For Hillary No Press Is Good Press

I have been noting that Hillary hates the press more that President Bush and that she avoids talking to them as much as is possible. Her calls for openness and transparency notwithstanding, Hillary’s natural instinct is secrecy and silence.

ABC News has another story on how this is playing out on the campaign trail:

For the small band of reporters who regularly cover Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the dirty little secret is this: They rarely — if ever — get to speak to the candidate herself.

Clinton, D-N.Y., is running perhaps the most media-controlled — and media-obsessed — campaign in presidential history. Her aides carefully screen access to the candidate, generally avoid news conferences on the campaign trail and have been known to throw around the Clintons’ considerable weight to block negative stories and influence coverage of the candidate they’re protecting and promoting.

They even bring in Ari Fleischer to compare her to Bush:

“Hillary is no Bill when it comes to discipline — she has some,” Fleischer said. “But it’s more than just discipline.” During his 2000 run, “George Bush did press [availabilities] just about every day, and he was always disciplined.

“Hillary is also disciplined,” Fleischer continued, “but she keeps her distance from the press probably because she doesn’t like them.” “She sees all downside in access. As a front-runner with a 20-point margin, the press can hurt her more than help her.”

Clinton’s relationship with the press is less than cordial these days:

But Clinton stands alone in following a tight script that limits her exposure to tough questions or embarrassing scrutiny. From the moment she announced her candidacy — with a Web video filmed in her home, rolled out on a Saturday to take maximum advantage of the news cycles — her advisers have sought to make sure that her “conversation” with the American people goes according to plan.

Reporters say requests for interviews with Clinton are often ignored. The press office often berates reporters and editors for stories it considers unfair or incomplete. In the Senate and on the campaign trail, her Secret Service contingent sometimes serves as an informal shield to protect her from off-the-cuff exchanges with reporters.

The big question in all of this, of course, is whether this tactic will work. Will the press grow tired of the lack of access? Does the public care that Hillary is determined to control every aspect of her public perception; will it come of as cold and calculating?

I think this is a bigger issue than just how Hillary relates to the press, however, as it reflect her overall temperament. Do Americans really want a secretive, manipulative, and antagonistic president? We know what happened the last time the Clinton’s were in the White House why do we think the next time will be different?

Hillary running on her experience

She just doesn’t want to talk about it . . .

There are some interesting tidbits in The Caucus rundown of Hillary’s recent TV blitz. Clues to the tricky way she is running on her experience without having to debate it. When Tim Russert on Meet the Press went over her history of contradictory statements and positions on Iraq and her vote to authorize force in Iraq she continued to dodge the issue:

“You know, we can talk about 2002 or we can look forward to what is a continuing involvement in a sectarian civil war with no end in sight, and I believe its imperative that we try to create a political consensus to move the president and the Republicans in Congress to extricating us from this civil war,” she told Mr. Russert.

How is it not relevant to discuss her votes and statements on the most important issue of the day? This whole focused on the future line is just a way to quickly move past her rocky history and criticize an unpopular president.

When Chris Wallace raised the Clinton penchant for demonizing their enemies Hillary once again tried to both excuse her past conduct and move on to focus on the future:

Back over on Fox – where, about a year ago, President Clinton tussled notably with his interviewer, Chris Wallace – Mr. Wallace recalled that interview and asked Mrs. Clinton, “why do you and the president have such a hyperpartisan view of politics?”
Mrs. Clinton gave that chuckle of hers again and said, “Oh, Chris, if you had walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years, I’m sure you’d understand. But, you know, the real goal for our country right now is to get beyond partisanship.”

Get that? If you only knew what the poor Clinton’s have gone through over the years you would understand why they need to be so ruthless and partisan! A “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” was determined to destroy them and so they had to strike back with any means necessary. But the goal now is to “get beyond” partisanship.

This answer both fails to take into account the very nature of her political past and offers a ridiculously naive assertion that she is capable of getting beyond partisanship. Don’t forget Hillary is the one who thrives in the war room and the one who always called for tougher tactics. She is the one who responded to her own mistakes and her husbands serial infidelities with attacks on their political enemies. She is partisanship defined.

The sad thing about all of this is that she just might get away with it. Americans are famously forward looking and often buy into the idea that campaigns should be about the future. But what has to be brought home to the public at large is that Hillary’s past is an important indicator of her future. Those inclined to give her a fresh start will be bitterly disappointed when the past repeats itself.

Hillary Campaign Kills GQ Article

I wonder when the media and the general public is going to wake up to the fact that Hillary has all of the traits that so many ascribe to President Bush: a penchant for secrecy, a antagonistic relationship with, and fundamental distrust of, the press, a willingness to suppress anyone or anything that shows her in a bad light, etc. The Politico has yet another example:

Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.

So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.

Despite internal protests, GQ editor Jim Nelson met the Clinton campaign’s demands, which had been delivered by Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, several sources familiar with the conversations said. GQ writer George Saunders traveled with Clinton to Africa in July, and Clinton is slated to appear on the cover of GQ’s December issue, in which it traditionally names a “Man of the Year,” according magazine industry sources.

If President Bush was the subject rather than Hillary the media would be filled with cries of censorship and sad bemoaning of Bush’s heavy handed relationship with the press. Those who think Hillary will bring “change” to Washington are only kidding themselves. The only change she is seeking is a change in who controls the power.