For several weeks I've been listening to Tucker Carlson and Wolf Blitzer and other media pundits tell me that the Democratic race is tied, and that Hillary Clinton can win. Like Markos, I believe the only way Clinton can win at this point is "via coup by super delegate." And yet, the media seems to have made a decision to ignore the facts and instead create a different narrative, one where Obama will be brought down by 20 second sound-bytes of Reverend Wright that they play over and over again.
They've covered Hillary's Bosnia lie, but already that story seems to be dying down - and at least twice I've seen this reported on CNN as being similar to the Wright "scandal", but you know, Wright somehow shows Obama has bad judgment, while the Bosnia lie shows that Hillary just misspoke.
TPMtv provides us with a compilation video, diaried last night by Virginia Dem.
This video proves that Hillary Clinton didn't "misspeak" just once or twice recently after a week of being sleep deprived - this was a calculated campaign talking point, and I want to know why this story (and others that exhibit Hillary's resume padding skills, NAFTA, Ireland's peace agreement, etc.) are being ignored or downplayed by the media. I also want to suggest that we do something about it.
Hillary hasn't just "misspoken" once or twice throughout this campaign - she's spent the last several months deliberately misspeaking on several issues. I don't know about you, but when a person deliberately says things they know not to be true, I typically call that lying.
Let's run through just a few big ones from the list (to go through all of them would be cumbersome):
Lie #1: "Present Votes":
Hillary's campaign sent out mailers in IA, NH, NV, and other states suggesting that Obama's record on choice wasn't as strong as he says it is. Of course, this was a complete lie. Senator Obama has never had anything but a 100% rating from a pro-choice organization.
You can read a decent summary of this manufactured controversy at Fact Check - on Obama's website - which details not just Hillary's lies about Obama's pro-choice record, but shows that EMILY's List and others were complicit in Hillary's lies even though they had praised Obama's positions when he was in the State Senate.
Here's Tribune columnist Eric Zorn on the "present votes":
Sutherland just laughs. "We also had [Democratic Senate leader] Emil Jones, [current Atty. Gen.] Lisa Madigan, Miguel del Valle, Rickey Hendon and other very strong pro-choice legislators voting `present' on that one," she said. "It was all done to pull `present' votes off the fence."
Obama confirmed Sutherland's account of the legislative strategy and said, "No one was more active to beat back those bills than I was."
"Criticizing Obama on the basis of `present' votes indicates you don't have a great understanding of the process," said Thom Mannard, director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.
Or you are willing to pretend you don't to score cheap political points.
As a result of this lie, Hillary lost many supporters, but one in particular who was important. In this video, Lorna Brett Howard talks about why she stopped supporting Clinton, and why she started supporting Obama:
Lie #2: NAFTA
As MissLaura details here, prior to the voting in TX and OH on March 4th, Hillary made the "Shame on you, Barack Obama...meet me in Ohio!" demand in a press conference. Obama had had the nerve to send out a mailer that suggested Hillary was misrepresenting her initial position on NAFTA. Hillary, appalled by this accusation, got righteously angry.
Well, it turns out she had no business getting angry, because the mailers were accurate. Hillary's White House schedule was released and unfortunately for her it shows that she did, in fact, support NAFTA:
Two attendees of that closed-door briefing, neither of whom are affiliated with any campaign, describe that event for ABC News. It was a room full of women involved in international trade. David Gergen served as a sort of master of ceremonies as various women members of the Cabinet talked up NAFTA, which had yet to pass Congress.
"It wasn’t a drop-by it was organized around her participation," said one attendee. "Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time.
Amusingly enough, the Clinton campaign asked Jake Tapper to update his post and add a quote by David Gergen (who is all over CNN, of course, spreading Hillary talking points) that suggests Hillary wasn't really supporting NAFTA in this meeting. So, Hillary was against NAFTA before she was for it, and then she was against it again once it passed? Right. Where is the media on this? If Obama had made a claim like this we'd see clips every 2 minutes for the next 2 weeks and we'd hear talk of how this was surely the end of his candidacy...despite the fact that since those first caucus-goers in Iowa had their say all the way back on January 3rd, Obama has never been in a "losing" position. He has never had fewer delegates. He has never had a smaller popular vote total. He has never won fewer states. He has been ahead in this race since Iowa, and yet you'd never know it by the way the media are covering this. They act like Hillary can win it tomorrow. She cannot. Not without destroying the party in civil war - and I'm hard pressed to believe that the super delegates will allow her to do that.
Lie #3: Peace in Northern Ireland
According to Hillary, she was absolutely instrumental in achieving peace in Northern Ireland. This is one of those examples of her "experience" that apparently makes her a better candidate.
"I wasn't sitting at the negotiating table but the role I played was instrumental." Link.
Unfortunately for Hillary, this seems to be another example of a time she "misspoke". From the same Telegraph article:
But Mrs Clinton's version of events has been challenged by Peter King, an Ulster Unionist Party negotiator at the Good Friday talks in 1998, who said: "Hillary Clinton was totally invisible at the actual negotiations.
"As far as I am concerned, Mrs Clinton was as relevant to peace in Northern Ireland as Tony Blair's wife or the ex-wife of Bertie Ahern [the Irish prime minister]."
...
Both Unionist and Nationalist negotiators told this newspaper that while Mrs Clinton's work with women's groups was positive her overall role was peripheral and she played no part in the gruelling negotiations that took years.
And yet I can't recall seeing this story on the news - at least not from an angle that questions Hillary's talking points. I've read plenty of blog posts about it. I guess I'm left again to wonder why the corporate media can't keep up with the blogs.
Lie #4: Tuzla, Bosnia - Sniper Fire
The video compiled by TPM pretty much sums this one up. And yet, the media has downplayed this. I can't count the number of pundits I've seen saying things like, "Well, this was just a case where she misspoke. Everyone does that." Hillary's own position is:
"I say a million words a day. So if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."
Funny that I don't hear the pundits on CNN asking - exactly how does one FORGET being under sniper fire and fearing for not only your own life, but the life of your sixteen year old daughter, who is there by your side??
Hillary's candidacy is based on her "experience". She's the woman who can answer that phone at 3AM and take action - and these outright lies leave me to wonder how she could even keep up this image for a week, let alone more than a year. Where is the experience? Is it in her ducking of imaginary sniper fire? Is it in her "peripheral" role in the peace agreement in Northern Ireland? Is it in her support and then opposition and then support and then opposition to NAFTA? Is it in her deliberate misrepresentation of Senator Obama's record? Is that the kind of "experience" we're looking for? Is that the kind of "experience" who really has a chance to win this nomination - despite the fact that she's been losing the nomination in every way since January 3rd? I don't think so.
It's time for the media to stop the charade - I realize they're enjoying the ratings boost. I realize they're enjoying the horse race aspect of this. I also realize that they love the fact that they get to give John McCain a complete pass without anyone noticing because they can keep the focus on Clinton and Obama. I encourage you to write the corporate media - let them know that you're onto them - that they should stop portraying this as a horserace and start calling it what it is - a race that she cannot win, unless you can call coup by super delegate "winning". Also let them know that you're onto their kid-gloves act with McCain. BBQ's at the McCain summer home shouldn't be enough to buy off a journalist...so I'd love to know what else it is he's offered.
Here's some contact information:
CNN (CNN has been the worst of these by far - their website currently has a story about Obama and Wright highlighted, nothing about Tuzla, nothing about McCain's mess up. And it would be great if they'd identify the pundits who are supporting each candidate before they're allowed to speak and trash other candidates.)
(While you're at it, tell them to fire Pat Buchanan. His racist views don't belong on the news presented as "punditry" or anything else. If he wants to spout his racist garbage, let him do it from KKK Television, or whatever it is those folks watch.)
(These folks are mostly beyond help, but a few of them have displayed a glimmer of reason lately, so why not contact them anyway. At this point one has to wonder if they're the slightest bit fearful of the fact that nearly everyone knows they're a Republican shill network.)
Feel free to add further contact information in the comments. Feel free to write Letters to the Editor. You can use this tool to find all your local papers.
The media has been complicit in helping Republicans to "create reality" for the past 8 years (well, longer than that), and it's our duty to force them to stop. Journalists are supposed to report facts, not create them - let's remind them of that.
