Posted on 06/30/2016 11:00:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Apparently following up on his Washington Post column earlier this week, the paper's Chris Cillizza appeared on Thursday's Morning Joe show and observed that Hillary Clinton has "large-scale problems on honesty and trustworthines," that "she is the status quo" and "represents the past." Because of that, and despite the conventional wisdom in much of the establishment press that Mrs. Clinton can't possibly lose in November, Cillizza argues that her Republican opponent "can win this race."
Cillizza has previously staunchly denied media bias in the coverage of Mrs. Clinton's campign. That's hard to square with what Tim Graham at NewsBusters observed on Wednesday, namely the contrast between Cillizza's take — "Hillary Clinton’s email story continues to get harder and harder to believe" — and the fact that no televsion network had "noticed this latest AP (Associated Press) story and (Mrs. Clinton's) latest (very problematic) batch of emails."
Given how he has blown off challenges to Mrs. Clinton's integrity in the past, Cillizza is apparently just now fully appreciating how vulnerable she is.
In February, as opponent Bernie Sanders and others were demanding that she release her paid-speech transcripts, Cillizza gave her a pass, deciding that he would prefer to "take Clinton at her word when she describes what the nature of her speeches were: Recounting high profile events and her role in them." Translation: I don't need any stinking transcripts. I'm going to believe what I want to believe, and no one else should care about what's in those speeches.
In April 2015, Cillizza infamously claimed that "No, the media isn’t biased in favor of Hillary Clinton." His basis was the stories generated by the mainstream media's gatekeepers like the Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press, which had indeed been covering her scandals. As Graham at NewsBusters wrote at the time, that's nice, but the negative stories about Mrs. Clinton were following a two-decades-plus pattern going back to her husband's presidential administration of seldom if ever making it to the airwaves:
... the national newspapers, including The Washington Post, have published some hard-hitting investigative pieces on the Clinton Foundation, on her speaking fees, and on the e-mail scandal. But the TV networks have barely touched the Clinton Foundation, were bored by the speaking-fees stuff, and have now lost interest in the e-mail scandal.
This was also the pattern of media coverage of the Bill Clinton era. Newspapers would break big scoops about the Clintons accepting donations from China and so on and the networks would yawn.
This pattern has also repeated itself during the Obama administration. If it doesn't get to the TV screens, many low-information voters won't ever learn about Mrs. Clinton's scandals. Thanks to New Media, that's less true now than it was during Bill Clinton's presidency. It also may be that social media, despite the speech policing by the new gatekeepers at Facebook and Twitter, is causing more relevant information to get to the low-info folks than was the case eight or perhaps even four years ago. Perhaps the poll which I will note at the end of this post demonstrates that.
Here is the video of the portion of Cillizza's Thursday morning Morning Joe appearance where he discusses Mrs. Clinton's vulnerabilities:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Transcript:
CHRIS CILLIZZA, WASHINGTON POST: What's so hard if you are Republican it is— this is a winnable race. You can argue and say very winnable race. She has large-scale problems on honest and trustworthiness, favorability, the idea that she is the status quo and the idea that she doesn’t represent the future, she represents the past. These are all things that if you focus a race on her, you can win this race.
Well, Chris, the reason "you can win this race" is because, as you're finally admitting, Mrs. Clinton has huge and largely intractable problems.
Apparently, Cillizza's opening "What's so hard" reference was to recent polling showing Mrs. Clinton ahead of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump by margins ranging from 1 percent to 13 percent.
The frustration tempered a bit for Republicans and others who oppose Mrs. Clinton Thursday. The latest polling from Rasmussen showed Trump with a 4-point lead. Rasmussen's commentary noted that for all practical purposes, even though he is the presumptive GOP nominee, "Trump is already running a third-party candidacy against the establishments of both the Democratic and Republican parties."
Looks like this is the usual garbage that the Post runs to present a false image of journalistic fairness and integrity before the Post releases its latest fake poll, showing Hillary 10 points ahead of Trump.
That will be followed by a fake story quoting anonymous sources that only 25% of Republicans will vote for Trump.
The DemoRATs are between a rock and a hard place -- a terribly damaged candidate and a pure communist challenger who if not given the nod as nominee, could stir up all sorts of trouble for Biden or Warren -- whoever Obama might anoint as his successor.
No question, this election is like a mystery drama.
Great post. Thank you, vet.
The GOP was supposed to nominate Yeb! to be the Designated Loser.
Seems like the voters threw a monkey wrench named Trump into their carefully laid plans.
Do you think Hillary will step aside for ‘health reasons’?
I agree .. sadly the DemocRATS have managed to brainwash the GOP into believing they too are entitled to always LOSE .. JUST TO KEEP THEIR STATUS QUO .. WHICH MAKES THE DEMS DO ALL THE WORK (which they don’t do) AND THE GOP GETS ALL THE SAME PERKS ANYWAY.
DISGUSTING ..!!!!
I see your point. The way I see it is that the GOP is no brainwashed puppet. It duuts them to be in the minority in every branch. They play the underdog and get all the benefits. They don’t care about any ideology so they don’t care. They work for whoever is giving them money power position they get power by cheating in their own way by knowing their constituents (cantor didn’t play it the way graham does, so he lost, for instance)
But the GOP gets tough and wins when it wants to. Romney was tough against all conservatives. When he says, like he’s doing now, he wants back in, he’s saying he’ll get back in and knock Trump out of tge way for Hillary
The gop just PLAYS dumb. We the people gave them the house then the senate. They would act happy about that if they wanted it that way. They don’t. We could give them the White House. They don’t want it. Trump would make them work, or, worse, root them and their corruption out. They’d rather have Hillary. But here’s where they’re wrong. We’re on to them and we’re saying no. They don’t lose against us, their main opponent. They’re talking about beating us at the convention. They’re used to keeping us in a losing place it is us who are so used to losing that we don’t have the vocabulary to tell people ‘no, we are not putting another destructive anti americaninto tge white house’
Yes, I think Hillary will step aside because of her health (at the demand of the D party people who don’t want to lose). Or “to take care of Bill’s health problems?” But probably her own. Nobody would believe she wants to suddenly start providing any TLC for her putative husband. And Hillary really really looks/ acts very sick. Her doctor will recommend ——
I don’t agree that we’re “used to losing”.
I think we’re sick and tired of always losing .. which is much more painful for us than it is for those in Congress.
but, the elites better stop messing with us .. we’re about to start paying attention and they’ll be sorry they brought that on. LOL
I see that. We’ll get used to not losing pretty quick. The leadership is needed at the moment. That’s why Trump is very well received. I think anyone who doesn’t see that is not paying attention and way under informed. I pay no attention to them
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