September 3, 2016

For some idiotic reason, the 'Liberal Media' is miffed over Hillary Clinton's reluctance and subsequent refusal to hold press conferences. It doesn't matter one iota if she's answered their questions ad nauseum, irrespective of their mendacity, they want her to be their puppet.

Meanwhile, over on the other side, the Breitbartian-Sith gather around their Orange Leader and laugh and laugh. Oh the irony, no one is bothering them one bit about the FACT that Trump was just fined for actual campaign impropriety, which minions Conway, Bannon and Ailes know full well would destroy his opponent. An IRS penalty for an illegal contribution? That would end her, and quick. Trump et. al are in a protective fortress, impenetrable by facts, logic and knowledge. The Iron-Orange Dome is protecting those inside against indictment, arrest and other punitive measures for myriad transgressions. It's good to be a B-Sith.

Jake Tapper's The Lead is a 'news' program accustomed to the both-siderist narrative and he seems to believe that the lack of specifically formatted press conferences means automatic guilt on Hillary Clinton's part. Supporter and outgoing California Senator, Barbara Boxer (D) tried in vain to explain what she has done with regards to settling this email issue. To say it's a dead horse beaten to smithereens would be too understated.

BOXER: The fact is there was no criminal activity here, let's move on. I'll sit here and I'll talk about it all of the time you want, that's fine but I come back to the same thing. Nobody else has revealed any e-mails. I'll tell you Senators, you ask a Senator, they all use their personal and their official on the same server. listen, it goes on, it's wrong, we should figure it out, but let's move ahead here.

TAPPER: You want to move on, but let me ask you wouldn't it it be a good idea.

BOXER: I think you should move on, but you're the guy asking the questions.

TAPPER: Let me just ask, don't you think if Secretary Clinton and her supporters, like you, want to move on, change the subject. Shouldn't she have a press conference and take questions on it? It has been 270 days since she had a press conference. Why not answer the questions, and then maybe the press will move on.

Senator Boxer deftly explains that she has done over 350 sit-down interviews and has answered these questions more times than Donald Trump says 'believe me' in all his speeches combined.

BOXER: I mean you would prefer probably a different type of news conference, but she has been answering questions continually, on EVERY subject.

As far as the emails' alleged criminality is concerned, a guilty verdict is something that has been decided without evidence in a court of right-wing public opinion. Somehow everyone forgets that there WAS the FBI investigation, which didn't give the both-sides crowd or those on the Breitbartian Sith-GOP side what they wanted.

FBI Director James Comey exonerated Sec. Clinton due to lack of any evidence showing malice aforethought. His pronouncement was laden with his own judgments, designed to vainly placate the red-meat loving base who wanted PRISON, and nothing else. But that just made them hungry for more.

None of this would have even made it into a court of law, or even a halfway-decent newspaper, but because Comey got to stand there and testify unilaterally against Hillary Clinton for 15 minutes, no one gets to make Comey look like a fool for contradicting himself, and for engaging in the sort of rank speculation that courts of law are designed to weed out, and which competent editors relegate to spaces like Alex Jonesā€˜ Infowars.

As far as the press conferences are concerned, what is the 'accceptable amount?' No one knows, because the answer is indeterminable. Charlie Pierce seems to understand why this phenomenon will continue in perpetuity:

...The idea that one press conference (or two, or 105) would put the carefully crafted "perception" to rest is laughable. (It is the idiot cousin of the argument that, had Bill Clinton copped to his affair, he wouldn't have been impeached.) It is belied not only by the experience of her own husband's presidency, but also by a nearly forgotten episode during her time as First Lady...and anyone who thinks that another press conference on the trail in 2016 would eliminate the "perception" that exists out there is either a charlatan or a fool.

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