MSM In No Rush to Reveal Hillary Flunked Bar Exam

Newsbusters.org ^ | June 1, 2007 | Mark Finkelstein

[George W. Bush]

MSM In No Rush to Reveal Hillary Flunked Bar Exam

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 1, 2007 - 08:26.

If George W. Bush had gone to law school and later flunked the bar exam, you can imagine that fact would have become a virtual part of his name in the MSM, as in "George Bush, who failed the bar exam, today criticized a law that . . ."

But it came as news to me when Carl Bernstein mentioned on this morning's "Today" that Hillary flunked the Washington, DC bar exam back in the '70s. OK, I'm not the most knowledegable guy, and the fact of Hillary's failure is not news -- after years of hiding the embarrassment, she revealed it, en passant, in her ghostwritten 2003 "autobiography." Note: according to that book, during the same period Hillary took and passed the Arkansas bar exam.  The pass rate in Arkansas was considerably higher than in DC.

I have to imagine that Hillary's failure comes as news to a good number of people. How does it jibe with Clinton's image as The World's Smartest Woman? And what does it say about the MSM that this fact has not been widely disseminated?

In any case, that revelation was far from the only unflattering thing that Bernstein had to say when speaking with Matt Lauer this morning to promote his new Hillary biography, A Woman in Charge. Let's preface this by mentioning that Bernstein is anything but a conservative hit man. The son of two parents with Communist Party affiliations, as he wrote about in this book, Bernstein is of course best known as Bob Woodward's WaPo Watergate investigation colleague. More recently, Bernstein has called for a Senate investigation of the Bush administration, and in the course of the interview this morning referred to the Bush presidency as a "disaster."

Among Bernstein's other comments today:

• "This is a woman who has led a camouflaged life, and continues to."
• Hillary's childhood was in "an abusive family situation. Her father humiliated and abused her mother. Her mother had a horror of a childhood."
• "Bill Clinton's closest advisers, like Lloyd Bentsen and Donna Shalala, were adamantly opposed" to Hillary becoming head of the healthcare initiative.
• At one point "Today" displayed a graphic with a quotation from the book: "As Hillary has continued to speak from the protective shell of her own making, and packaged herself for the widest possible consumption, she has misrepresented not just facts but often her essential self."
• "I think that she has developed an inauthenticity that is perhaps her greatest political problem. . . Partly because of her self-invented biographical details, she does come off as inauthentic.
• "There's not a sex act mentioned in the book. What is important is Hillary savaging the women that he was with. Forgiving Bill Clinton repeatedly through their married life, but not forgiving the women, which raises a very interesting question about her feminism.
• Bernstein speaks of Hillary's "rather disingenuous explanation of her vote on the war."

All in all, an unflattering portrait of Hillary, sketched by a man with no apparent axe to grind. And keep that flunking factoid in mind next time you hear Hillary condescend to President Bush or others.

Contact Mark, who somehow managed to pass the New York bar exam, at mark@gunhill.net

[George W. Bush]

How could Hilldog, the smartest woman in the world, fail a puny bar exam? Hmmmm...

Newsbusters is a website dedicated to exposing libmedia bias.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

[holden]

inauthenticity that is perhaps her greatest political problem

inauthenticity that competes as one of her great many political problems

Fixed.

HF

[Leofl]

bookmark and thanks!!!!

[MindBender26]

The DC Bar exam is one of the easiest in the nation, but failing the Bar is not the big news here.

“has led a camouflaged life, and continues to”
“she has misrepresented not just facts but often her essential self”
“raises a very interesting question about her feminism”

We are getting closer and closer to someone dropping The Big Hillary Factoid Bomb.

[Uriah_lost]

I hope they wait until she is the Dem nominee.

Fred Thompson passed the Bar exam the first time by writing his own name as the answer to every question. First perfect score ever...

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

How many different ways do you suppose a person can be discredited a a presidential candidate and still be considered the odds-on favorite?

How many books can detail specific reasons someone should never even see the oval office, let alone be elected to it - and still be the frontrunner?

The bottom line is that she's a socialist, and so are the arrogant journalists who proclaim their own superior "objectivity." If being sympatico with Big Journalism automatically got you elected, no Democrat would ever lose. But if the support of Big Journalism were not an enormous benefit, no Democrat would ever win.

[CaptainMorgantown]

Many successful lawyers have to take their bar exams 2 or 3 times, so failing them once is not as big a deal as it sounds. HOWEVER, the MSM is always selective in how it reports candidates biographies.

It was absolutely astounding how Bush and Gore's academic records were reported, with Gore always characterized as being the smartest guy in the room, and Bush being portrayed as a dunce. Bush may had an average academic record on his way through Yale and Harvard Business School. Gore's academic record was simply horrible in places. He flunked out of Divinty School at Vanderbilt altogether, and he got D's and F's in the handful of science classes he took as an undergraduate.

His academic background in science is so poor, that it is absolutely shocking that Gore is taken seriously now when speaking on science issues. My son's middle school science teacher likes to harp on Global Warming, and he was not pleased when my son pointed out Gore's horrible science background to the glass and got a big laugh.

[Las Vegas Dave]

I believe the late John Kennedy failed his bar exam , six times?? (I wonder how many times Jon-Jon’s uncle Teddy failed his?)

[Savage Beast]

"Bernstein has called...the Bush presidency...a 'disaster.'"

I'm no fan of Bernstein, but if the Illegal Immigration Crisis results in terrorists' attacks on the U.S.A., the empowerment of the Democrat Party, or some other irreparable damage to America, I may have to agree with him.

The neat Red/Blue divide in the U.S. shows signs of failing. This may be temporary. It may solidify again as the 2008 election approaches.

People who faced off as Left or Right in recent years show evidence of less rigid alliances.

Widespread criticism of President Bush and condemnation of the Open Border policy, on both sides of the divide, is part of it but not all of it.

Both Leftists and those on the Right seem to have less of a knee-jerk reaction to things and more of a tendency to sort things out, idea by idea.

[poinq]

Let’s not forget William Safire. He said it first. “Hillary’s a congenital liar”. Every candle in the Clinton White House was really a Hillary Clinton scandal.

[Chode]

LOOK... it's TouristSenator!!!
It shows up in more places than TouristGuy...
only with less style and substance...
she's Vaporware, just an empty crusty.
(Please spread me around like the parasite that i am...)

[poinq]

Let’s not forget William Safire. He said it first. “Hillary’s a congenital liar”. Every scandal in the Clinton White House was really a Hillary Clinton scandal.

[george76]

Hillary savaging the women that he was with. Forgiving Bill Clinton repeatedly through their married life, but not forgiving the women, which raises a very interesting question about her feminism.

[EQAndyBuzz]

That is wrong on so many levels.

[isom35]

Hillary meets Star Trek:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hillary+doomsday+machine

[Popocatapetl]

The joke going around D.C. is that the D.C. madam preferred to hire Wellesley graduates, because of their high degree of professionalism.

Hillary was a Wellesley graduate.

[Diogenesis]

Clinton's plan would:

• Provide tax incentives to improve spelling.

• Increase intern and mentor opportunities for select, attractive female students for "The First Husband".

• Establish a $50 billion "Strategic Energy Fund" that would work with Hillary's IRS to control research, energy, and taxes from HER desk.

[Gritty]

[upchuck]

That cartoon - LOL!!! Thanks.