Via e-mail, a reader (known to PW readers, but I was unsure whether to use the name) identifies a potential bit of über-spin from Bill Clinton:
“The political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I’ve never seen this before,” the former president said. “They’ve been active participants in this election. . . . But I don’t want to talk about the press. I want to talk about the people. That’s what’s wrong with this election, people trying to take this election away from the people.”
This has one sliver of truth, insofar as it recognizes that the media does try to play kingmaker. Bill Clinton’s specific claim that the press has only been active in this cycle, however, is laughable. ÂÂ
For example, in 1992, the executive producer of ABC’s Prime Time Live, Rick Kaplan, advised a candidate on how to deal with the media uproar over a sex scandal.  That same candidate lost the New Hampshire primary, yet dubbed himself “The Comeback Kid,” and the media lapped it up, even though he would not win a primary until Georgia. After winning his party’s nomination, the media portrayed a mild recession and recovery as “the worst economy of the last 50 years,” which was almost exactly the central claim made by that candidate.
I would go further, but Bill does not want to talk about the press. He wants to talk about the people. Bill is all about Putting People First.
Of course, in the event that the people vote for Sen. Barack Obama the media takes the election away from the people, it may be necessary to call upon the Super-Friends of Bill down at the Hall of Justice to save the people from an electronic coup d’état.
Update: Bill’s wished-for press scrutiny of Obama is coming soon.
That’s what’s wrong with this election, people trying to take this election away from the people.
Which obviously isn’t changey enough at all.
I’m a people, and I can’t wait until Billy Jeff packs all his lies in a suitcase and just goes away. For the sake of the people.
[…] Live by media bias, die by media bias. […]
I heard a report on the new “Green Economy” and the new “Green Collar Worker,” of whom Hillary and Barack will be creating 5 million in the next ten years, Friday, I think, on NPR.
That’s what’s wrong with this election, people trying to take this election away from our people.â€Â
Fixed that for Bill.
They are going to spend $60,000,000,000 to create 2,000,000 jobs? First off, I guess it is no longer even appropriate to question whether or not the government is in the job creation business. Second, that seems like a shit load of money with not a lot to show for it. If all of that money goes directly to the workers, it creates 2,000,000 jobs @ $30,000 per year, or $575 per week. Reminder, those figures represent every last penny going to wages, not a likely scenario.
That’s what’s wrong with this election, their people trying to take this election away from our people.
Fixed!
If identity politics is any indication, the super friends of Bill take their marching orders from this guy.
This excessive reliance on a compliant media hurts the Dems in the long run. Eventually, there simply has to be something that vaguely resembles objective journalism, and since they have never had to deal with same, they scratch their heads in bewildered awe when they are not allowed to write the next press release in the Wapo and NY Times.
That Slick Willie is now only becoming aware that the press plays an active role in elections is shocking, not because it is happening, but that someone as “smart” as Bill could be so blissfully unaware of how compliant the media was during his years.
Eventually, there simply has to be something that vaguely resembles objective journalism
Link, please.
BBR – My bad. I did not realize how brain poundingly stupid of an assertion that was until I read your comment.
“The political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I’ve never seen this before,â€Â
Bill Clinton hasn’t heard of Dan Rather?
This excessive reliance on a compliant media hurts the Dems in the long run.
James Taranto has pointed that out more than once; if the media treat Dem political ideas as favored and/or not scrutinized or tested with hard questions, then the Dems are bound to be surprised when those same ideas are rejected by we, the dirtbag ungrateful voters.
It’s almost an article of faith, in some circles, that Dan Rather was crucified as a sop to seething right-winger hatred, and that what he “reported” on was, if not evidencible truth, still factually true nonetheless.
Yeah, but what if the people take the election back from the people? Then the people will be in power, as opposed to the people being in power.
Right?
The goal isn’t really to create 2,000,000 jobs, it’s to create 20,000 public-sector union jobs.
It’s hardly just the political press. The business press. The science press. Robin Givhan. Also theater critic Frank Rich. Anyone who writes about movies. Also, food. I got your organic right here. Even the sports press hardly questions the steroids dogma. They is all the suck.
Yep, in a nation where people go to extraordinary lengths to inject themselves with a form of disease originating from rotten meat, putting themselves under the knife and anasthesia to be chopped up for no good reason other than so they can “feel better about themselves,” it is naturally occuring Testosterone and Growth Hormone that is the REAL EVIL!!!
Poor Sen. Clinton; she really needs a “Where’s the beef?” moment right now.
“The political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I’ve never seen this before,â€Â
Bill Clinton hasn’t heard of Dan Rather?
Heck, he obviously isn’t conversant on American political history. See Adams, John. (or any other US president for that matter.)
“The political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I’ve never seen this before,â€Â
Holy Foley! “October Surprise” isn’t just another new recipe for Pumkin Sorbet.
I don’t know…I go back and forth thinking either that
1.) the press is some sort of Hobbesian Leviathan, manipulating data(dave), king-making, in other words that it’s abandoned objectivity for politics, or that
2.) the press is made up of hacks who couldn’t write their collective way out of a wet paper sack, so they merely write what they think will sell at the moment, running back and forth to the newest and shiniest. In this version, they’ve abandoned objectivity to personal and corporate economics.
Given that most of them on the national level live in New York, are the two really separable?
[…] Clinton has been waiting (and complaining) for the media to start giving Sen . Barack Obama’s campaign the level of scrutiny generally […]