Sources say that CNN spends an inordinate amount of time dissecting and analyzing ancient third party gossip and hearsay from Right Wing extremists under the breaking news banner. The other day as I prepared to watch CNN's EXCLUSIVE Town Hall Meeting with Hillary Clinton, I was astonished that Brooke Baldwin segued into the Breaking News of news dug out during the 2008 Democratic Primary, of news dug out from the 1992 Democratic Primary that, gasp, Hillary Clinton represented an alleged child rapist back in 1975 and was able to get the man to plead guilty to a lesser charge of basically molestation in exchange for a one year prison sentence reduced by two months for time already served because the Prosecutor screwed up the evidence.
With feigned intensity, Brooke and her panel of experts expounded upon how bad this new revelation would be for Hillary if she ran for President. And so did Wolf in the next hour and so on. The only thing new of course, was the audio tape of Hillary and the reporter from Esquire discussing the case in the 1980's. What made me take notice was the way the excerpts were pulled out of context in order to suggest Hillary was making fun of a rape victim, with the suggestion that she was a cold, ruthless attorney who only fakes her commitment to women's issues.
I took the time to listen to the tape in its entirety and then re-read through all of the filings from the case in 1975. I think that any responsible journalist worth their salt would play the tape in its entirety and explain to viewers that unlike what Republicans would have you believe, this is a tape that shows Hillary laughing at the incompetence of the Prosecutor in bungling the evidence and how easy it was for an obviously guilty person in her mind to pass a lie detector test.
No where on that tape, did Hillary disparage the victim but she did portray the Prosecutor as a buffoon. The blood and other biological evidence was cut out of the underwear of her client and lost. This was not Hillary celebrating with giddy exuberance. This was laughing at the absurdity of an ironclad case for the Prosecutor being botched.
And this idea that Hillary attacked this 12 year old girl because she filed an affidavit in Court asking for the Court to have the girl evaluated by a psychiatrist because of concerns the girl may have had a history of embellishing stories, is to me, a lawyer wanting to make sure the girl was properly evaluated to determine her truthfulness. This is a what a good, compassionate lawyer does. An ethically challenged, win at all costs lawyer would throw the girl on the stand and tear her apart in order to win.
In the end, Hillary got her client to plead guilty to the only charge the Prosecutor would be able to win in Court, saving this girl from having to be put through a trial. The man served his year in prison and four years of probation and the other 15 year old boy involved was sent to juvenile jail.
Just how does this make Hillary look ruthless and uncaring? For ruthless and uncaring, look at how Jose Baez handled Casey Anthony's trial. He threw her Dad under the bus to get her out of the murder of her own daughter and he ends up on Fox News making millions. At least Hillary got her client to plead guilty to what would stick. And she founded a women's crisis center after that.
At least, all of this old, old recycled non-news is swirling down the drain now. I am looking forward to seeing Hillary win in 2016. I just wish CNN would stop trying to stoop to Fox News' level of seedy and salacious false hearsay.