A "terrible" performance
The dominant political story of the past week and a half has been Hillary Clinton's performance in the October 30 Democratic presidential debate. During and immediately after the debate, the general consensus was certainly not that Clinton had fallen on her face. As Eric Boehlert explained this week:
What was interesting about the debate was that commentators who later described the night as a train wreck for Clinton were surprisingly subdued as the debate unfolded in real time. It was only later, as the pundits fed off each other and whipped themselves into a frenzy, that the reviews become increasingly harsh, to the point where it was written in Beltway stone that Clinton had absolutely bombed during the debate; a "debacle."
But again, as it unfolded live, that's not how it was reported. For instance, live-blogging the debate at abcnews.com, Rick Klein, who later hyped the dire debate consequences for Clinton at ABC's The Note, wrote at 9:33 p.m.: "Clinton is strong, concise, and sharp tonight. She is finding ways to contrast herself with the Bush administration even while defending herself."
By 10:35 p.m., Klein wished the two-hour debate was over already: "The last few minutes remind me of why debates should end at 90 minutes. Less energy on the stage, and fewer interesting things to be said."
Time's Ana Marie Cox also wrote about the debate in real time. At 10:53 p.m., Cox wrote that Clinton had made her "first mistake of the night" -- an hour and 53 minutes into the debate, and about nine minutes before the end.
But as the media feeding frenzy continued, the pundit class convinced themselves that Clinton had turned in the worst debate performance in years. It was "terrible," the New York Post announced more than a week later.
Time's Mark Halperin declared it "disastrous" and a "failure." According to Halperin, Clinton was "shrill" and "too hot tempered." The Politico's Roger Simon agreed that Clinton "really" had a "bad night" -- but Simon insisted that Clinton "seemed largely emotionless and detached." Given that two such esteemed journalists agreed that Clinton had a horrible night, but did so based on directly contradictory reasons, it's easy to suspect that no matter what Clinton had done during the debate, the pundits would have criticized her.
So constant were the negative reviews of her performance, Clinton ultimately said in an interview that she hadn't been at her best during the debate.
_____________________________"Breathtakingly misleading"
If the media's rush to declare Clinton's performance a disaster sounds familiar, it's because there are striking similarities to the last debate performance to be so universally and harshly condemned by the media: Al Gore's during the 2000 general election.
Then, as now, the initial reviews weren't at all bad. In fact, the public and pundits alike initially judged Gore to have been the winner; the chattering class -- which couldn't stand Gore -- then talked itself into believing (or at least saying) that he had performed badly.
Then, as now, the real story of the debate was ignored by the media. In 2000, George W. Bush's misstatements and outright lies about serious policy matters were shoved aside in favor of relentless media criticism of Gore's mannerisms and utterly inconsequential mistake about which natural disasters he had visited with James Lee Witt and which he had visited with Witt's staff. This time around, the pundit class ridicules Clinton for allegedly evasive answers, while ignoring the larger story: the questions she was supposedly evading contained misleading claims and factually incorrect statements.
In her live-blogging of the debate, the very first comment Time's Cox made about the debate itself, two minutes in, mocked Brian Williams for an opening question that was transparently hostile to Clinton: "Bri-Bri, right in with the 'tell us how Hillary will eat our babies.' " Forty-three minutes later, she noted the resemblance of a question from Russert to Republican National Committee talking points: "The RNC has been emailing Tim. (See: Question about opening the Clinton archives.)" At 10:09, she mocked another Williams comment, this one about Obama: "Obama is totally a Muslim. Brian Williams just told me so."
In real time, Russert's question about the "Clinton archives" seemed to Cox to have been the result of RNC emails to NBC's star reporter. Later, President Clinton blasted Russert for his "breathtakingly misleading" question. The Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org agreed, concluding that Russert "misled" with his question by "misquot[ing]" a letter from President Clinton. Correcting its earlier claim that Hillary Clinton's answer to Russert's question was "doubly misleading," FactCheck concluded, "Russert was wrong, and so were we. Bill Clinton ... called Russert's question 'breathtakingly misleading,' and we now agree. Russert did not respond to requests for comment."
Despite the fact that Russert's question sounded to at least one national reporter like it had come straight from the Republican National Committee, and despite the fact that it was "breathtakingly misleading," countless news reports have taken Clinton to task for her response, rather than indicating that Russert's question was false.
And -- what a coincidence! -- that's just what the RNC wanted the media to do. The Hill reported this week:
RNC officials acknowledged they've been encouraged to tap into the "stockpile" of opposition research they have amassed on Clinton more and more in recent days because of the senator's debate showing last Tuesday, combined with the upcoming Iowa caucuses and Clinton's continued leads in most polls.
[...]
Since last Tuesday, there has been a steady drumbeat of less than flattering stories promulgated by the RNC about the Clintons' role in releasing documents to the public.
[...]
Like many pundits, the RNC has seen Clinton as the presumptive nominee for much of the year, and one official in the RNC's research department said they have sought throughout the year to portray Clinton as "calculating."
Her trouble in last week's debate, quickly seized upon by her Democratic rivals, is helping paint that picture, the official said.
"She's really fallen into the framework that we've been using on her," the official said. "It's just been great for us."
[...]
After putting a strategic framework in place to define Clinton as both calculating and evasive, [Communications Director Danny] Diaz and the rest of the RNC communications team are trying to capitalize on what many saw as Clinton's first significant stumble.
The archives question wasn't the only question asked of Clinton during the debate that contained false or misleading assertions.
One of Russert's most over-the-top questions of the evening was about Social Security. Here is the complete question Russert asked Clinton:
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I want to clear something up which goes to the issue of credibility. You were asked at the AARP debate whether or not you would consider taxing, lifting the cap from $97,500, taxing that, raising more money for Social Security. You said, quote, "It's a no." I asked you the same question in New Hampshire, and you said "no." Then you went to Iowa and you went up to Tod Bowman, a teacher, and had a conversation with him saying, "I would consider lifting the cap perhaps above $200,000." You were overheard by an Associated Press reporter saying that. Why do you have one public position and one private position?
Even if everything Russert said was true, that would be a remarkable question: he began it by suggesting there is something wrong with Clinton's "credibility" and ended it by directly asserting that she is a liar.
But not everything Russert said was true. Very little of it was, in fact.
At the AARP debate, Clinton hadn't been asked specifically about "lifting the cap from $97,500"; she had been asked a far more general question. And she didn't say, "It's a no"; the moderator did. (Note that Russert went out of his way to make sure the audience understood that he was quoting Clinton directly: "You said, quote, 'It's a no.' " But he wasn't telling the truth. She hadn't said those words that he was so careful to make clear she had said.)
Russert then falsely characterized his own question to Clinton at an earlier debate. Russert did not ask, as he claimed during the October 30 debate, whether Clinton would "consider" lifting the cap. He asked whether she would lift the cap. And she did not say "no" in response. She said that she would first "move toward fiscal responsibility" before making any such decision.
Oh, and that quote Russert attributed to Clinton's conversation with Bowman? It appears to be made up. The Associated Press did, in fact, report about the conversation, but did not directly quote Clinton saying anything even remotely like "I would consider lifting the cap perhaps above $200,000." Indeed, the AP directly quoted Clinton saying only one word: "gap." That word, "gap," is key: not only did the Associated Press not quote Clinton saying what Russert claims it quoted her saying, it characterized her as having said she would consider payroll taxes on income above $200,000, but not income between $97,500 and $200,000. Russert not only made up a quote, he made up a quote that is contradicted by the very news organization from which he claims to have gotten the quote in the first place.
In other words, Russert's entire question was false. He misrepresented the questions Clinton had been asked -- even misrepresenting his own words. He misrepresented her answers and quoted her saying things she did not say. At the end of it all, he called her a liar. In fact, there is no contradiction between what Clinton actually said in the two debates and what she reportedly told Tod Bowman. And Bowman himself told the Associated Press -- in that same article that didn't quote Clinton saying what Russert claimed she said -- "I don't blame her" for wanting to discuss Social Security with him privately instead of publicly "because no matter what she says, she'll be attacked."
Russert was right about one thing: his question did, indeed, go "to the issue of credibility." And it left his own credibility in tatters.
Yet the rest of the media have politely looked away, ignoring -- or, worse, defending -- Russert's dishonest performance.
On CNN's Reliable Sources last weekend, for example, host Howard Kurtz -- whose entire job is to report about the media, for both CNN and The Washington Post -- led a discussion with the Politco's Roger Simon, Townhall.com's Amanda Carpenter, and columnist Clarence Page in which not one of the four so much as hinted that any of Russert's questions might have been the tiniest bit misleading.
Kurtz, to his (small) credit, did raise the issue of whether Russert and co-moderator Brian Williams focused excessively on Clinton or on encouraging conflict among the candidates. But that is a benign question, especially compared to the much more serious matter of whether Russert had lied during his questioning of Clinton, or merely unintentionally made false claims. Instead, the journalists defended their powerful peer. Page declared that "everybody up there got hard questions." Carpenter dismissed complaints about Russert's "gotcha" questions as an "excuse" and an effort to "evade and not answer the hard questions." But the problem isn't that Clinton got "hard" questions, it's that she got false questions.
Simon went further, praising Russert for having done "an excellent job." Again: Russert made false claims about Hillary Clinton in the middle of a question in which he challenged her credibility. That is not only dishonest and hypocritical behavior, it is deeply damaging to the public's ability to make informed decisions about the candidates. It is doing serious damage to American democracy. But to Roger Simon, Russert deserves praise for this shameful performance.
In print, Kurtz wondered if it was "wise for Hillary strategists to gripe, on background, about Russert's questions" -- but he hasn't written a single word about whether those questions contained inaccuracies. He did praise Russert's question about illegal immigrants as "entirely fair." Three days before Kurtz offered that praise, The Telegraph in Nashua, New Hampshire, had editorialized that Russert's question -- which was based on Clinton's comments to that newspaper -- was "weak" and "was based on either an incomplete viewing of The Telegraph's editorial board video or an unfortunate reliance on secondary sources." The Telegraph gave Russert "low marks" for the question, which was "based on an incorrect interpretation of what she said to begin with" and took Clinton's comments "out of context."
So, why does Kurtz think the question was "entirely fair"? Did he even look into the facts before offering his praise for Russert?
Go to "Media Matters" to read the full text.
This is such a great article. It goes to the very heart of the media smear machine. It shows us how the "Liberal Media" monicker is the biggest lie perpetuated by the Right wing. Yet it continues. They are intentionally manipulating this whole society to suit their ideology. It is no longer about what would be best for we Americans. It's either their way or the highway, with us or against us, black and white... ...and as we had sat by before, not challenging these knuckle-headed fascists, we can all see how Clinton was impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors" for lying about sex, Gore "invented the internet" for saying he helped to create it by losening it from the military and universities through legistlation, we need to attack Iraq because of "WMD and a threat to America because of Saddam's non-compliance".
They're all f*cking hacks. Russert, Kurtz and the rest of these jackasses are putty in there hands. No matter how many Glenn Becks, Bill Bennets, Kudlows, Tuckers, Savages, etc. you bring on, you will NEVER be "fair and balanced".
Which reminds me: How is David Horowitz' doing to [our education system] what [Fixed NoiZ has done for our "news"] going?
I always saw David Brock's "Media Matters" as a form of apology to the Clintons and to all of us whom lean a little to the left. His "apology" has turned out to be one of the most accurate "weapons" for truth we have... ...after repeated claims that the press is somehow "Liberal".
Thank you, David Brock. GREAT article, Foser. DAMN good.
