Posted on 09/30/2003 1:22:02 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
MSNBC didn't help itself overcome accusations it is politically biased when the No. 2 Internet newssite in the world led its virtual "news" front page with a "glowing, first-person, editorial column by BusinessWeek Online's Washington bureau chief calling for Hillary Clinton to enter the presidential race.
"Who are the Democrats kidding?" the oddly positioned editorial by Douglas Harbrecht began. "They have somebody who could beat George W. Bush next year. Her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton. The only question, really, is how badly she wants to return to the White House."
The piece continued: "This much is certain: She's foolish to think she can bide her time, strolling effortlessly to the Democratic nomination five years from now. If she wants to make history as the first woman in the Oval Office, her time has arrived."
The story ran under a banner headline that read: "Why Hillary Clinton should run." It was not a question. It was a statement.
On the site's news front, the headline was posed as a question: "Should Hillary run?" But the answer was obvious in the subhead: "If Sen. Clinton wants to be president, now's the time."
"Oh, I've read Hillary's unambiguous denials, and I've heard the analysts and pundits who say a leap in the breach now by the junior senator from New York would be catastrophic for her party and her ambitions," Harbrecht wrote. "She's too inexperienced, they say. She'd so anger the field of declared Democratic presidential candidates that party unity would be splintered, they fret. And in a general election, she'd be a polarizing national figure. It would be like 1968 all over again. Then, another unseasoned, junior senator from New York, Robert Kennedy, brazenly stole the fire from Eugene 'Clean Gene' McCarthy, who with early primary victories had shown just how weak the sitting president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was."
This was no news analysis. This was raw opinion placed in the top news spot on MSNBC's front page. Harbrecht went on to draw a parallel with another presidential race involving another carpet-bagging senator from New York.
"What the political savants forget is that, had he not been assassinated by a deranged Sirhan Sirhan after victory in the June 1968 California primary, there wasn't a doubt in the world that Bobby Kennedy, an intensely polarizing figure in his day, would have won that November," he continued. "The parallels are striking: Kennedy was the brother of a charismatic president despised, but also feared, by Republicans because he presided over what Americans regarded nostalgically as a golden era. Hillary is married to a charismatic president intensely disliked by Republicans but feared... well, you get the picture."
It's all about timing, MSNBC's top "news story" contended. And the timing for Hillary is now.
"The real lesson from 1968 is just how crucial timing is in politics," the piece continued. "Successful candidates move when the magic strikes. Just ask Bill Clinton he declared flat out that he wouldn't run for president in 1992 if Arkansans reelected him to a fifth term as governor of the Razorback State in 1990. Did that Clinton's fib matter? Not a wit. Bubba saw his opportunity, and he took it."
MSNBC did not return e-mail messages questioning the position of the column as its lead story.
I think we'll need two of whatever it is.
This premier site didn't really heat up any organized opposition to the Clinton criminocracy until late 1998 - hardly "eight years". I'd make it maybe two years, and that was BEFORE the Democrats tried their best to steal the 2000 election.
We know that they stole Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and others in 2000. What makes you think we'll sit still for more of the same if the Ankle's operatives pull the necessary vote fraud strings?
I've never really worried about a bunch of mouthy Lefties who believe & practice their own gun-control nonsense...
Such a great sense of humor! The Libertarians, an effective party??? BWAHAHAHAHA! Heck, even the Republicans aren't very effective. If they were, they would get their judges confirmed in the Senate.
Media, MSNBC, and Hillary.
I'm bored and I feel like laughing in someone's face.
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