Over at The Huffington Post (hereafter, just plain Huff) and on the home page, you will find a story about Hillary; and the headline makes it seem as if the thing just happened. In fact it happened over two months ago, just after Super Tuesday. The piece by Celeste Fremon says as much, in the first sentence, but Huff's headline screams...click this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
In case Huff's home page changes and you click a link to something else, the headline---in letters the size of skyscrapers---is "HILLARY SLAMS DEMOCRATIC ACTIVISTS".
Here is the main thrust of Fremon's article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the "activist base" of the Democratic Party -- and MoveOn.org in particular -- for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had "flooded" state caucuses and "intimidated" her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post.
"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."
At the very end of the piece, we have this:
The disclosure of Clinton's statement disparaging the prominence of party activists in the caucus process comes after she repeatedly suggested that Obama's electability had been compromised because he had allegedly offended other key Democratic constituencies.
It is not the statement disparaging party activists, etc., that comes after her repeated suggestion that Obama's electibility had been compromised, etc., but, rather, the disclosure of the statement. In other words, the disclosure of something she said over two months ago. (If the point here is that someone leaked it, that's another story entirely and does not, in my view, save this one from being whipped by Huff into something it isn't.)
There is nothing new or startling in this story and Huff knows it, if it read Fremon's piece, I assume it did! These remarks were made by someone who does not do well in caucuses, who is known for not liking caucuses, who has made these kinds of remarks elsewhere, and who had just come off Super Tuesday not in the way she had hoped. She didn't sew up the Nomination. She was undoubtedly venting her frustration, and looking for someone to blame, when she said these things at a private fundraiser. Yet the headline screams it in the present tense, as if Hillary only last night held some dark and secret meeting to denounce party activists.
If the suggestion is supposed to be that she said in private---at this "private fundraiser"---what she won't say in public, at least some of what she says, quoted above, I've heard her say in public---on tv. And maybe you have as well.
I am not trying to make excuses for Hillary's statements, I am trying to put them in context---and in the proper time frame. Because it happened right after Super Tuesday, the third week in February, it obviously cannot be a response or reaction, on the part of Hillary, to anything that has happened since. Not logically possible!
The upshot of this screaming---and misleading---headline, as of right now, is nearly 3000 comments, some of them borderline hysterical. I will not drag any of them over here, it doesn't seem right to do so; you can just click the story and begin reading. Many posters seem to be under the impression that this really is something brand new from Hillary, that it is a plot---and various conspiracy theories are brewing over there.
But the point of this diary is not what those might be, or even what the story might be. Nor is it to speculate in any detail on why Huff might have done this. (One poster---one of the few who didn't go bonkers at seeing the headline---suggested it was an attempt to distract from, if not bury, the fiasco that was the Mayhill Fowler piece on Obama calling small town Pennsylvanians 'bitter'.) Rather, it is that I---and many others I think---are weary of being jerked around by Huff, as they present this or that story in a disingenuous way. Either because they are short on stories or, perhaps, because they want to wind us up---it's hard to know. In any case, I don't call this story about Hillary and activists to be responsible journalism. Granted, posters should always read the relevant story before commenting---but when you get a headline like that you sometimes jump to conclusions. Perhaps that's the idea? Apart from that, many people just pass through, not doing comments, and they get these wild headlines and then go away with God only knows what impression.
I've not seen this kind of thing at the Kos, though of course it's a different format. I ended up at the Kos by accident, when I was fleeing Huff for just this kind of dishonesty. And I am glad I found the Kos, I like it here. I wish I hadn't gone back to Huff, not even to take a peek; but I did. I hate deception and I hate hypocrisy; and for Huff, who is usually the first to point out any deception on the part of Hillary, to resort to the same thing, is in my view for them to be guilty of both.
(I support Obama and not Hillary but I still can't stand this kind of thing. I posted two comments to Huff about this business, both hot enough to set the thread on fire, but they didn't make it through moderation. They may have by now but I am still too hot to go back and look.)
In any case, a better, more honest headline for this story would be "CLINTON'S POST SUPER TUESDAY DENUNCIATION OF PARTY ACTIVISTS". But that would not have drawn the kind of reaction going on over at Huff even as I end this diary!*
***********************
* I am fairly new to these kinds of sites, and it may be that many if not most of you know all about this kind of dishonesty, and will shrug at my rant. I suppose I am new
enough to be crushed by the whole thing. Oh, maybe not crushed, exactly, but really---can I say this next word?---pissed!