Posted on 01/12/2010 6:06:24 AM PST by kristinn
Huffington Post reporter Mayhill Fowler reveals today that she intentionally ignored reporting former President Bill Clinton's adulterous relationship with an unnamed mistress during his wife Hillary's campaign for the 2008 Democratic party presidential nomonation.
Fowler writes she knew the state of the Clintons' marriage had national security implications as she notes that Democratic voters were falsely comforted thinking the former two-term president would be by Hillary's side in bed at the White House when the "3 a.m." phone call came. But that was not enough for her to report the truth so the voters could decide for themselves. Huffington Post, the liberal, supposed alternative to the gatekeepers in the mainstream media became the same gatekeepers that they allegedly detested.
Fowler published the story today at the Huffington Post based on excerpts of her book, Notes from a Clueless Journalist: Media, Bias and the Great Election of 2008, available tomorrow as an E-Book on Amazon.
At the time I covered the rally in Victoria, I had decided not to follow up on another story about Bill Clinton that had come my way--one involving his longtime mistress. I mention the nature of the Clinton story with some specificity now only because months later, after the Democratic primaries, the National Enquirer wrote about the relationship. In Texas, staring this story in the face, immediately I turned aside. If I know all about this woman, then surely every national reporter does and is as wary of the story as I am. Nevertheless, I was careful never to mention anything to anybody at OffTheBus. I rationalized the refusal to follow through by telling myself that Clinton's private life was peripheral to the race. But then there came a moment in the Texas primary when the nature of the Clinton marriage suddenly appeared front and center.
A difference between Election 2008 and preceding presidential races is that only one political ad for TV had as much impact as any of half-a-dozen YouTube videos. The brilliant television ad was the "3 A.M. crisis phone call at the White House" that the Clinton Campaign ran in Texas before the primary. The Clinton team knew Texans--folks obsessed with all things big, including such big prospects as national security. So the red phone ad, as it was sometimes called, was powerful persuasion. If I heard a Texan say it once, I heard it a hundred times: thank goodness Hillary will have Bill next to her at 3 A.M. By late February, a piece that gave depth to this naïve view of the Clintons' relationship was suddenly something to think about. But in fact I never really considered it. Executing such a story could have had consequences for the mistress's children, who were still minors. There was no way I would write something that I knew in advance would mortify a high school student in front of his peers. My mother's outrage and pain at the political sex scandal that had blighted her adolescence was just too vivid a presence.
So I continued to rationalize. I told myself various truths: many different kinds of loving experiences make a good world; no one except partners themselves know what goes on behind the bedroom door. As a woman who has been married for thirty-six years, I appreciate the complicated and forgiving nature of long attachments. Nuance about the dynamic of a successful marriage had been one of the things lacking in the widely-criticized New York Times piece on John McCain's supposed infatuation with a lobbyist. Therefore, I told myself, the presence of a mistress really does not tell us all that much about the rich relationship between Bill and Hillary Clinton. But, in the end, I passed on the story for personal reasons. And I came to see that family history, which had always been a penumbra belonging to the dead, was shaping my own storytelling.
I'm calling BS (Barbra Streisand) on her rationalizations. She and the Huffington Post wanted to protect the Democrats and did not want to give conservatives the satisfaction of having been proved right yet again about the Clintons and the Democrat party.
Sooo, you are telling the story now for what reason?
Who is his fat, ugly mistress?
it’s called “buy my e-book”lol
Fat Chance.
Wait.... is that the name of his mistress?
I believe that the American public has accepted as a given that every night is “The Dating Game” for the former president, with the present secretary of state accepting the fact a real long time in the past.
And I am glad the liberals never did anything to embarass Bristol Palin!
/sarc
Or Governor’s Sanford’s children.
From the post:
“If I heard a Texan say it once, I heard it a hundred times: thank goodness Hillary will have Bill next to her at 3 A.M.”
Unstated, but certain that she’s talking about Texas *Democrats*, because I’ve never had any contact with a Texan stupid enough to think that Hillary and Bill have been anywhere near the same bed for decades.
The naivete of Democrats never fails to amaze me, although I could live without its consequences (primarily Carter and Obama).
Nina Burleigh, the enthusiastic blow-job volunteer?
Did the Obama administration know about this when Obama nominated Hillary for Secretary of State?
What did the Senate Democratic Leadership know?
Did this come up in the FBI background checks for the nomination?
Is the mistress a foreign national?
Who else in the media was covering for the Clintons?
Kristy Kreme.
Bill and Hill accept each other’s affairs, so why shouldn’t the American public?
Bad Posters.
Oops, Kettle meet black. LOL
And they, single handed, covered it up? Hmmmmm
Par, on that hole.
Who is his fat, ugly mistress?
anything in skirts for his peyronies baloney.
Monica Lewinsky just came out and said Slick Willy lied to the grand jury. Ya think? These people are exactly what we knew them to be long ago. Lying scumbags
Clinton was doing someone outside of marriage. This is a scoop ?
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