I think a lot of eyes are opening concerning Hillary and the turnout would not even be close to that for Obama in his first run. It has nothing to do with what you and I do in terms of numbers of voters swayed or persuaded to turn out. It does have something to do with us telling it like it is and seeing her for what she really is. If she is elected it says more about the people who voted for her than it does about her.
I think a lot of eyes are opening concerning Hillary and the turnout would not even be close to that for Obama in his first run. It has nothing to do with what you and I do in terms of numbers of voters swayed or persuaded to turn out. It does have something to do with us telling it like it is and seeing her for what she really is. If she is elected it says more about the people who voted for her than it does about her.
Oh I couldn’t agree more. I learned in the last presidential election that the majority of my fellow citizens are bat shit crazy and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
I try to stay on an even keel when it comes to life so I’ve already accepted that Granny Meaningless has a very good chance of becoming the next POTUS.
I also know the country will survive. If we can survive the Muslim and the Rino Congress we can handle anything.
I estimate we’re about a decade out from hitting rock bottom and by then I’ll be close to 80 and won’t give a shit.
If nothing else I’ll have a good laugh at their expense.
How is that different from republicans? If Bin Laden was running against Obama or Hillary it would still come down to Ohio and Florida.
I can can hear a southern redneck now " that there Bin a Laden knows how to lead". Hell, if they take a pic of Bin Laden shooting a gun he gets a bump in red states.
old timers like Dave and Russ think the country is going to hell.....old fools said the same thing when Kennedy was elected. Idiocy is a generational thing for righties
I tend to agree with the radio host. Dems will vote for Hillary because she's not an R regardless of what a bad candidate she is. Yes the host did exaggerate to make his point. Still I don't think Pubs will be thrilled to go out and vote for somebody half-heartedly just because it's not Hillary. You may disagree but OBL? Be serious!
[h=2]hree Sentences That Explain the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal[/h]BY: Andrew Stiles
July 27, 2015 11:48 am
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Hillary Clinton is awkwardly defending herself again after an intelligence community inspector generaldetermined that she sent classified information over her private email account. Here are three sentences that explain everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
[h=3]1. “I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”[/h]— Hillary Clinton (March 10, 2015) in a press conference shortly after her private email account was revealed
[h=3]2. “[The emails] were classified when they were sent and are classified now.”[/h]— Andrea Williams, spokeswoman for the intelligence community inspector general, speaking to theWall Street Journal (July 24, 2015)
[h=3]3. “I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received.”[/h]— Hillary Clinton (July 25, 2015) in response to the Wall Street Journal story
For your edification, National Journal‘s Ron Fournier parses the substantial differences between Hillary’s assertion in sentence one vs. sentence three:
July 27, 2015 11:48 am
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AP
Hillary Clinton is awkwardly defending herself again after an intelligence community inspector generaldetermined that she sent classified information over her private email account. Here are three sentences that explain everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
[h=3]1. “I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”[/h]— Hillary Clinton (March 10, 2015) in a press conference shortly after her private email account was revealed
[h=3]2. “[The emails] were classified when they were sent and are classified now.”[/h]— Andrea Williams, spokeswoman for the intelligence community inspector general, speaking to theWall Street Journal (July 24, 2015)
[h=3]3. “I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received.”[/h]— Hillary Clinton (July 25, 2015) in response to the Wall Street Journal story
For your edification, National Journal‘s Ron Fournier parses the substantial differences between Hillary’s assertion in sentence one vs. sentence three:
Now I’ll break it down.
–”I am confident that …” This is an equivocation rather than a declarative statement, a loophole as large as Bill Clinton’s infamous definition of ‘is.’”
–” .. that was classified at the time it was sent and received.” Her second equivocation in a single sentence, “at the time” back-peddles away from assurances that her actions didn’t expose classified material to dangerous disclosure. “There is no classified material,” Clinton vowed in March.
–”I am confident that …” This is an equivocation rather than a declarative statement, a loophole as large as Bill Clinton’s infamous definition of ‘is.’”
–” .. that was classified at the time it was sent and received.” Her second equivocation in a single sentence, “at the time” back-peddles away from assurances that her actions didn’t expose classified material to dangerous disclosure. “There is no classified material,” Clinton vowed in March.
[h=2]95 Percent of Registered Voters Deem It Important That Next President Be Honest, Trustworthy[/h]SHARE
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BY: Morgan Chalfant
July 27, 2015 4:04 pm
At a time when the majority of Americans do not view Hillary Clinton as honest and trustworthy, nearly all registered voters deem honesty an important characteristic for the next U.S. president to possess.
According to a CNN/ORC poll released Monday, 95 percent of registered voters believe it very or extremely important for the presidential candidate elected in 2016 to be honest and trustworthy.
The enthusiasm for this characteristic is consistent across demographics, and significant majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters–95 percent and 97 percent, respectively–agree honesty is an important characteristic for the incoming commander-in-chief.
Unfortunately for Clinton, who has continuously been battling her private email scandal since March, 57 percent of American adults would not describe the Democratic presidential candidate as honest and trustworthy, according to a separate CNN/ORC survey published last month.
Clinton has also endured a disastrous drop in her favorable rating, which has sunk from 48 percent in April when she first announced her presidential campaign to 43 percent today, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, the share of Americans holding an unfavorable view of Clinton has ticked up to 46 percent, indicating that more U.S. adults view her negatively than positively.
This represents Clinton’s worst net favorable rating since December 2007.
Americans, on the other hand, are softening to Clinton’s toughest competition, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. His favorable rating has doubled since March.
Nevertheless, Clinton doesn’t seem phased by the inability of the American public to trust her. In fact, she doesn’t appear to trust the poll numbers themselves.
“People should and do trust me,” Clinton told CNN reporter Brianna Keilar in the first nationally televised interview of her presidential campaign in early July. “And I have every confidence that that will be the outcome of this election.”
***********In the same interview, Clinton made a false claim about receiving subpoenas regarding her personal email communications.*********
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Hillary Rodham Clinton / AP
BY: Morgan Chalfant
July 27, 2015 4:04 pm
At a time when the majority of Americans do not view Hillary Clinton as honest and trustworthy, nearly all registered voters deem honesty an important characteristic for the next U.S. president to possess.
According to a CNN/ORC poll released Monday, 95 percent of registered voters believe it very or extremely important for the presidential candidate elected in 2016 to be honest and trustworthy.
The enthusiasm for this characteristic is consistent across demographics, and significant majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters–95 percent and 97 percent, respectively–agree honesty is an important characteristic for the incoming commander-in-chief.
Unfortunately for Clinton, who has continuously been battling her private email scandal since March, 57 percent of American adults would not describe the Democratic presidential candidate as honest and trustworthy, according to a separate CNN/ORC survey published last month.
Clinton has also endured a disastrous drop in her favorable rating, which has sunk from 48 percent in April when she first announced her presidential campaign to 43 percent today, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, the share of Americans holding an unfavorable view of Clinton has ticked up to 46 percent, indicating that more U.S. adults view her negatively than positively.
This represents Clinton’s worst net favorable rating since December 2007.
Americans, on the other hand, are softening to Clinton’s toughest competition, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. His favorable rating has doubled since March.
Nevertheless, Clinton doesn’t seem phased by the inability of the American public to trust her. In fact, she doesn’t appear to trust the poll numbers themselves.
“People should and do trust me,” Clinton told CNN reporter Brianna Keilar in the first nationally televised interview of her presidential campaign in early July. “And I have every confidence that that will be the outcome of this election.”
***********In the same interview, Clinton made a false claim about receiving subpoenas regarding her personal email communications.*********
[h=1]HILLARY’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE[/h]
Thomas Shea/Getty Images
by MIKE FLYNN27 Jul 2015255
[h=2]As the traditional start of the Presidential race nears, Hillary Clinton’s allegedly inevitable path to the Democrat nomination looks fraught with danger, according to several recent polls. Setting aside all the conventional wisdom caveats about early poll numbers and summer doldrums, Clinton faces some deeply existential challenges in her latest quest for the White House.[/h]Over the weekend, Gallup released its latest numbers on Hillary’s favorable/unfavorable rating. Her favorable rating has once again dipped into negative territory. Almost half of Americans, 46 percent have a negative view of Hillary, while 43 percent have a favorable view. The last time her numbers were upside down in Gallup was at the end of 2007, when she was poised to lose the Democrat nomination to President Barack Obama.
No Democrat votes had yet been cast in December 2007, and Hillary’s only real opponents at that time were two relatively unknown Democrat Senators, Obama and John Edwards. Neither were given much of a chance of defeating the Clinton juggernaut, but just weeks later, both Obama and Edwards defeated Hillary in the Iowa Caucuses.
This year, in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary’s favorable ratings among voters in the two key states are horrendous, according to a new NBC poll. In Iowa, 56 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of her and in New Hampshire, 57 percent have a negative impression. Her “net unfavorablity” in Iowa is minus-19 points. In New Hampshire, it is minus-20 points.
Her favorablity ratings in both states are worse than President Obama’s. After eight years of holding the Oval Office, any incumbent party candidate faces a tough challenge in retaining the office, given the public’s predilection to divide control between the two parties. That challenge is appreciably tougher when the party’s candidate is more unpopular than the incumbent.
Obviously, Hillary’s poll numbers are suffering from current news about a possible criminal investigation of her use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State. This Spring and Summer, her campaign has weathered numerous stories about questionable donations by foreign governments to her eponymous family foundation, while she served as the nation’s top diplomat.
These specific stories will likely die down as voting nears, but they have left a decidedly negative film on her campaign. Multiple polls have identified a very serious problem for Hillary; voters don’t believe she is honest and trustworthy.
A CNN poll released Monday found that “honest and trustworthy” was the most desired attribute in a Presidential candidate across all voter demographics. The “ability to get things done,” which is an attribute Hillary loudly assumes for herself, falls in the middle of the pack of qualities most desired by voters.
Interestingly, “stands up for what one believes, even in the face of criticism” is also a top attribute voters are seeking today. Hillary, with her highly scripted press events and reluctance to take any questions that haven’t already been vetted and approved, simply doesn’t face criticism of any real kind on the campaign trail.
Her rhetoric claims that she stands up on issues, but voters would be hard-pressed to find any real world examples.
Obviously, Hillary can’t lose the Democrat nomination unless she faces a serious challenge. Despite his ability to draw some press attention, Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
isn’t really a serious challenger. No other announced challenger has any clear path to serious challenge her presumed nomination.In politics, you can’t lose if you aren’t challenged. That said, Hillary does face a very serious existential challenge. Voters don’t particularly like her. Her attributes don’t match with what voters are looking for. The quality they seek the most, honesty, is nowhere in her playbook, or even her political DNA.
Hillary 2.0 may simply be a focus-tested product that no one wants to buy.
by MIKE FLYNN27 Jul 2015255
[h=2]As the traditional start of the Presidential race nears, Hillary Clinton’s allegedly inevitable path to the Democrat nomination looks fraught with danger, according to several recent polls. Setting aside all the conventional wisdom caveats about early poll numbers and summer doldrums, Clinton faces some deeply existential challenges in her latest quest for the White House.[/h]Over the weekend, Gallup released its latest numbers on Hillary’s favorable/unfavorable rating. Her favorable rating has once again dipped into negative territory. Almost half of Americans, 46 percent have a negative view of Hillary, while 43 percent have a favorable view. The last time her numbers were upside down in Gallup was at the end of 2007, when she was poised to lose the Democrat nomination to President Barack Obama.
No Democrat votes had yet been cast in December 2007, and Hillary’s only real opponents at that time were two relatively unknown Democrat Senators, Obama and John Edwards. Neither were given much of a chance of defeating the Clinton juggernaut, but just weeks later, both Obama and Edwards defeated Hillary in the Iowa Caucuses.
This year, in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary’s favorable ratings among voters in the two key states are horrendous, according to a new NBC poll. In Iowa, 56 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of her and in New Hampshire, 57 percent have a negative impression. Her “net unfavorablity” in Iowa is minus-19 points. In New Hampshire, it is minus-20 points.
Her favorablity ratings in both states are worse than President Obama’s. After eight years of holding the Oval Office, any incumbent party candidate faces a tough challenge in retaining the office, given the public’s predilection to divide control between the two parties. That challenge is appreciably tougher when the party’s candidate is more unpopular than the incumbent.
Obviously, Hillary’s poll numbers are suffering from current news about a possible criminal investigation of her use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State. This Spring and Summer, her campaign has weathered numerous stories about questionable donations by foreign governments to her eponymous family foundation, while she served as the nation’s top diplomat.
These specific stories will likely die down as voting nears, but they have left a decidedly negative film on her campaign. Multiple polls have identified a very serious problem for Hillary; voters don’t believe she is honest and trustworthy.
A CNN poll released Monday found that “honest and trustworthy” was the most desired attribute in a Presidential candidate across all voter demographics. The “ability to get things done,” which is an attribute Hillary loudly assumes for herself, falls in the middle of the pack of qualities most desired by voters.
Interestingly, “stands up for what one believes, even in the face of criticism” is also a top attribute voters are seeking today. Hillary, with her highly scripted press events and reluctance to take any questions that haven’t already been vetted and approved, simply doesn’t face criticism of any real kind on the campaign trail.
Her rhetoric claims that she stands up on issues, but voters would be hard-pressed to find any real world examples.
Obviously, Hillary can’t lose the Democrat nomination unless she faces a serious challenge. Despite his ability to draw some press attention, Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
16%
isn’t really a serious challenger. No other announced challenger has any clear path to serious challenge her presumed nomination.In politics, you can’t lose if you aren’t challenged. That said, Hillary does face a very serious existential challenge. Voters don’t particularly like her. Her attributes don’t match with what voters are looking for. The quality they seek the most, honesty, is nowhere in her playbook, or even her political DNA.
Hillary 2.0 may simply be a focus-tested product that no one wants to buy.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Part 2.
EXCLUSIVE: 'Hillary must NEVER become President', says the woman who exposed Bill's affair with Monica. Former Clinton West Wing assistant Linda Tripp says Democratic contender is a liar who treats the public with contempt.
Linda Tripp, now 65, was a civil servant who had a ringside seat during Clinton's administration with office directly adjacent to Hillary's.
She exposed President Clinton affair with Monica because it was the culmination of years of so much corruption.
Although she was vilified for her role in the scandal, she breaks years of silence to tell Daily Mail Online she would do it again.
During the bimbo eruptions Hillary 'destroyed women so that their stories never saw the light of day,' Tripp says.
She went from being a lackluster First Lady with unimpressive approval numbers to First Victim.
Hillary will stop at nothing to achieve her end - the Presidency - and see the public as plebians easily seduced into believing her, says Tripp.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...talks-time-Hillary-tells-never-President.html
EXCLUSIVE: 'Hillary must NEVER become President', says the woman who exposed Bill's affair with Monica. Former Clinton West Wing assistant Linda Tripp says Democratic contender is a liar who treats the public with contempt.
Linda Tripp, now 65, was a civil servant who had a ringside seat during Clinton's administration with office directly adjacent to Hillary's.
She exposed President Clinton affair with Monica because it was the culmination of years of so much corruption.
Although she was vilified for her role in the scandal, she breaks years of silence to tell Daily Mail Online she would do it again.
During the bimbo eruptions Hillary 'destroyed women so that their stories never saw the light of day,' Tripp says.
She went from being a lackluster First Lady with unimpressive approval numbers to First Victim.
Hillary will stop at nothing to achieve her end - the Presidency - and see the public as plebians easily seduced into believing her, says Tripp.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...talks-time-Hillary-tells-never-President.html
“I actually think I’m a pretty good president,” he said. “I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t. So there’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving, but the law is the law.”
Shouldn't this be considered a slap in her face. (Borrowed from a thread started by Dave - thanks man)
Shouldn't this be considered a slap in her face. (Borrowed from a thread started by Dave - thanks man)
I'd be the first to admit that Hillary's refusal to take a position on the pipeline and the Iran negotiations is weak; IMO, it won't matter, because the Republicans are utterly hopeless. And in spraying your shorts about the e-mail "scandal," did it escape your attention that the NY Times got it wrong?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...er-of-record-fails-to-keep-the-record/399752/
The New York Times’ Botched Story on Hillary Clinton
The paper of record’s inaccurate reporting on a nonexistent criminal investigation was a failure that should entail more serious consequences.
Scott Morgan / Reuters
Norm Ornstein Jul 28, 2015
I have read The New York Times since I was a teenager as the newspaper to be trusted, the paper of record, the definitive account. But the huge embarrassment over the story claiming a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton for her emails—leading the webpage, prominent on the front page, before being corrected in the usual, cringeworthy fashion of journalists who stonewall any alleged errors and then downplay the real ones—is a direct challenge to its fundamental credibility. And the paper’s response since the initial huge error was uncovered has not been adequate or acceptable.
This is not some minor mistake. Stories, once published, take on a life of their own. If they reinforce existing views or stereotypes, they fit perfectly into Mark Twain’s observation, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” (Or perhaps Twain never said it, in which case the ubiquity of that attribution serves to validate the point.) And a distorted and inaccurate story about a prominent political figure running for president is especially damaging and unconscionable.
Related Story
From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton Scandal Primer
I give kudos to the paper for having a public editor. Margaret Sullivan’s long analysis of the multiple miscues was itself honest and straightforward. But it raised its own questions, for me at least, especially surrounding the sourcing. Here is what top editor Matt Purdy said about the story’s sources: They were “multiple, reliable, highly placed” and included some “in law enforcement.” What does that mean? First, it means that some of the sources were not in law enforcement. If they were from Congress, and, perhaps from Trey Gowdy’s special committee on Benghazi, it would not be the first time that committee has been a likely source for a front-page Times story on Clinton.
“We got it wrong because our very good sources got it wrong,” Purdy said. Excuse me—how are these “very good sources” if they mislead reporters about the fundamental facts? Were the congressional sources—no doubt “very good” because they are eagerly accessible to the reporters—careless in reading the referral documents, or deliberately misleading the reporters? We know that a very good reporter formerly with the Times, Kurt Eichenwald, read the memos from the inspectors general about the Clinton emails and quite readily came to the conclusion that this had nothing to do with a criminal referral, but instead reflected a fairly common concern regarding the recent release of particular documents under Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, long after Clinton left the State Department.
Times editor Dean Baquet does not fault his reporters; “You had the government confirming that it was a criminal referral,” he said. That raised another question. What is “the government?” Is any employee of the Justice Department considered the government? Was it an official spokesperson? A career employee? A policy-level person, such as an assistant attorney general or deputy assistant attorney general? One definitively without an ax to grind? Did the DOJ official tell the reporters it was a criminal referral involving Clinton, or a more general criminal referral? And if this was a mistake made by an official spokesperson, why not identify the official who screwed up bigtime?
This story demands more than a promise to do better the next time, and more than a shrug.
When very good sources get a big story wrong, and reporters, without seeing the documents, accept their characterization of the facts and put it on the front page, they have an obligation to tell readers more about who those sources were and about why they got it wrong. And as Eichenwald notes, the subject of whether the documents were a criminal referral, and whether they involved Hillary Clinton directly, were not the only major errors in the story—for example, the Times story inaccurately says that the private Clinton email account was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. A combination of errors on a huge, front-page story—and there is no fault on the part of the reporters? Hmmm.
This story, of course, also has a larger context. Michael Schmidt’s March story, the first on the private Clinton email server, itself had significant errors. And The Times, going back to the multiple, front page stories on Whitewater in the 1990s—claiming massive malfeasance that was seriously exaggerated—has raised many eyebrows over its decades-long treatment of the Clintons, in news pages and columns.
One might argue that this should make the paper and its editors especially sensitive to avoiding overreach and inaccuracies in stories about the Clintons. I won’t make that claim. Rather, the paper of record needs to be deeply sensitive at all times to inaccurate reporting and needs to respond with more than the usual buried corrections. The Times’ editorial page rightly holds public figures accountable for malfeasance and misfeasance. The same standards should apply to The Times. This story demands more than a promise to do better the next time, and more than a shrug, as Matt Purdy and Dean Baquet gave, with Purdy blaming the sources and Baquet saying of his reporters, “I am not sure what they could have done differently on that.”
I am. Holding a story until you are sure you have the facts—as other reporters did, with, it seems, “government officials” shopping the story around—or waiting until you can actually read the documents instead of relying on your good sources, so to speak, providing misleading and slanted details, is what they could have done differently. If reporters are hot to publish their scoops, it is up to editors, in Washington and New York, to put the brakes on. And that is especially true if reporters have previously made mistakes and overreached on stories. Someone should be held accountable here, with suspension or other action that fits the gravity of the offense. I want, and need, the old New York Times, the leader of responsible journalism, the paper of record back.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...er-of-record-fails-to-keep-the-record/399752/
The New York Times’ Botched Story on Hillary Clinton
The paper of record’s inaccurate reporting on a nonexistent criminal investigation was a failure that should entail more serious consequences.
Scott Morgan / Reuters
Norm Ornstein Jul 28, 2015
I have read The New York Times since I was a teenager as the newspaper to be trusted, the paper of record, the definitive account. But the huge embarrassment over the story claiming a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton for her emails—leading the webpage, prominent on the front page, before being corrected in the usual, cringeworthy fashion of journalists who stonewall any alleged errors and then downplay the real ones—is a direct challenge to its fundamental credibility. And the paper’s response since the initial huge error was uncovered has not been adequate or acceptable.
This is not some minor mistake. Stories, once published, take on a life of their own. If they reinforce existing views or stereotypes, they fit perfectly into Mark Twain’s observation, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” (Or perhaps Twain never said it, in which case the ubiquity of that attribution serves to validate the point.) And a distorted and inaccurate story about a prominent political figure running for president is especially damaging and unconscionable.
Related Story
From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton Scandal Primer
I give kudos to the paper for having a public editor. Margaret Sullivan’s long analysis of the multiple miscues was itself honest and straightforward. But it raised its own questions, for me at least, especially surrounding the sourcing. Here is what top editor Matt Purdy said about the story’s sources: They were “multiple, reliable, highly placed” and included some “in law enforcement.” What does that mean? First, it means that some of the sources were not in law enforcement. If they were from Congress, and, perhaps from Trey Gowdy’s special committee on Benghazi, it would not be the first time that committee has been a likely source for a front-page Times story on Clinton.
“We got it wrong because our very good sources got it wrong,” Purdy said. Excuse me—how are these “very good sources” if they mislead reporters about the fundamental facts? Were the congressional sources—no doubt “very good” because they are eagerly accessible to the reporters—careless in reading the referral documents, or deliberately misleading the reporters? We know that a very good reporter formerly with the Times, Kurt Eichenwald, read the memos from the inspectors general about the Clinton emails and quite readily came to the conclusion that this had nothing to do with a criminal referral, but instead reflected a fairly common concern regarding the recent release of particular documents under Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, long after Clinton left the State Department.
Times editor Dean Baquet does not fault his reporters; “You had the government confirming that it was a criminal referral,” he said. That raised another question. What is “the government?” Is any employee of the Justice Department considered the government? Was it an official spokesperson? A career employee? A policy-level person, such as an assistant attorney general or deputy assistant attorney general? One definitively without an ax to grind? Did the DOJ official tell the reporters it was a criminal referral involving Clinton, or a more general criminal referral? And if this was a mistake made by an official spokesperson, why not identify the official who screwed up bigtime?
This story demands more than a promise to do better the next time, and more than a shrug.
When very good sources get a big story wrong, and reporters, without seeing the documents, accept their characterization of the facts and put it on the front page, they have an obligation to tell readers more about who those sources were and about why they got it wrong. And as Eichenwald notes, the subject of whether the documents were a criminal referral, and whether they involved Hillary Clinton directly, were not the only major errors in the story—for example, the Times story inaccurately says that the private Clinton email account was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. A combination of errors on a huge, front-page story—and there is no fault on the part of the reporters? Hmmm.
This story, of course, also has a larger context. Michael Schmidt’s March story, the first on the private Clinton email server, itself had significant errors. And The Times, going back to the multiple, front page stories on Whitewater in the 1990s—claiming massive malfeasance that was seriously exaggerated—has raised many eyebrows over its decades-long treatment of the Clintons, in news pages and columns.
One might argue that this should make the paper and its editors especially sensitive to avoiding overreach and inaccuracies in stories about the Clintons. I won’t make that claim. Rather, the paper of record needs to be deeply sensitive at all times to inaccurate reporting and needs to respond with more than the usual buried corrections. The Times’ editorial page rightly holds public figures accountable for malfeasance and misfeasance. The same standards should apply to The Times. This story demands more than a promise to do better the next time, and more than a shrug, as Matt Purdy and Dean Baquet gave, with Purdy blaming the sources and Baquet saying of his reporters, “I am not sure what they could have done differently on that.”
I am. Holding a story until you are sure you have the facts—as other reporters did, with, it seems, “government officials” shopping the story around—or waiting until you can actually read the documents instead of relying on your good sources, so to speak, providing misleading and slanted details, is what they could have done differently. If reporters are hot to publish their scoops, it is up to editors, in Washington and New York, to put the brakes on. And that is especially true if reporters have previously made mistakes and overreached on stories. Someone should be held accountable here, with suspension or other action that fits the gravity of the offense. I want, and need, the old New York Times, the leader of responsible journalism, the paper of record back.
Hillary Clinton’s $600 haircut
By Emily Smith
July 28, 2015 | 7:56pm
Modal Trigger
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EMILY SMITH
Hillary Clinton put part of Bergdorf Goodman on lockdown on Friday to get a $600 haircut at the swanky John Barrett Salon.
Clinton, with a huge entourage in tow, was spotted being ushered through a side entrance of the Fifth Avenue store on Friday.
A source said, “Staff closed off one side of Bergdorf’s so Hillary could come in privately to get her hair done. An elevator bank was shut down so she could ride up alone, and then she was styled in a private area of the salon. Other customers didn’t get a glimpse. Hillary was later seen with a new feathered hairdo.”
Clinton regularly sees salon owner John Barrett, who charges regular mortals $600 for a cut and blow-dry. Hair color can cost an extra $600.
It is not known how much, or if, Clinton paid for the haircut, and her reps didn’t respond to requests for comment. But Clinton’s attachment to her hairstylists is well documented.
The “Santa” recently referenced in her e-mails is Santa Nikkels, the proprietor of Santa’s Salon in Chappaqua.
And let’s not forget that her husband, Bill Clinton, was famously caught up in a 1993 controversy known as “Hairgate” when he got a $200 haircut on Air Force One as it was idling for an hour at LAX, shutting down two runways and diverting numerous flights.
