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Meat, The Press
On Sunday morning I was catching up on the news when I saw this tweet:
Press lapdogs herded like sheep: Hillary Clinton aides corral journalists with rope lines [photos] http://t.co/8dhFBYhIY8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 4, 2015
My jaw dropped. We all know that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been very icy towards the press, but picture after picture of members of the media penned in confined areas like swine is a new low, even for them. The idea that the Clinton campaign was treating the press corps like meat became a prominent talking point. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Carol Lee from the Wall Street Journal said “the relationship between the Clinton campaign and the press is just hostile on both sides. We’re how many months out? And if it’s that hostile now, reporters are being penned off like farm animals, where is it going to go?”
In various stories I saw the press referred to as veal, cattle, and sheep. Sheep is probably the most fitting. It’s certainly not a stretch that the vast majority of the press covering Hillary Clinton, will be voting for Hillary Clinton, if she becomes the candidate in 2016.
If members of the media covering the Clinton campaign had any remaining dignity at this point, they’d refuse to cover her. Refuse to cover her events, where she “answers” a question or two by saying absolutely nothing, maybe revealing her favorite ice cream flavor. Refuse to cover her roundtables, like the one where she answered FOX News’ Ed Henry’s question with, “Just, just wait. Yeah, maybe when I finish talking to the people here, how about that? I might, I’ll have to ponder it, but I will put it on my list for due consideration.” Refuse to be disrespected on a daily basis by a ruthless campaign. Instead, we have a press petrified by the thought that Hillary Clinton might have to really answer tough question about skeletons in her spacious closet, like Benghazi, or her lack of achievements as Secretary of State, or her private server, loaded with classified emails, located in her giant mansion.
There are various and occasional grumblings from the media about how they are being treated by the Clinton campaign. From The Huffington Post:
Journalists covering Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign met for nearly two hours in Washington on Monday to discuss concerns about what they believe is inadequate access to cover the Democratic front-runner, according to people who attended.
The grievances discussed at the private gathering, which was held at the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington offices, go beyond Clinton’s unwillingness so far to substantively engage with the press, a topic that has already been discussed publicly on cable news and social media. Attendees of the meeting, who were not authorized by their news organizations to speak on the record, charge the Clinton campaign with keeping an excessively tight grip on information, even when it comes to logistical details that don’t seem particularly sensitive or revelatory.
Among the problems discussed were the campaign’s failure to provide adequate notice prior to events, the lack of a clear standard for whether fundraisers are open or closed press and the reflexive tendency to opt to speak anonymously. The complaints mirror concerns that a number of political journalists have also raised in recent conversations with The Huffington Post.
In the end, nothing will change. It doesn’t have to. The Clinton campaign knows they have a slobbering press in palm of their hand, and they will continue to just throw a scrap of meat here and there to the assembled pack. Or punish them if they get out of their cages.
Published in Politics
I know we’re not supposed to bring up the whole “If a Republican did this…” thing but wow, can you imagine?
And here we have the press area for the Clinton campaign….
Keep repeating to yourself, “I am not press, I am a happy member of the stenographer pool.”
See? All better!
In the end, Clinton will make some small gesture of openness towards the press and they will all love her once again. It won’t take much and it doesn’t have to happen until well into the actual campaign.
It won’t take much at all. They’re already all in the bag for her. Cameron
Maybe they could try some real investigative journalism and look beyond Clinton’s own words for information.
Mmmmmm… Meat press…
I notice that Hillary didn’t even give a straight answer to the ice cream question:
She didn’t have a poll-tested answer.
Well, I think we were pretty sure they lacked dignity, we just didn’t know they were completely devoid of it.
Maybe so. They will certainly all vote for her. But I don’t know if they will have the same slobbering love affair with her that they did for Obama. She is not a light worker who looks down on the rest of us like God.
I don’t think anyone likes her as a person. She doesn’t dazzle libs the way Obama did. She’s ponderous and she exudes corruption and deceit. She reminds me of:
Photographers gotta eat.
It’s pathetic and kind of disturbing to me how much abuse the press is willing to take from Dem’s and still cover for them. It’s not just Hillary Clinton (though, yes, the rope-herding thing is pretty incredible), but our current Commander-in-Chief has been pretty dismissive and rude to them as well in the past. But as miffed as the Press may feel, it doesn’t matter with regards to how they’ll cover Dem’s vs. Repub’s. Any Democrat is better than a Republican gaining office.
The Press may complain about access, but really isn’t serious about it. Case in point: Mr. Miller’s point!
They probably will continue with this ‘scripted’ approach as long as it works for both the campaign and the Press.
If her campaign can comfortably treat the press this way while she is running for President, imagine how her administration will treat the press when she IS President.
That will be like Obama’s treatment of the press, on steroids
Not one of those effete reporters had a pocket knife with which to cut the rope and free them from their bondage?
My guess, in the future they’ll act like my dog seeing a leash every time the campaign breaks out the rope.
It’s interesting that we think of the mainstream media as eventually being in Hillary’s pocket. (and it is) But then we see just how much her campaign holds the press in contempt. I think she’s decided that the press, being such a foregone progressive conclusion, is irrelevant to her campaign and can be totally ignored. Those who vote for her either love her unconditionally or just can’t stand to vote for anything but the big “D”. So who needs the bother of all those press flunkies asking questions that she can’t answer anyway? Heck, she may even get some anti-press votes from the base.
Don’t know if you coined it but a brilliant header.
I did, and thank you, Buster. Cameron