Okay, it is misleading to say that the Post called Clinton flawed. They technically didn’t, and they probably don’t like the misleading suggestion that they did. Which might be something useful for the Post to consider, because, in it’s piece yesterday, "the Clinton model is flawed," the paper itself is also being misleading.
How so? In a manner that plays directly into right wing talking points.
"Some Say Clinton Model Is Flawed" is the phrase that sits in bold print atop the article, page one, above the fold.
The piece's actual underlying point is that Clinton’s broad appeal in New York may not translate into the general election as strongly as the Clinton campaign and supporters, naturally, assert that it will.
[This message, incidentally, may be helpful for the Democratic Partyto consider; The less that is taken for granted in politics, the better. The more that is taken for granted, the less things get effectively focused on and powerfully communicated. Democrats need to work harder to overcome this false perception (and use it against their opponents as well) of Clinton that has been created by an intense far right wing effort to portray her (and all Democratic candidates) as something other than she is, rather than (once again) just assuming that it is a big lie that will not much matter: This will be relevant -- whether one supports her campaign currently or not -- if she becomes the nominee.]
The article’s point is a fair one to raise. Clinton’s seemingly broad support in New York may be tempered by several factors nationwide. (And if not, there is no point, or benefit, to arguing the point unless one is merely trying to make the Clinton campaign’s case for them to primary voters; that in fact she, and not one of the other candidates, stands the best chance of winning.)
What is decidedly not fair, is the manner in which the Post raises the issue.
Consider the title itself: "Some Say Clinton Model is Flawed."
Given the reasonable strategy undertones of the piece, it may technically be "accurate." But technical accuracy, and perception, however, are two very separate things in a headline, and is why editors need to take great care in choosing them.
What does this title refer to? Devoid of context, it comes off as an unequivocal swipe. Yet what the title actually refers to is the normal political electioneering spin that the Clinton campaign is doing vis a vis its primary opponents, to convince primary voters that it stands the best change of winning the general election. And the conclusion reached is that Clinton might present greater vulnerability in the general election than any campaign running for office would optimistically and naturally assert in an effort to win the primary. Democratic primary voters’ job to candidly assess this, versus the Clinton’ campaign’s job to sell this point, are two very different things. (Any candidate who would not assert to primary voters that they stand the best chance of winning, should not be voted for on ineptitude alone.)
Yet the Post, with its framing, manages to turn this into a negative.
And it does this with again, what is by far and away the most important part of the piece: The title.
But the problems with this piece go far beyond the Title.
In 2000 the largely erroneous "Gore as liar" meme was repeated by the media ad nauseum. In 2004, the "Kerry as wishy washy flip flopper" meme was similarly repeated, ad nauesum, again as if fact. (This diary is not the place to establish these patterns, but if the Washington Post would like to take issue, I would be happy to share hundreds of examples of each, and it may be a worthwhile exercise for Kossers and others to send the same in as an analysis, to begin to address and correct this critical pattern.) More ironically, similar to 2000, this was also done even though there were more flip flops and inconsistent statements by Bush than by Kerry. But Democrats did not effectively focus on showing this latter pattern to the nation, and the media, similarly, ignored it.
Since Clinton was our former "First Lady" (a role which if she wins the general election, will, ironically, be occupied by a a very politically capable man), the 2008 meme has been developed over some time, and is a bit more troubling than the prior two.
The reason I suggest this is because those, while largely false, were fairly "objectively" stated. They were mischaracterizations -- and they needed to be, and could have been, corrected and in fact turned into an advantage by showing and using the constant misstatements by their opponents to undermine their opponents' credibility therein. (The potential advantage of this can not be overstated, as both of these anti Democrat memes were created and turned into the dominant theme by the far right, in order, ironically, to undermine both Gore and Kerry’s credibility, in false contrast with their republican opponent).
Clinton, by contrast, is often, cleverly, and subtly, portrayed in a negative subjective light... And, objectively, but again falsely, as someone who panders (and worse, but why frame it for the far right). If one continues to suggestively repeat these things long and widely enough, they begin to shape the popular perception. And this is what, once again, we have seen. In fact, the far right has worked very hard, and often very disingenuously or ignorantly, to falsely portray Clinton as ...dot dot dot.
The problem with the Washington Post front page article, is that, presenting it as "news," it plays right into these negative stereotypes of Clinton.
Here are all the quotes about Clinton from the article -- not about the campaign, not about strategy, not about how well she is or isn’t going to do -- but about Clinton herself, or about people’s "perception" of Clinton. Each and every last one of them:
Seemed "genuine about wanting to help."
"There are more people that like her" now than when she first came to New York, "but you still hear people say, 'I don't know if I want her to be president.'"
"I don't like her. I don't think she's honest."
"I'm not a fan at all. She shifts a lot of her policies depending on what the question is. I don't feel her values are consistent."
"She should have stayed in Arkansas. I just don't care for her. I don't know if she follows through on what she says she's going to do."
Finally, one more positive quote:
"My sense from her was that she understands the issues, is poised and is committed to making things happen. Even though I know it's just a steppingstone for her to the next level, she has worked hard here."
[note, while these were two separate people, unlike all of the foregoing quotes which were each contained in a separate paragraph -- causing each each to appear highlighted and emphasized -- these two were in the same paragraph, and tended to blend together. Why?]
Again, there are some other negative quotes in the article, but they refer to strategy, and do not directly negatively implicate Clinton herself, as most of the above quotes do.
And how do they implicate her? The meme as dishonest, pandering flip flopper is powerfully communicated. What has been a largely misleading far right wing talking point about Clinton for several years now, is picked up.
Journalists would argue that "this is what people are saying." They would also argue that "we had three "positive," three "negative" and one "neutral to negative" quotes. But both of these assertions, are, in fact, to use the Post’s own word, "flawed."
The fact that people are saying this because that is the image of Clinton that has been created, would to them be irrelevant. Thus, if an image is falsely sold, such as; "Gore as liar, "Kerry as flip flopper," "Clinton as mean, dishonest panderer," then it becomes "news" to play into and bolster that image.
For example, if a candidate who says he is as strong a supporter of military spending as his opponents, and voted in favor of every measure to increase military spending except for the exact measures that the same opponents who constantly accused him of voting against military spending had also voted against, would the following six quotes constitute "responsible journalism"?
"I think he is untruthful on military spending." "I like his military positions," "I just don’t trust him on military matters, he voted against too many things." "I would have voted against all the things he voted against." "I think he is dishonest about is military votes." "I think he is trying to do the right thing on the military."
While these relate to a quantifiable objective, and the quotes the Media source used related to a somewhat subjective and more generalized variable, the point is that by simply providing these six quotes, the media source would be highly misleading its audience, despite the fact that "three of the [above] six were positive."
Consider the Post’s actual quotes.
The first one, "genuine about wanting to help" does not offset specific themes that have been used throughout the campaign to constantly undermine her in the eyes of the public. If someone heard "genuine about wanting to help" about a person, and "I'm not a fan at all. She shifts a lot of her policies depending on what the question is. I don't feel her values are consistent," versus nothing about someone else, which person would they lean towards? In other words, a positive and a negative do more harm than nothing at all. And in addition, the word "seemed" was thrown in by the paper to qualify it, and more importantly, the negative quote is much more specific sounding, and detailed. In fact, that second quote was seemingly lifted right out of a right wing talking points memorandum. That this person has been convinced of this, and probably genuinely made this statement, does not alter the fact that right wing talking points about Hillary Clinton, are being uttered verbatim as news.
The neutral quote was also somewhat negative: "There are more people that like her" now "but you still hear people say, 'I don't know if I want her to be president.'" That fact that more people like her does not say much. "I don’t know if I want her to be President," plants the more substantive idea, and is decidedly negative.
Every single one of the negative quotes also stood alone as its own separate paragraph, and several were longer and more detailed. The first positive ("seemed genuine") one was buried in a large paragraph, and the last two were lumped together, and came across as one. And only one of the positive quotes actually says anything of much substance.
Was this fair to Clinton, or to voters?
That is the question.
The answer, since the piece was decidedly negative, tried to turn what any candidate needs to argue (or they shouldn‘t be running) -- that they can win the general election -- into a negative, emphasized random quotes that served to underscore right wing talking points in what was supposed to be a simple strategy handicapping piece, had an unnecessarily and decidedly negative, and somewhat misleading title, seems to be rather clear. And it has, it seems, become the norm.
Again, the tendency to somewhat unfairly perpetuate far right talking points, is the same thing that the media did with respect to John Kerry in 2004. And it is the same thing that the media did with respect to Al Gore in 2000.
This should be an enormous concern. But instead of just complaining about it, extensive and repeated effort should be put in on the part of Democrats and Independents, to objectively expose and correct this tendency. Not just on here, but everywhere, and to the media.
The importance of this can not be overestimated: Gore should have won very easily in 2000, for example. And we would have...
...a safer nation; a safer world; the Iraq quagmire would likely not exist, or be greatly mitigated; the world would not detest us as much as it does; focus would be on eradicating al-Qaeda and ridding the world of unsecured fissile materials; we would still operate under our founding governmental principles; the Constitution’s most basic purposes -- to provide a government of limited, checked powers, along with a bill of rights that reserves all other rights not specifically enumerated to the states and people, would actually still be respected; we would still have open, reasonably limited yet fair government, instead of big, secretive government that seems more interested in assisting the aims of large corporate donors (links to examples could take up several pages and is not the purpose of this piece -- but it is suggested that Democrats work to effectively convey examples of this, and not take it for granted that this is "sufficiently established"); we would have sensible environmental policies, instead of what the former head of the EPA under Richard Nixon calls "a radical administration," engaging in a "radical rollback of environmental policy;" the climate change challenge would likely be more intelligently addressed (and certainly not in essence ignored); science would not be altered to fit policy versus the other way around; public documents would not be altered for this latter purpose; the large scale effort to roll back and undermine the necessary public information upon which a democracy depends would instead be an idea in the mind of some anti utopian science fiction writers, rather than an underlying reality that the media is similarly, largely ignoring; and we would certainly not have a President who says things like "it’s my job to worry about things like that, that’s not your job," when in a democracy, it’s everybody’s job -- or at least an inherent right; and we would not have a President who says things like "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job." Or, "I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president," Or, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator" -- and then secretly govern as if he was not joking.
The case needs to be made to the public at large, to the media generally, and to the Washington Post.
In order to effectively accomplish that, a non partisan approach is suggested. Remember, the goal is not to say to the media "I am saying this because I think the Democratic candidate is the better choice for our nation right now, so I demand better coverage," the goal is to establish that the pattern of coverage that we have seen has been mediocre, and has tended to parrot and often inadvertently support, right wing talking points in order to somehow "appear balanced;" in order to irresponsibly accommodate for the fact that the "facts" themselves are not balanced.