Hillary Clinton Needs To Work On Her Crap Deflector

E.J. Dionne, Jr., has some worthy observations and good advice in the wake of the "scandal"-driven media's obsession with picking every scab with the name "Clinton" on it:

But those who say the episode is about Clinton’s alleged sense of entitlement have it wrong. This actually speaks to her hard-earned paranoia about what her opponents — and the media, which in her view so often play ball with them — are willing to do to destroy her. Her mistrust may be understandable in light of the past, but it is profoundly counterproductive. 

It would be naive to suggest that being more open with the media always works in favor of the transparent politician. Clinton can highlight the fact that her much-praised answer-every-question news conference on Whitewater in 1994 failed to shut down the story. She also turned out to be right that no good would come the Clintons’ way from naming a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. [snip] 

... To survive the next 20 months until Election Day, she will have to find her way toward a less viscerally antagonistic view of media scrutiny that distinguishes between partisan muggings and the sorts of questions all presidential candidates inevitably confront. 

It may be true that recent days showed she has enemies and harsh critics not only among Republicans but also in mainstream media circles. But focusing solely on them will only encourage her to delay responding to legitimate inquiries and to write off advisers who counsel her toward a less-hostile approach to scrutiny. 

Just reading the once great Washington Post's Bezos Bugle's coverage and analysis of the "scandal" gives you a pretty good sense of how the narrative the Republicans ("Benghazi!!!") and their willing cohorts in the media (note the accompanying photo with the Lizard Cillizza article) will be reinforced whenever possible in the next 20 months.  And that's just one outlet of many.  It's not going to be pretty, and that's why Dionne is right on the mark that Clinton needs to adopt a different approach to deflecting the inevitable crap that's headed her way.

While the Republicans continue to play the media like a cheap violin, you also have the usual spineless Democrats wringing their hands and speaking on- and- off- the- record with the Jimmy Olsens of the Beltway Village.  While it's a given that many in the Democratic Party and it's hangers-on in the consulting world are preternaturally skittish or are simply feeling left out, they need to remember the environment in which all of this is happening.  Republicans, having nothing but a fully-loaded clown car of prospective nominees, are doing what they do best:  trying to cut down the presumptive Democratic nominee as much as possible (and, yes, she will be the nominee if she wants it). Democrats need to get into their 2016 campaign mode fast because the Republicans (and their media megaphones) are already well into it.

BONUS:  Paul Waldman says it all right here:

While the Clintons bear responsibility for getting many of those scandals going with questionable decision-making or behavior, it's also true that the mainstream media made huge mistakes during that period by treating every Republican charge, no matter how ludicrous, as though it was worthy of a full-scale investigation splashed across the front page. Again and again, they reacted to the most thinly justified accusations as though the next Watergate or Iran-Contra was at hand, and when it turned out that there was no corruption or illegality to be found, they simply moved on to the next faux-scandal, presented no less breathlessly. 

That past — and journalists' failures to reckon with it — are still affecting coverage today. When this email story broke, how many journalists said it was important because it "plays into a narrative" of Hillary Clinton as scandal-tainted? I must have heard it a dozen times just in the past week. 

Here's a tip for my fellow scribes and opinionators: If you find yourself justifying blanket coverage of an issue because it "plays into a narrative," stop right there. That's a way of saying that you can't come up with an actual, substantive reason this is important or newsworthy, just that it bears some superficial but probably meaningless similarity to something that happened at some point in the past. It's the updated version of "out there" — during the Clinton years, reporters would say they had no choice but to devote attention to some scurrilous charge, whether there was evidence for it or not, because someone had made the charge and therefore it was "out there." (our emphasis)

Hillary Clinton's E-Mails: More Grist For The Scandal-Driven Media

When you start seeing the puerile "mainstream media" tossing around terms like "bombshell" and "scandal," you can generally bet it's an Obama- or Clinton-bashing tale.

The latest kerfuffle is over the fact that Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail account when she was Secretary of State.  Unforced error?  Obviously.  Legal?  Probably so.  "Scandal worthy?" Benghazi!!! Let's start with Jon Stewart's take on the matter:

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O.K.  Fair enough.  In fact, we would heartily endorse Digby's "disclaimer" about the media's latest "pseudo-scandal" (with our emphasis):

I am going to issue the standard disclaimer that if Clinton did something real bring it on.  But this is a patented pseudo-scandal planted by the Benghazi bullshit squad and I'm not jumping on the bandwagon. 

If somebody wants to do an expose of Clinton's cozy relationship with Wall Street, her hawkish foreign policy or her penchant for nonsensical bipartisan cant, that's perfectly fair.  In fact, it's necessary. I think a hardcore investigation into the Clinton Foundation and all its opaque financial dealings is absolutely in bounds. But when they start recycling rightwing Benghazi crapola, referencing Whitewater,talking about her "calculating Machiavellian character"  and don't even have a clue about what it is she's supposed to have done wrong, just that it doesn't "pass the smell test", I'm going to be ornery. This is the Village in all its glory and I'm sad to say that a new generation of Villagers is just as willing to chase the shiny object for the Dark Ops wingnuts as their forebears. 

This is the scandal-driven media at its absolute worst... again... fed by a Republican smear machine that is pulling out all the stops to rough up Clinton.

Hey, you want a real scandal?  How about how the media has ignored or played down the greatest political story of the last 50 years:  the radicalization of the Republican Party.  They can still take a cue from Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, who identified the problem in April 2012 (spoiler alert: "the Republicans are the problem") and offered this advice to the media:

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?

(Ed. note: Of course, if the Beltway Village actually followed that advice, it would depopulate the Sunday talking heads shows of both politicians and pundits.)  We're sure the media will hop on that just as it did 3 years (and a lot of insanity) ago, after they finish flogging "e-mailgate."

BONUS:  Ed Kilgore helpfully reminds us that there are also reasons some Democratic Party hacks have to keep this "scandal" going.  Good read.

How The Scandal-Driven Media Blew The IRS Story

This is a small taste, but the whole article is really worth the read;  a case of report first, ask questions later journamalism:

While the initial reports about the IRS targeting looked pretty bad, suggesting that agents singled out tax-exempt applications for Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the media badly bungled the controversy when supposedly sober journalists like Bob Woodward and Chuck Todd jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst from day one. Instead of doing more reporting to discover the true nature and context of the IRS targeting, or at least waiting for their colleagues to do some, the supposedly liberal mainstream press let their eagerness to show they could be just as tough on a Democratic White House as a Republican one get ahead of the facts. We expect politicians to stretch reality to fit a narrative, but the press should be better.

Unfortunately, the Rethugs know how to play the media like cheap violins.  There's certainly a symbiotic relationship between the "win the morning" types looking to be this generation's Woodward and Bernstein, and the Rethugs who want to keep the Obama Administration on the defensive as much as possible.  Throw into the mix what Seitz-Wald calls the media's eagerness to show they're not the "liberal media" in the tank for Democrats -- a meme that the Rethugs have been eagerly pushing since the 1960's--  and you have the IRS nothingburger (following on the Solyndra nothingburger, following the Benghazi! nothingburger, follow... well, you get the picture, even if the ink-stained wretches out there don't).

The Scandal-Driven Media

 Jon Favreau sees an unhealthy tendency in the media to presume the worst, and its corrosive effects:

... [I]t does not serve the public good when elected and government officials, be they Democrat or Republican, are constantly presumed guilty until proven innocent. When the American people are told that every action or decision is motivated by politics or power; when every mistake or misstatement is exaggerated into an instance of Nixonian malfeasance; when the line between impassioned advocacy and objective reporting ceases to exist, it does nothing but erode an already-fragile faith in our democratic institutions.

Many in the press have called for a national debate on privacy and security. And in the coming weeks, issues like climate change, immigration, and any number of controversial Supreme Court decisions will be added to the list. But national debates don’t just require a willing public, President, and Congress—they require a willing press that is able to report with a sense of nuance, patience, and perspective.

Favreau hits a lot of nails on the head, but "nuance, patience, and perspective" in the press?  Unfortunately, that doesn't generate clicks, sales or audience share, which is why we're where we are and why that's not likely to change.

Distractions

There are fewer more dogged guardians of Beltway conventional wisdom than the once great Washington Post's Kaplan Daily's blind squirrel emeritus Dana Milbank. Now, for the second time
in two days, he has happened across... another acorn of truth!

Now, after a long economic winter, green shoots are everywhere: The stock market is booming, housing prices are rebounding and mortgage providers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, long demonized by Republicans, are returning profits to the Treasury. Job growth has accelerated and consumer confidence has reached its highest level in almost six years. Health-care cost increases are slowing, Medicare’s prospects are improving — in part because of President Obama’s health-care reforms — and gasoline prices are forecast to decline. Long-term fiscal problems remain, but the federal deficit is shrinking, putting off Washington’s debt-ceiling standoff until late fall .

Yet House Republicans have shelved a serious legislative agenda this year in favor of 24/7 investigations. On Tuesday morning alone, they held two hearings probing alleged wrongdoing in the Obama administration. [snip]

A good indication of House Republicans’ mind-set came last week, when Rep. John Boehner’s spokesman wrote on the House speaker’s official blog that a speech by Obama on student loans was an attempt “to change the subject from its growing list of scandals.” It’s telling that the GOP leadership would view a student loan event as a distraction from scandals but wouldn’t see the obsession with scandals as a distraction from pocketbook issues.

Milbank goes on to offer his take on how this is starting to look like the Clinton era revisited, when the Rethugs' obsession was chasing Bill Clinton's penis all over town.  When a Beltway kool kid has such moments of clarity, as shown in his recent columns, we have to wonder if the Rethuglican game is up.  Dana, no more "But Obama's not being nice," or "If only the Democrats could meet the Republicans half way," or (need we say it?) "Both sides are at fault"??   Wow.  We wonder how long this epiphany will hold in this precinct of the easily distracted media, or if it will become the new conventional wisdom.  It's still pleasant to hope that perhaps, just maybe, this is a harbinger of a change in the attitudes of the Beltway media, who hold such sway over the nature of the conversation in Washington, DC.

How The Media Was Played On BENGHAZI! (And Why That Won't Change Anything)

Rachel Maddow dissects the fake emails press scandal associated with BENGHAZI!, with particular shame descending on Fox News Lite ABC News (h/t Crooks and Liars) :



Today's journalists  complicit Beltway media stenographers need to do some serious reflection on how they're being played by Rethuglican operatives and the right-wing noise machine... haha riiiight!

UPDATE:  ABC News' Jonathan Karl says "so sorry" for his false report (but says the story "entirely stands" -- see "haha riiight", above). Thanks a bunch.

UPDATE II:  Should have guessed why Karl is sticking with his "story:"  he's a product of a right-wing "journalism" organization.  So, he's part of the right-wing noise machine, just embedded at ABC News.

Sunday Cartoon Trifecta - "Scandal!" Edition

(Steve Breen, Arizona Republic, via gocomics.com)

(Jim Morin, Miami Herald, via gocomics.com)

(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Kaplan Daily, via gocomics.com)

Another Boot Drops

The unfolding story about former CIA Director David Petraeus' affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell seems to be enmeshing additional people, including Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. In their investigation of harassing e-mails sent from Broadwell to Jill Kelley, a Tampa socialite who has acted as a liaison to military families, the FBI uncovered "inappropriate" e-mails between Gen. Allen and Ms. Kelley. There are also questions about the appropriateness of the FBI's initial involvement targeting Broadwell's e-mails, which was requested by Ms. Kelley. It's very sad for those involved, especially given the pressures and personal sacrifice of military service on them and their families.

On a related note, the spectacle of hyperventilating media hungry for a new sex scandal to put under a microscope contrasts with their superficial, "horse race" coverage of big issues that actually impact Americans. But, sadly, covering "sex scandals" is what our journalists do best these days.