That E-Mail Story Just Got More Inclusive

The Republican-wired Beltway media has been doing its best up until now to breathlessly report on any leak (fed to them by Congressional Rethug sources) regarding classified e-mails on former Secretary Hillary Clinton's private system.  It's a perfect, pseudo-scandal for them -- one that's easily presented but hard to understand --  to help bring their hated Hillary's poll numbers down and give whoever's going to oppose her a better shot at election.  All of their manufactured Hillary adjectives fit: "secretive," "untrustworthy," etc.  Sadly for them, a large fly landed in their ointment yesterday with the disclosure that former Bush Administration Secretary of State Colin Powell also had classified e-mails on his private system, along with those of the staff of former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

While this development won't stop our broken political media from getting their pound of flesh from a Hillary Clinton that both distrusts and dislikes them with good reason, perhaps it will slightly alter their narrative that "she thinks the rules don't apply to her."  There's certainly a "rules" problem underlying this kerfuffle, but more and more it seems to lie with people at State who don't yet have their procedural act together in the handling of classified materials in a smart phone world, and an Inspector General who seems to be selectively leaking information intended to damage Ms. Clinton.

The Media's "Clinton Rules"

Hat tip to Susie Madrak for pointing us to this article in Vox by Jonathan Allen that describes the media's approach - past, present and future - to Hillary Clinton:

The Clinton rules are driven by reporters' and editors' desire to score the ultimate prize in contemporary journalism: the scoop that brings down Hillary Clinton and her family's political empire. At least in that way, Republicans and the media have a common interest.

Allen gives the five rules reporters use in reporting on the Clintons, and how that will affect the 2016 campaign.  Madrak helpfully summarizes those "Clinton Rules":

1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the "vast right-wing conspiracy," and mainstream media outlets.
2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world.
3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there's hard evidence otherwise.
4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America's royal family.
5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit.

It's no wonder the Clintons are deeply suspicious of the media;  they apparently have every reason to be so (and their rope- a- dope strategy of dealing with the press is looking better and better).  For anyone not already clued in, the media are not liberal and they're not honest.  They're corporate and they're amoral.

As proof of this, Madrak elsewhere has a piece about how a June 17 Politic-ho hit job took doctored emails from a Republican source on the Benghazi!!! committee and ran with a deliberately cut- and- paste version of several unrelated emails rather than bother to look at the originals:

As documents released by the State Department last week show, Clinton was actually intent on sending to the White House a Salon article claiming that the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was planning a brand-new line of attack based on Benghazi.

[Democratic Rep. Elijah] Cummings rips away, “It appears that this source fed Politico an inaccurate characterization of these emails and that Politico accepted this mischaracterization without obtaining the emails themselves. The source apparently took an email that was produced to the Select Committee in February, isolated Secretary Clinton’s statement about the White House, removed it from the original email exchange about the presidential debates, and then added it to a different email exchange involving Media Matters.” (our emphasis)

Now, one would think the media's interest would be in exposing the lying manipulators that would try to spread such spurious trash.   Please refer to "Clinton Rules" above.  

BONUS:  Wonkette has a funny piece about the penny-ante whiners in the press covering Clinton.

Git Along Little Dogies

Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was in Gorham, New Hampshire yesterday, celebrating the 4th of July at a parade in the lovely New England town.  The herd of press following her threatened to obstruct the view of the parade watchers, so the Clinton campaign employed ropes to keep the herd boxed out of Ms. Clinton's space and to keep the public's views of the candidate unobstructed.  The press engaged in some grousing, of course, because 1) that's what they do, 2) it kept them from asking important questions like, "what about Benghazi, BENGAZHI, BENGHAZI!", and 3) they dislike Ms. Clinton intensely.  Nevertheless, despite the superficial "optics" that the press will harp on for days, it was delicious to see them corralled for a change.  (ed. -- Isn't that NBC's Kelly O'Donnell on the far right of the picture, strolling inside the rope line? The press is being abused!!)

UPDATE:   Let the whining continue!

BONUS:  Ms. Clinton with Miss Teen New Hampshire Allie Knault and Miss New Hampshire Holly Blanchard in Gorham, NH, July 4 (sock it to 'em!):

(top photo:  L. Kreutz, ABC News;  bottom photo: Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

Campaign Coverage Quote of the Day

"It’s quite obvious how this Clinton campaign is going to be covered by the media. Most of the visible manifestations will be soap opera, those kinds of mannered, Dowdian questions of which the press never seems to tire: Is she connecting, is she being 'authentic,' is she acting too 'ambitious,' is she wearing the right pantsuit, what’s up with her hair today, how is Bill behaving." -- Michael Tomasky, writing in the Daily Beast.  Tomasky's correct when he says she needs to "go big" with her policy prescriptions, and disengage from the soap opera narrative the media -- and the Rethugs feeding them -- want to cover.

The superficial details and the optics will almost certainly crowd out a lot of the serious policy messages from the Clinton campaign.  Then there's the faux scandal mongering.  The private e-mails were the first shiny object the press has been following this season, but there will be more, no question.  Remember the "-gate" parade of non-scandals ginned up by the right during the Clinton presidency?  Nothing came of them, but they were the daily bread of our broken media.  Expect more of the same.

BONUS:  As if on cue, the waspish Maureen Dowd copies off Republican talking points for her latest lame screed.  You can write her columns in advance.