You remember how hot and bothered the beltway press has been because Hillary decided to go on a listening tour instead of doing a host of interviews and press conferences? And then after every Republican announced their candidacy, a smug, "where's Hillary?" came pouring from the mouths of those reporters and pundits. Then they complained that Hillary's announcement speech contained no specific policy outlines. They were up in arms when the Clinton campaign roped them off over the July 4th weekend and even left wing pundits complained that the optics of reporters being roped off was a major blunder. How could she be so insensitive to the needs of the press, ammirite?
This morning Hillary Clinton gave an economic policy speech in New York that was pretty important. You would think the cable news networks would have flocked around it for at least a few minutes since she was presenting her vision for America. I was expecting Karl Rove to be interviewed afterwards on Fox News so he could attack her for being a socialist troglodyte phony who wants to steal our freedoms and give away all our money so the poor can buy new Jaguars.
As I perused the cable networks, I was stunned to see almost no coverage at all by those same networks, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News that denigrated her non-press appearances. Of all the things the mainstream press has said and done to Hillary Clinton, today's non coverage hypocrisy exposes their blatant hatred for Hillary in all its glory.
Just to be clear, when the press says it wants access to Hillary Clinton, what it means is it wants to incessantly inquire as to why she is such a dishonest, untrustworthy horror who won't let them see every email she's ever sent to anyone in order to prove otherwise.
If there's not Benghaziiiii being bandied about or wingnut complaints about her private email server, then what's the point to cover her?
Prohibitive Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton gave an address on economic policy at Gotham’s New School Monday morning. You would think this would entail a fair amount of cable news coverage, as it was not that long ago the political press was decrying Clinton for running an insubstantial campaign void of policy specifics.
You’d be wrong. CNN and Fox News skipped* the speech entirely, while MSNBC ran only her introductory remarks before cutting away to commentary on it. CNN even found time to replay David Letterman’s Trump Top 10 bit, a clip several days old at this point, instead of Clinton’s speech on the likely central issue of the 2016 campaign. ADVERTISEMENT
I know what you’re thinking: did these networks at least wonder what was in the speech while not covering it?
They did! Fox’s Ed Henry appeared stymied as to how Clinton would argue for improving wage stagnation given her own personal wealth. (That the two are incompatible was an unspoken premise.) But instead of then turning to Clinton’s remarks, Fox switched to analyst Brit Hume’s commentary on Donald Trump — which, in fairness, he hadn’t aired since yesterday.
Meanwhile on MSNBC, former RNC chair Michael Steele asked: “I’m curious as to which definition of investment she’s going to use,” then wondered aloud about how Clinton would prioritize various hypothetical economic trade offs. If only there were a way to find out.
At least Andrea Mitchell interviewed Brian Fallon, Hillary's press secretary.
