From Deseret News archives:
Press bias isn't cause of Clinton's campaign problems
"The political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I've never seen this before," the former president said. "They've been active participants in this election. ... But I don't want to talk about the press. I want to talk about the people. That's what's wrong with this election, people trying to take this election away from the people."
Somewhere in there, if I'm not mistaken, he acknowledged that journalists are people, too, so I guess I should be thankful for that. And I should note that throughout the interview with Washington's WMAL, Bill Clinton was back in loose-cannon mode. He said Hillary Clinton "has been the underdog ever since Iowa," which is not true. To support that unsupportable assertion, he implied that the political establishment is opposed to his wife's candidacy, which is not true. And he claimed that "we've gotten plenty of delegates on a shoestring," which is true only if you don't count the more than $100 million the Clinton campaign has raised (and mostly spent).
The theme of press bias, however, is woven through the Clinton campaign's narrative of the story thus far. There are two basic allegations: that journalists look at Obama uncritically while subjecting Hillary Clinton to microscopic scrutiny; and that we react with hair-trigger reflexes when attacks on Obama have the slightest whiff of racism but don't seem to notice, or care, when Clinton is subjected to rank sexism.
The first charge is just bogus, in my view. Like Clinton, Obama has developed position papers on all the major issues. Clinton has been able to highlight the differences between her proposals and Obama's for example, the fact that her plan for universal health insurance includes a mandate, whereas Obama's does not. In debates, she has had the chance to challenge his approach and defend her own. It is not the media's fault if voters fail to agree with Clinton that nominating Obama would be a "leap of faith."
Recent comments
The arrogance of Bill Clinton's comments about the press is offensive...
Clinton's sex isn't the reason | Feb. 18, 2008 at 4:38 a.m.
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