The
New York Times' latest angle in its ongoing efforts to overplay the Hillary Clinton email story is ... weird. It's a combination human interest profile/airing of false allegations/weak correction of said false allegations on top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. To really set readers up for
the weirdness of this story, this is how Maggie Haberman, Amy Chozick, and Steve Eder begin:
Among the trove of emails released from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state was this instruction to a trusted aide who needed to brief her on a matter that could not wait:
“Just knock on the door to the bedroom if it’s closed,” Mrs. Clinton wrote in November 2009 to Huma Abedin, then her deputy chief of staff.
And this is relevant to what, exactly? Because I have to be honest, it just feels like a weird obsession with Hillary Clinton's bedroom. In any case, if you haven't read any articles about Clinton in the past eight years or so, Huma Abedin is her very trusted aide, which naturally means Abedin is coming under "increasingly intense scrutiny." (Translation: Attack from Republicans.) During her tenure at the State Department, Abedin held some outside jobs as well, and Sen. Chuck Grassley is accusing her of influence peddling, getting a White House appointment for her employer's client. Sounds shady, right? Except three paragraphs later, we learn:
But in a letter sent on Friday to the legal adviser’s office of the State Department, her lawyer, Miguel E. Rodriguez, wrote that Mr. Grassley’s notion that Ms. Abedin may have intervened on Ms. Rodin’s behalf was demonstrably false — Ms. Rodin received a presidential appointment two years before Ms. Abedin began working for Teneo — and that Mr. Grassley was citing hearsay related to email exchanges he had not seen.
Why is this story about Hillary Clinton's bedroom first, Hillary Clinton's email second, allegations against Huma Abedin third, and only glancingly about the way Republican attacks on Abedin fail to hold up? Why not write an article about how longtime U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is using his office to launch political attacks based on partisan rumors without checking out the basic facts? I realize it wouldn't be in the tradition of
New York Times Clinton coverage, but maybe it's time to shake things up, try something new.