made — one has to rely on those at other web sites who noticed it and documented the changes when they occurred — confirm that the Old Gray Lady has collapsed into becoming the head Hillary lapdog — though, as seen here, the Associated Press with its pity-party reporting is running a close second.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
