An article in Vox is titled Confessions of a Clinton reporter: The media's 5 unspoken rules for covering Hillary. Even if you support Sanders, O'Malley or Biden, the article shows the poisonous effects of Dowd-Bruni-esque coverage, not confined to the Clintons, as Al Gore will attest. No doubt, the Bernie rules are evolving as we speak. It's the converse of IOKYAR -- IBYAD: "It's bad if you're a Democrat."
But there's a special venom for the Clintons, having nothing to do with TPP or any policy issue. For Hillary, it's both Velcro and Teflon -- Every new "scandal" sticks, but it doesn't really matter.
1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the "vast right-wing conspiracy," and mainstream media outlets.
2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world.
3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there's hard evidence otherwise.
4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America's royal family.
5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit.
Steve M. and No More Mister Nice Blog has a good take on the Vox article:
"the more power a person wants in our republic, the more voters should know about her or him," Allen writes, which would suggest that anyone who wants to be president ought to get the highest level of attention from reporters. Let's amend that in a common-sense way: The rule probably should be "the more power a person wants in our republic, assuming the person has a reasonable chance of attaining that power, the more voters should know about her or him."
But in that case, why is it that "the coverage of Hillary Clinton differs from coverage of other candidates for the presidency"? Why is it that there's more Clinton coverage than coverage of Jeb Bush, or Scott Walker, or whoever smart people think has a decent shot at being the GOP nominee?
Even an article, like the Vox piece, that is very critical of the Hillary coverage accepts that the supposed rationale for the coverage doesn't apply to other candidates. Steve concludes that the main reason for the Hillary Rules is that it's easy for the lazy press. It fits into their 25 year "narrative" of the Clintons.