CNN's Costello falsely asserted that "you don't see candidate Hillary Clinton on Leno or Letterman"
On the March 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN contributor Carol Costello quoted political analyst Dan McGinn, CEO of The McGinn Group, saying that politicians who appear on television entertainment shows "have to be funny. You do have to be entertaining, but you can't do it in a forced way that people feel like that's really not who you are." Costello then concluded: "And that is a real challenge. That's why you don't see candidate Hillary Clinton on Leno or Letterman." In fact, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has appeared on numerous entertainment shows as a Senate candidate, senator, and possible presidential contender, including on the August 4, 2003, edition of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the October 8, 2003, edition of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She appeared on ABC's The View as recently as December 20, 2006, and she also appeared on The View on May 10, 2004, and October 13, 2003. Clinton also made an appearance on NBC's The Ellen DeGeneres Show on November 21, 2005.
The newsletter Studio Briefing reported that Clinton's appearance on the January 12, 2000, edition of CBS' Late Show with David Letterman, which occurred during her first U.S. Senate campaign, "drew the highest ratings the program has received since Letterman's mother appeared on the show from the Winter Olympics in Feb. 1994." The 2000 interview and the additional live and taped Clinton appearances -- on February 14, 1994; May 9, 2001; September 29, 2001; and June 16, 2003 -- were all listed as "highlights" from Letterman's "25 years in late night television" on the Late Show's website.
From the March 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
DON PARDO (announcer): Rudy Giuliani!
COSTELLO: But putting the fun in politics can be dangerous. Take Rudy Giuliani, he hosted Saturday Night Live, too, appearing in a skit in drag. It's an image he's trying to shed, as he tries to win the Republican conservative base.
Or take Tom Vilsack [D], the former Iowa governor who wanted to be president.
JAY LENO (NBC host): Have you reached a point where -- hey, you're the guy!
VILSACK: Not quite.
COSTELLO: His performance screamed, "There is no fun in politics." He dropped out of the race a few days later.
McGINN: When you choose to go on these kinds of shows, you do have to be funny. You do have to be entertaining, but you can't do it in a forced way that people feel like that's really not who you are.
COSTELLO: And that is a real challenge. That's why you don't see Candidate Hillary Clinton on Leno or Letterman -- Wolf.
Ooops! What an idiot!
How easy was that to debunk?
Speaking of debunking:
How quickly we forget. Anyone remember George W.'s first appearance on Letterman? Word for days was that he was back on the bottle or started up on painkillers. He was so freakin' unfunny and weird it was painful to watch. Satellite delay didn't help his timing much, but keerist on a cracker, you gotta prepare for that kinda thing.
Oh, I just mentioned "prepare" and Bush in the same paragraph. What was I thinking?
she's a cnn "contributor"? she contributes misinformation?
Uh...
She has nice hair.
I haven't seen this Bimbette before.
She's got all the ingredients for corporate cable stardom: Right-wing, doesn't know what she's talking about, willing to lie to smear Democrats at the drop of a hat.
Maybe she's auditioning for Fox.
MMFA!! I've warned you before!! Don't let 'facts' get in the way of other idiots' beliefs!! It hurts their feelings!!
How does CNN fill these positions?
Do they just grab some blockhead off the street and sit em' down in a chair and turn on the camera?
It's this blithe phraseology that puffs up a pundit -- "See, I can trash Hillary, too!" Why Senator C. is running, with this type of idiocy surrounding her, almost proves her strength.
Hillary wasn't on Leno or Letterman in the last 24 hours. How far back do these journalists have to reseaerch to satisfy you monsters?
Now that's funny. Good one.
And just think, someone at MMFA actually got paid to debunk this chick. I'll bet all that took was a simple google of "hilary clinton, leno, letterman."
Must be nice.
If I were running for President, I would hire a couple people to media check every day. Then the next day I would issue a press release that said "Last night CNN reported...when actually, the Senator has appeared..." And I would do that EVERY day. Every day. EVENTUALLY, the general population would start to get the idea of the trash that permeates radio and television. I just don't understand why that isn't done.
"I just don't understand why that isn't done."
You know how much money and resources that would take? Anyway, why should they do it when MMFA does it for them every day?
It's Anchor News Barbie! Buy her now, boys and girls!
"we just have to look good, we don't have to be clear"
Severe poverty in US rising. Industries, jobs and middle class declining. Greatest credit load since right before the Great Depression. Vietnam Part II with Iran on the way. Now in our fifth year of conflict.
Bring on the next Barbie. Keep the sheep asleep.
So what she said would be..uh... like...a lie?
So we meet this weeks GOP talking robot, freshly assembled for the Rovian Army.
Well, the thing to remember is that robot talking heads like Carol only have the ability to read and nothing else. I mean why put wrinkle lines on that pretty face by actually finding out what it is you are talking about?
Geez that would make no sense.
Just like most of the talking heads on TV have no idea of what they are saying when they read off the teleprompters. I guarantee you that if you were to walk up to Airhead Costellow five minutes after she read that and ask her why she said something about Clinton that wasn't true, the first thing out of her mouth would be,"When did I say something about Clinton????"
Did I miss something? Is it now a requirement for a presidential candidate to appear on Leno or Letterman?
If that's the case, then I guess its only a matter of time before presidential candidates have to appear on sitcoms . . . or reality TV . . .
They are not required, but for Democrats it's a good idea. There are an awful lot of people you are working 2 even 3 jobs, and a few minutes of Letterman maybe the only TV and source of commentary they see/hear all week. It can't hurt for a working stiff to hear a canidate that says they are going to tackle the health care crisis. I can personally tell you all, forget the war, gay marriage, the stock market, what really matters to a working stiff is "how am I going to get health insurance".
It's a requirement to do Oprah now, may as well let Stewart, Leno and Letterman get their licks in.
Has anyone considered that maybe we're overreacting a bit? As far as I can tell, she just made a mistake. Now, someone on the air shouldn't make an absolute statement without fact-checking, but based on that statement I don't see anything indicating she's a right-wing hack. She did criticize Giuliani's performance on SNL, after all.
I think the emphasis here is on "hack," not "right-wing." And, really, if my only job was to go on the air and talk about stuff, I'd probably, you know, at least spend a couple minutes at Google before I went on nationwide TV.
This was not just some off-hand comment she made but her summary point. The fact is, these people don't research, and they don't think... the whole game is trying to stay out ahead of the narrative.
Well, she said Rudy's drag skit was "dangerous", not unfunny or inauthentic, which was the final implication about Hillary.
No, it's not overreacting at all. In terms of journalistic standards, it's a grade-school error, easily refuted. The troubling implication of this, for me, is that a CNN correspondent can casually, snarkily and gratuitously characterize Hillary as inauthentic and stiff and inaccessible, based in this case on nothing whatsoever. The conclusion is assumed, and the facts don't really matter, 'cuz we all know these things are true about her anyway, right? The media's been telling us so for years, after all. Why bother with a fact-check? Who cares if she actually HAS made some politainment appearances? Who cares if she did well? 'Cuz we all know that whatever the truth of Costello's statement, Hillary is, in the end, inauthentic and stiff and inaccessible.
Costello's final statement may seem like a throwaway, but I'll bet you every dime I've ever made that someone, somewhere, when asked why they hate Hillary, will drag this out of their issue-free drive-by newswatcher memories and say, "Well, if she's not a b***h, why hasn't she ever been on Leno? Even Bill played the sax on Arsenio Hall. But he's the charming one; she's just a calculating iceberg, blah blah blah blah blah."
I stopped watching CNN in the morning before work years ago because Carol Costello was on the program. She makes inane comments regularly.