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

[VOA]

Smartest-Woman-In-The-World-Flunks-Bar-Exam BUMP

[4Liberty]

Somehow I can’t help but think that Carl Bernstein’s book is being released now so that the MSM can later say “Hey - that is OLD news, we’ve already discussed this, so we’ll ignore it - Let’s move on,” when we continue to bring these things up and criticize her in depth, closer to the actual ‘08 election when voters start turning their attention to the campaigns.

Bernstein probably wrote & edited the book with the Clinton’s hands-on help, they sat down with a calendar & planned the release date together ...etc.

I wouldn’t put anything past them or the MSM; I’ve been watching all this for too long.

[RightWhale]

Prior discussion on prior threads.

[TruthWillWin]

raises a very interesting question about her feminism

Seems I recall she was in charge of putting down "Bimbo Eruptions" in Bills campaign in 92.

[Fudd Fan]

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

The Cape Cod Orca didn't fail any tests, someone else took 'em for him...

[Silly]

[MindBender26]

When I took the Bar, DC was considered your “safety belt bar” If you failed the multistate or worried about only being able to take your state’s Bar a limited # of times, you took the DC Bar, because even Ted Kennedy could pass that one.

Didn’t he and John John both fail their state tests TWICE? If memory serves, John John’s results were newspaper headlined as “HUNK FLUNKS!” There were rumors both had been given "Kennedy Credit" and a pass on #3, with their promise they would never practice serious law.

That way, with DC done, if you couldn’t pass your home state, you were safe to work somewhere.

[MindBender26]

Please see # 27

[MindBender26]

PS Most states have limit of three attempts, I think. NY does.

[jude24]

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

I'm guessing you never took a bar exam... They're definitely very hard, and what you learned in law school may not be on the bar exam.

[rfp1234]

Nice pic, but I though “Tom Morrow” already had a job.

[CaptainK]

John John also had to repeat a grade in high school yet still got admitted to Brown University.

[BeckB]

Didn’t Ted Kennedy get caught cheating on the exam? Or was that just a college exam?

[Doohickey]

I saw Bernstein on Today. His book is a transparent attempt to re-cast Hillary! as a sympathetic figure.

[dynachrome]

“no apparent axe to grind”
Does not pass the smell test.

[Seadog Bytes]

RE: "His academic background in science is so poor, that it is absolutely shocking that Gore is taken seriously now when speaking on science issues."

[Liberty Valance]

Major impending Spin Warning

[Alamo-Girl]

LOL! Thanks for the ping!

[PISANO]

This is old news to those of us who oppose this fraud and this is news that will not be used AGAINST her by the MSM.

The leftists in La La Land, Academia, and the MSM love her and despite anything she did, does or may yet do, she is their ticket to Marxist Utopia!

[harpo11]

I've been seriously thinking about this make believe construction surrounding Mrs. Bill Clinton concerning how smart she is. I truly think she is not. She relies heavily on advisors, polls, focus groups, private investigators, listening in on private conversations, FBI Files, blaming her troubles on some fantastical Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, makes up stories about herself and family life, can't recall anything when questioned by a Federal Grand Jury and the press, luckily for her they are a bunch of leftist fawning supporters who don't expect or extract much out of her anyway, failed immensely on her stupid secret socialist health care committee, and most of all her advise caused her husband to get himself impeached.

She is a total fabrication of fluff and media hype and lies. She doesn't appear to have any core principles, good moral judgement or consciousness of how stupid and rambling her speeches sound with or without contrived phony accents. She is so stiff, stale, and comes on the stage looking priggish, snobbish, and totally scripted. There is not any natural warmth and shining light emanating from her scowling unhappy eyes.

I sincerely think she is just one of many bimbos in Bill's large stable who just managed to stay married to him because she does not think infidelity is a big deal, or she really doesn't care for him as a wife cares for her husband and she certainly recognized early on that without Bill she's not going anywhere close to her fanatical ambition to become our socialist Marxist dictator, er ah, president. Bill is her meal ticket to fame and fortune, and that is why Hillary Clinton in my humble opinion is not on her own a very smart person to allow herself to be so demeaned by her husband's collosal philandeering just to satisfy her enormous appetite for political power.

It's really sick, demented, and America does not need another four or eight years of this soap opera.