21 September 2016

Notes from Norm: Clinton and the Defensive 4th Estate

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables….Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”
–    Hillary Clinton, 9/9/2016

In 2012, there were approximately 129 million votes cast for President.

Based upon current polling numbers, and using those numbers as a baseline, it is conceivable that Donald Trump may receive somewhere around 54 million votes.

And, according to Hillary Clinton, 27 million of those Americans belong in a “basket of deplorables.”

In a nation of 320 million Americans, Hillary Clinton has determined that nearly 10% of the population are “deplorable.”

So much for being the unity candidate for President!

It’s become an article of faith in American presidential politics that candidates on one hand insist they are prepared to bring America together, while on the other hand they stab their opponent’s supporters directly in the back.

What is becoming an even greater article of faith is the so-called mainstream media’s willingness to serve as the judge and juror for candidates on the right who commit these electoral atrocities, while they act as defenders and apologists for candidates on the left who do the same.

Clinton, shortly after uttering her comments, “walked back” the comments by saying she should have not made such gross generalities – but that she would stick to her argument that Trump has helped foster an environment which is empowering “deplorables”.

Before you can say “Benghazi”, national news networks and other self-promoting “objective” journalists weighed in.  Many of them went to great lengths to justify Clinton’s comments by regurgitating the comments that Trump has made about illegal immigration, women, minorities and a host of others.

It’s starting to get dicey for America’s liberal one-party media.

They’ve tried desperately to give Clinton cover.  The Washington Post Editorial Board has concluded that Americans have heard enough about her irresponsible and careless efforts that permitted classified information to be transmitted via her unsecured personal email system.

Barely a week ago one of the Post’s political reporters, Chris Cillizza, penned an article with the headline “Can we just stop talking about Hillary Clinton’s health now?

In it, he excoriated those who were raising legitimate questions about Hillary Clinton’s health issues.

By using Clinton’s liberal allies talking points to criticize questions about Clinton’s health, Cillizza argued that her health was a settled matter.

Then, after Clinton nearly collapsed and fainted, Cillizza was forced to state, in an article with the headline “Hillary Clinton’s health just became a real issue in the presidential campaign”, that “Hillary Clinton falling ill Sunday morning at a memorial service on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks will catapult questions about her health from the ranks of conservative conspiracy theory to perhaps the central debate in the presidential race over the coming days.

Oops!

Look, I understand the liberal media doesn’t like conservatives, Republicans or Donald Trump.

However, there has to be some reckoning with the one-party press at some point that they are doing their profession, and the country, no great service by being Hillary Clinton’s earned media campaign staff.

The press turning itself into a pretzel to defend Clinton’s attacks on millions of Americans is shameful, at best.

Its laughable effort to do its best to turn the other cheek when legitimate questions have been raised about her health is simple malfeasance.

For someone who is no longer in elective office, nor seeking elective office, the press was insistent to know details about my cancer diagnosis.

For someone who is seeking the highest office in the land, the press ought to be climbing over itself to know legitimate aspects of Clinton’s medical condition.
Clinton ought to be held accountable for the things she says and does as well as the things she doesn’t say or do.

And, there ought to be a greater degree of effort on the part of reporters and the media that they work for to avoid the increasing temptation to weigh in on this race in favor of Clinton because of their distaste for conservatives, Republicans or Donald Trump.

We are a nation that has great challenges facing us.  Threats at home and abroad have not lessened over the past eight years. They have become more complex, more dangerous and our enemies have become more emboldened as American leadership has been MIA.

It requires all of us, as Americans, to be prepared to come together after the Presidential election, to stand behind whichever candidate wins the Presidency.

Whether it is Clinton’s attacks on 27 million Americans, questions about her health or unanswered questions about her email, the press has a job to do.  If she is elected in November and the press has not done its job in fully and fairly vetting her on these and other issues, they will have done a great disservice to their profession and their country.

The credibility of the Presidency is at stake.

But, so too is the credibility of the press in America.