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.
I wonder if Bill’s ‘long-time’ mistress knows about all of Bill’s ‘other women’? The Media throws the adjective ‘long-term’ in there to absolve them from any responsibility in the matter.
Bill-the-male-slut-Clinton was stepping out on Hillary? A dog bites man story if there ever was one.
A pox on all their houses. There’s always a putrid odor coming from the democRATS and their supporters. They are the worst this country has to offer.
Isn’t the mistress the Canadian heiress?
Meanwhile, with the Palin campaign...a different kind of rationalizing...
This woman calling herself a journalist is about as funny as Bill Clinton calling himself a husband. This article is pure CYA idiocy.
Plus, as far as was known in the 2008 campaign, Bill was being good and those were just more tabloid rumors. Confirmation that the Clintons' were going to drag the country through another four years of malfeasance would have sunk them this time around.
During the Monica Mess he restricted himself to a few special women, Eleanor Mondale, Marsha Scott and one or two others. As soon as he was acquitted by the Senate, the recruiting began in earnest again.
Now his favorites are the “Mystery Woman,” a news and chat show hostess from Australia (sort of an Australian Dianne Sawyer type) and whomever else is within 6 feet of his pecker.
That has been reported regularly.
The story no one will touch is that Hillary's sexual activities are all outside her marriage as well.
Hello Huma... and others.
sidesplitting :-)
ping
Or Governor’s Sanford’s children
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Yes, I never saw the point in reading his love emails on the air while poking fun etc. Yes, he was an idiot for what he did but his kids didn’t deserve that!
I was hoping for a name and hot-barrel smoking gun but there doesn’t seem to be much substance to the claims....or this particular one at least.
There is no “there” there, but I guess it all just depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
At first glance I read...”an untamed seamstress.” Putting on more coffee.
I love the fact that “journalists” are bragging about how they withhold information.
Sins of omission are still sins; but they seem proud of their ability to manipulate information.
She is neither fat, not ugly. She is a far-left rich Canadian political hottie slut, Belinda Stronach.
I just don’t care.
I’m a Texan. I voted for Hillary in the presidential primary, because the Dems still had a race going. (Open primaries here, and I’m not registered with any party.)
Wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to me if I’d known about this “mistress.” Anyone with any political knowledge whatsoever should just assume that Bill is fooling around. It’s a given.
This isn’t the same as the Mark Sanford story, simply because Sanford quacked like a duck but was really a turkey. Bill’s feathers had long ago been mounted on the wall for all to see.
Move along, move along. Nothing to see here. Just another example of journalistic “ethics”.
Nuance was lacking, but the political affiliation was right.
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