11-1/2 years ago, we had the "Dean Scream." After finishing a disappointing third in the Iowa caucuses, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean attempted to further fire up his strangely giddy supporters by telling them about upcoming state primaries they would fight to win. After finishing his list, Dean told them: "And then we're going to Washington, DC to take back the White House!" — and shouted out the scream heard 'round the world which ended his electoral viability.
Sunday on Meet the Press, we saw the "Dean Pipedream." Asked by host Chuck Todd how well Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has handled the scandal over her use of a private server for personal and government emails while serving as Secretary of State, Dean blamed her situation "partly ... (on) a press that's bored."
Contrary to Dean's assertion, the intrepid folks at NewsBusters and the Media Research Center who monitor the Big Three networks and other establishment press outlets have chronicled a consistently determined reluctance to report on newsworthy scandal-related developments.
Here is the relevant Meet the Press segment (HT Mediaite; YouTube link):
Transcript (full NBC program transcript is here; includes several words from Todd preceding the video's beginning; bolds are mine):
CHUCK TODD: ... Governor Dean, let me start with you. The evolving answers here, at the end of the day, can you say that Hillary Clinton has handled this well?
HOWARD DEAN: I actually don't think the answers are evolving. I think they're steady as she goes. Look, this is, in fact, manufactured partly by a press that's bored and partly by the Republicans. Here's the deal. She did not break any rules, she did not break any policy, she may have sent stuff that was classified that wasn't labeled classified, and it is well known that the State Department and others are trying to get stuff classified after the fact. She can't be blamed for this. So I look at this as the usual press frenzy, the pack journalism, and I think it'll go away, because there's no sense to it.
CHUCK TODD: Well, and you're going to hear a quote from Jerry Brown, Peter Hart, where he says, you know, this thing's like a vampire, this story won't go away, and she's got to figure out how to essentially find a way to just stab it and get rid of it. What could she be doing better?
PETER HART: Well, she's in a hide-and-seek period. And that's a terrible place to be, because it's going to continue to evolve and evolve and evolve until she essentially ends it. She's a terrible frontrunner, but she's a marvelous candidate when she gets into the middle of the race. And there you see her intelligence, her experience, and her toughness. At this stage, it's all fumbles.
As noted earlier, Howard Dean is dreaming. The establishment press and new media outlets haven't "manufactured" anything. Mrs. Clinton's troubles are entirely the result of her conscious attempts and efforts to shield her actions, decisions and communications from scrutiny.
The outing of Mrs. Clinton's private server and her nonchalant handling of foreign country- and national security-related emails originated from several places. I'll let those involved fight over the allocation of credit:
- The House Select Committee on Benghazi, led by Congressman Trey Gowdy, looking into the circumstances which led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya and how the Obama administration initially blamed the attacks on an obscure amateur anti-Islamic video.
- Efforts to obtain "emails and other documents" made over several years by the Associated Press most of which "had been pending since July 2013."
- Judicial Watch, which in September of 2013 initiated Freedom of Information Act efforts seeking records "relating to Clinton aide Huma Abedin," Clinton's deputy chief of staff for operations at the State Department during most of her tenure.
- Vice.com's efforts to obtain emails generated during Mrs. Clinton's tenure.
- The New York Times, which on March 2 of this year, "reported that throughout her time as U.S. Secretary of State, Clinton used her own private email server rather than a government-issued one." The State Department, perhaps believing that a less hospitable news outlet was close to breaking the story on its own, appears to have handed the story to the Times on a silver platter.
Since the initial disclosures, the establishment press has mostly acted "bored" with the very idea of reporting any subsequent newsworthy developments. Here is just a sampling of NewsBusters posts in just the past two weeks noting press failures to report legitimate news stories or to give them the attention they deserve:
- August 21 — "Over 11 Hours of Air Time, GMA Allows Four Minutes to Hillary E-mails"
- August 20 — Networks Punt on Hillary’s E-Mail Scandal, New Order from Federal Judge"
- August 19 — "ABC Ignores Hillary’s E-Mail Server Scandal; Hypes Trump on Illegals, Rubio Hitting Boy with Football"
- August 18 — "Nets Fail to Point Out Hillary’s Changing Story on E-Mail Scandal"
- August 17 — "Press Yawns After ABC Reports That Hillary's Server Was 'Likely' Backed Up"
- August 14 — "Yawn: ABC Skips Hillary's Classified Chatter, Opts for Tennis Talk"
- August 12 — "Cover-Up: Major Newspapers Keep Hillary's E-Mails Off the Front Page"
- August 11 — "ABC and NBC Punt on News Two Hillary E-Mails Have Been Found to Be ‘Top Secret’"
As to Dean's contention that "she did not break any policy," a federal judge on Thursday directly contradicted that contention, declaring "that Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private server and e-mail account for government work 'violated government policy,' contrary to the Democratic frontrunner’s claims." Dean surely knows this, but wouldn't let the facts get in the way of his spin, secure in the knowledge that NBC's Todd would let it slide — as he did.
As to the "labeling" issue, it was Mrs. Clinton's duty under the law to report to appropriate government enforcement agencies the receipt of any unmarked email which should have been marked with some form of security classification. She took training on identifying and handling such documents, so Howard Dean is once again dreaming when he claims that "She can't be blamed for this."
Dean's Pipedream is playing so poorly that even the folks on MSNBC's Morning Joe show have openly ridiculed him. But, as just noted, Chuck Todd just let Dean's ridiculous contentions go unchallenged. Maybe we're wrong about MSNBC being the most loony-left component of the Peacock network.
The other person dreaming is Peter Hart, whose contentions about how marvelous Mrs. Clinton is as a candidate at the end of the excerpted video are beyond parody.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
