More negative stories in the MSM
A curious thing is happening. There is a relative deluge of anti-Clinton stories in the MSM. First, Drudge reports: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday’s Dem debate on Hillary. ‘This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,’ top Clinton insider explains. ‘Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull ‘a Russert’.”
Second, the question-planting story has gotten some legs. The college student at Grinnell now says she was not the only plant in the audience, and that there is a binder full of planted questions: “It said ‘college student’ in brackets and then the question”. CNN elaborates:
Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was really pretty simple: She says a senior Clinton staffer asked if she’d like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.
“I sort of thought about it, and I said ‘Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates’ energy plans?’” Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night. “‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the staffer said, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, “because I don’t know how familiar she is with their plans.” Video Watch the student ask the planted question.
He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it. “The top one was planned specifically for a college student,” she added. “It said ‘college student’ in brackets and then the question.”
Topping that sheet of paper was the following: “As a young person, I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?” And while she said she would have rather used her own question, Gallo-Chasanoff said she generally didn’t have a problem asking the campaign’s because she “likes to be agreeable”…
the “head of publicity for the campaign,” a man whose name she could not recall, had no factual disputes with the story. But, she added, a Clinton intern spoke to her to say the campaign requests she “not talk about” the story to any more media outlets and that if she did she should inform a staffer…
“After the event,” she said, “I heard another man…talking about the question he asked, and he said that the campaign had asked him to ask that question.” The man she references prefaced his question by saying that it probably didn’t have anything to do with energy, and then posed the following: “I wonder what you propose to do to create jobs for the middle-class person, such as here in Newton where we lost Maytag.” A Maytag factory in Newton recently closed, forcing hundreds of people out of their jobs…
Ms. Gallo-Chasanoff saw the binder that had “college student” questions for her to parrot. Perhaps Mr. Blitzer will oblige the campaign by reading from the approved “debate moderator” page in the binder. But perhaps the Democratic media have now come to dislike the low regard in which they are held by some of their ideological confrères.
It will be interesting to see if there is a direct question about question-planting in the debate, or whether the other candidates and the media let the frontrunner off the hook.
November 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
A curious thing is happening. There is a relative deluge of anti-Clinton stories in the MSM.
I noticed that too.
Who benefits?
1. Karl Rove ever so casually left the White House. You’d think that if the Republicans have dirt, they’d save if for the general election–but the post-Reagan GOP has oh-so-cleverly managed to transform itself into this conservative country’s minority party.
2. If Clinton were rendered toxic, Edwards’ chances for a VP nomination would improve.
3. The robotic Al Gore who blundered away the 2000 election couldn’t have pulled off this kind of thing, but, come to think of it, I don’t really know all that much about the upgraded model.
4. (Afterthought) I was startled to realize that Obama’s name never for a moment crossed my mind even though I’ve come to distrust him.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Here’s a thought experiment. Try to remember the last time a Republican “warned” a media personality about the kind of questions not to ask, and there was no particular outcry from the media about it.
Me neither.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:44 am
It’s always the coverup that gets you. The media will play along, until they are publicly exposed as dupes. After that, they have to treat Clinton equitably with other candidates, lest their compliance become too obvious.
Put more simply, “We’re friends. But if it comes down to me or you, it’s you.”