This doesn’t even make sense, does it?
So Hillary Clinton took money from banks for speeches, and the Clinton Foundation took money from some misbehaving banks, and suddenly the fact that they weren’t prosecuted is her fault? What am I missing? I thought she was Secretary of State, not the Attorney General. If the author has any of what we used to call “proof” that there’s a connection here, he should have included it in the story.
Why does Hillary so dislike the political media? Because any normal person would, Allen thinks, if her first experience of them was being treated as a suspect in the death of a dear friend (Vince Foster) who’d committed suicide. And no, it wasn’t just Rush Limbaugh. It was Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post, the TV networks, basically everybody.
So a CNN interviewer asks the former Secretary of State why nobody trusts her and she’s supposed to show contrition or be derided as “inauthentic”? Allen’s Rule #5 states that “everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit.” If so, what answer can she possibly give?
Maybe the one she did give: that right-wing apparatchiks have been peddling this line to reporters for 25 years, but she’s won elections anyway. So aides used a rope line to keep reporters out of her face while she walked in a parade? Boo-hoo-hoo. They ought to be glad she didn’t break out stock whips and cattle prods.
Because that would be really bitchy.
Meanwhile, these guardians of public morality can be awfully selective about admitting their own mistakes. Consider the experience of Sidney Blumenthal, the former Clinton White House aide dragged before the latest House Benghazi investigation because he emailed Clinton information about Libya that was offered by a retired CIA analyst they both knew.
Supposedly, according to a heavy-breathing New York Times story, Blumenthal had highly suspicious financial interests in Libya. Supposedly, too, “the committee’s investigators are… interested in whether the planned business venture in Libya posed any potential conflicts for Mr. Blumenthal or Mrs. Clinton.”
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius depicted Blumenthal as Hillary’s “Svengali,” cunningly manipulating the Secretary of State for his own devious ends. It was all terribly suspicious, emblematic of Hillary’s well-known propensity for skirting the law.
Except that Blumenthal (a friend) had no such business ties, as his attorney and his subsequent testimony have made clear. He’s labored in vain to have that testimony released by seemingly embarrassed GOP investigators. So when will the Times and Post correct the damage to Blumenthal’s reputation?
I’m guessing never: Clinton rules.
Jonathan Allen in Vox spells out what I’ve been trying to tell you for years: Yes, there really are different rules for covering the Clintons. Read the whole thing and prepare yourself for the next two years:
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.
I understand these dynamics well, having co-written a book that demonstrated how Bill and Hillary Clinton used Hillary’s time at State to build the family political operation and set up for their fourth presidential campaign. That is to say, I’ve done a lot of research about the Clintons’ relationship with the media, and experienced it firsthand. As an author, I felt that I owed it to myself and the reader to report, investigate, and write with the same mix of curiosity, skepticism, rigor, and compassion that I would use with any other subject. I wanted to sell books, of course. But the easier way to do that — proven over time — is to write as though the Clintons are the purest form of evil. The same holds for daily reporting. Want to drive traffic to a website? Write something nasty about a Clinton, particularly Hillary.
As a reporter, I get sucked into playing by the Clinton rules. This is what I’ve seen in my colleagues, and in myself.
It’s long, so I’ll just give you the headings:
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.
I strongly urge you to go read the whole thing.
It appears that the “exclusive” ratfking arrangement entered into by The New York Times andWashington Post has brought us all back to the Mena Airport again, and that it has done so by strict application of the Clinton Rules, first devised in the mid-1990’s, as the nation’s elite political press turned laundering oppo research into a smoothly running machine. The very first Clinton Rule, established by most of the original reporting into the Whitewater non-scandal, is that if you can blow enough smoke, you can say there’s fire. The Post has a fine example of the modern application of the rule this morning.
Bill Clinton was paid at least $26 million in speaking fees by companies and organizations that are also major donors to the foundation he created after leaving the White House, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records and foundation data. The amount, about one-quarter of Clinton’s overall speaking income between 2001 and 2013, demonstrates how closely intertwined Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable work has become with their growing personal wealth.
First of all, holy hell. A hundred million bucks just for giving speeches? I am so in the wrong damn racket. However, a little later on, we discover the first Clinton Rule in operation.
The Clintons’ relationships with major funders present an unusual political challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now that she has formally entered the presidential race, the family may face political pressure and some legal requirements to provide further details of their personal finances and those of the foundation, giving voters a clearer view of the global network of patrons that have supported the Clintons and their work over the past 15 years.
Gee, I just love the way conservatives think:
Milwaukee County Supervisor Deanna Alexander is not a fan of former Secretary of State Hillary Cinton, a Democrat running for president.
So Alexander has come up with her own derisive nickname for Clinton.
Ovary.
And Alexander has taken to her personal Twitter account to try to build support for it.
First, she posted this, referring to Clinton as “Ovary”:
Did Ovary's campaign REALLY set a $2.5 BILLION goal just for her own #POTUS run? Yet SHE claims there's too much $ in politics? Sheesh #tcot
— Deanna Alexander (@DAinWIS) April 15, 2015
If Ovary's campaign spends its $2.5 Billion goal, that's $20.00 +/- for every single voter in America. She's desperate. @rushlimbaugh #tcot
— Deanna Alexander (@DAinWIS) April 15, 2015
She seems nice.
“They made it crystal clear that the ask was from Hillary”: Inside the Clinton fundraising machine — as secretary of state
Sometimes in D.C., the crime is what’s legal: Inside the massive Clinton fundraising operation at State
Now read the story, which is about Hillary Clinton doing her job as Secretary of State.
It’s so fucking exhausting, pointing out all this shit. But it’s got to be done. Look how Salon twisted this book excerpt to imply there was something venal about something that wasn’t. Apparently they’ve decided that Hillary hate sells.
So now we know something about Salon.
