The Clinton media frenzy

Eric Boehlert is a really smart, insightful commentator (loved his book “Bloggers on The Bus”) and I can’t really improve on what he’s written here:

Offering up some advice to the political press corps as it prepares to cover the 2016 presidential campaign,New York Times columnist Frank Bruni recently stressed that reporters and pundits ought to take a deep breath when big stories broke; to not immediately promote stumbles and campaign missteps to be more urgent and damaging than they really are.

“We may wish certain snags were roadblocks and certain missteps collapses, because we think they should be or they’re sexier that way,” wrote Bruni.

That was in his February 28 column. Four days later Bruni abandoned his own advice.

Pouncing on the controversy surrounding which email account Hillary Clinton used while serving as secretary of state, Bruni tossed his counsel for caution to the wind and treated the email development as an instant game changer and even wondered if the revelation indicated Clinton had a political “death wish.”

But that fits the long-running pattern of the D.C. media’s Clinton treatment: Over-eager journalists hungry for scandal can’t even abide by the advice they dispensed four days prior. Or maybe Bruni simply meant that his advice of caution was supposed to apply only to Republican candidates. Because it’s certainly not being applied to Hillary and the email kerfuffle coverage.

Instead, “The media and politicos and Twitterati immediately responded with all the measured cautious skepticism we’ve come to expect in response to any implication of a Clinton Scandal,” noted Wonkette. “That is to say, none.”

Just look how the very excitable Ron Fournier at National Journal rushed in after the email story broke and announced Clinton should probably just forget about the whole running-for-president thing. Why preemptively abandon an historic run? Because she may reveal herself to be “seedy,” “sanctimonious,” “self-important,” and “slick.” This, after Fournier denounced Bill and Hillary Clinton two weeks ago for their “stupid” and “sleazy” actions.

That seems like a temperate way for a Beltway columnist to write about presidential campaigns, right? Then again, both Fournier and Bruni drew a straight line from the unfolding email story to Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affair nearly 20 years ago, which strikes me as odd, if not downright bizarre.

“As long as she’s a national figure–and especially when she runs for president–Hillary Clinton will get more scrutiny than anyone else in the field,” wrote Jamelle Bouie at Slate this week. (The press is also slow to react when holes in the email stories appear.)

Scrutiny is certainly part of the campaign equation and no candidate should be sealed off from it. What I’m highlighting is how Clinton scrutiny is so often wrapped in an almost a high school brand of social contempt.

Perhaps nobody inadvertently captured the hallmark better than the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza who announced the emails story was hugely damaging. Why? Because it “reinforces everything people don’t like about her.” (i.e. She’s sneaky, and political and arrogant.) And yes, if you remove the word “people” and insert “journalists” you can really drill down to the larger dynamic at play: Because the email story “reinforces everything journalists don’t like about her.”

H/t Price Benowitz LLP , Virginia.