Wash. Post reprinted online user comment attacking Clinton and Obama
On July 25, The Washington Post published a user comment from its website attacking Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) following the most recent Democratic presidential debate: "Hillary is so calculating, she is almost robotic. ... And Obama?? I'm still waiting. Other than an excellent cheerleader, who is he???" The comment was written in response to a July 24 entry by staff writer Dan Balz on the Post's presidential politics blog, The Trail. The comment was then published in the July 25 edition of the Post in a new section also titled "The Trail." The section did not feature any other comments from The Trail blog, although numerous other comments to Balz's entry complimented Clinton and Obama. As Media Matters for America has documented media outlets frequently portray Clinton as "calculating" or overly ambitious, while rarely offering actual examples or support. Moreover, Media Matters has also documented media baselessly suggesting that Obama is "all style and little substance."
From the print version of "The Trail":
"Hillary is so calculating, she is almost robotic. ... And Obama?? I'm still waiting. Other than an excellent cheerleader, who is he???"
-- "jillcinta"
A posted comment on Monday's debate
This criticism of Clinton and Obama by "jillcinta" appeared in the comments section of Balz's July 24 blog post analyzing the two Democratic senators' debate performances. However, while the Post chose to publish two sentences criticizing Obama and Clinton, the comment also contained praise of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE). Following is the full text of the comment, with the sentences published by the Post in bold:
I am so tired of you pundits talking about Hillary and Obama. Hillary is so calculating, she is almost robotic. Except for the brief moment when Biden called her out on not telling the truth on Iraq and her vote against funding MRAPs.
She was pale as a ghost. She knew Biden was right.
Biden was the winner of the debate last nite. He is the only candidate that is ready to move into the WH tomorrow. He is capable of getting things done. He is winning the online polls about who is the most knowledgeable.
Things were great in the Clinton era -- but they did little for foreign relations. and this election is first about foreign affairs.
And Obama?? I'm still waiting. Other than an excellent cheerleader, who is he???
Posted by: jillcinta | July 24, 2007 03:27 PM
Furthermore, the Post decided to publish only this comment in its print edition, despite the fact that 44 other comments to Balz's blog post appeared online as of 8 p.m. ET on July 24, many of which contained positive reactions to Obama and Clinton. For example, praise of Clinton:
In my opinion, Hilary Clinton won the debate hands down. She demanded the attention of the audience, having the strongest stage presence and the most thought-out and well articulated responses. Yet, I would have liked to see all the candidates address the United States' commitment to the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, which call for cutting world hunger in half by 2015 and eliminating it altogether by 2025. Indeed, it is estimated that the expenditure of a mere $19 billion annually would eliminate starvation and malnutrition worldwide. In a time when the current defense budget is $522 billion, the goal of eradicating world hunger is clearly well within reach and it is my hope that whoever becomes president in 2008 addresses this pressing issue.
Posted by: emh8k | July 24, 2007 07:28 PM
Praise of Obama:
I have a different interpretation than some readers of Clinton's response to the question of meeting with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. My interpretation is that it is not a question of IF such meetings would be 'spun' for political advantage, but WHAT the spin would be at that moment in time. Spin on both sides is unavoidable. But it might be possible to avoid unintentionally making things worse by blundering into a meeting whose perception after the fact is not what you imagined it would be.
That having been said, however, I can't imagine that Obama would be any less careful of this than Clinton. So the distinction being drawn between the two candidates' responses seems a little fine to me.
Posted by: elizabeth.elzer | July 24, 2007 02:35 PM
Praise of both Obama and Clinton:
Hilary's service as First Lady isn't relevant experience, but her participation as a key advisor to the president on numerous initiatives (beyond just health care) is ... remember Bill said "two for the price of one" even while campaigning ... and it's certainly better experience for an executive branch job than eight years in a state legislature.
Don't forget everyone, you don't have to choose one or the other ... after Obama gains experience and shows us more of himself, he'll be highly electable in 2016 still. Why not embrace a strategy for 16 years of Democratic presidency?
Posted by: kemurph | July 24, 2007 03:13 PM
Political Jihad? Calculating and robotic? Guessing how President Hillary Clinton might have handled Katrina? All this rampant speculation and it's as if you people know her and her policies. It seems that you already have an agenda of "hate" for the lady without even listening to her. You are quick to flog her for allegedly flip flopping, but "beginning diplomatic talks" is basically what she said last night, were you listening? You want the freshness of Obama, with the experience of Richardson, minus the flash of Edwards. Some idiot hates the Clintons so much and is upset that the former president is making money speaking and operating his foundation (along with Bush Sr. I should point out). So is it your position that anyone that can afford it, should not take any money from social security, or any other government subsidy, right? LOL, what a loon ... And to the yahoo that feels that since 40% of America "hates" Ms. Clinton, she should not win the democratic primary ... look with the likes of Arthur Branch, America's Mayor and the Hero representing the Republican party, I foresee 8 years of President Clinton and potentially 8 years of Edwards or Obama after her.
Posted by: cave_mann | July 24, 2007 06:30 PM
Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V...
> Clip, snip, snip...
> Okay to send?
> Enter.
Welcome to today's journalism.
If Edward R. Murrow ever came back and saw what was being done in the name of journalism, he'd never stop throwing up.
Let me try to understand the issue here. So, WaPo no longer has the right to publish comments written on their own blog? Where is the bias here?
The point is that WaPo only published postings of a certain slant, and ignored the majority that were not as critical of the candidate (s).
That's called bias.
I don't know if it is "bias", but it is interesting how the media often creates little memes without any real examples and then reinforces the meme by selectively reprinting comments from impressionable parrots.
It is a form of self-congratulation at their success to imprint their own ideas on the public or maybe a self-fulfiling prophecy as well as perception often supercedes reality.
lol, even I can write now....
love it....ctrl-c, ctrl-v.....its so easy
the lazy turds.
O'Reilly highlights DailyKos for it's hateful poster comments - MMFA says, oops, wrong, no basis. MMFA highlights WaPo's rude poster comments about a Democrat - plenty of basis here.
Got it.
No, MMFA highlights WaPos highlighting of a posters comments. Not misinformation, but selectively perpetuating media attacks on certain candidates.
But don't listen to me, I love higher taxes.
HBL, I see where you're coming from - my post was a little tongue in cheek. Besides, we needed more mention of O'Reilly's latest obsession, just snuck it in there.
But maybe you're too busy paying your beloved taxes to have noticed, so you get a pass ;)
Sorry if I got carried away, Tommy. I just love paying taxes soooooooooooooo much ! ;0)
Well, I love them so much, I'm on my way to the post office right now to mail a check to Washington.
So there.
I'm mailing several smaller checks, so I can buy more stamps to subsidize that pinko post office.Wheeeeeeeee !!!
Talk about apples and oranges...
Tommy would equate the Washington Post with Daily Kos. Huh?
O'Reilly highlights DailyKos for it's hateful poster comments - MMFA says, oops, wrong, no basis. MMFA highlights WaPo's rude poster comments about a Democrat - plenty of basis here.
Got it.
That's not what happened at all!
O'Reilly ascribed distorted characteristics to DailyKos. He said that because of some hateful posters, the whole site was a hate site, and that wasn't true.
MMfA was right for saying that there's no basis for his classifying the site based upon the comments of a few people.
Then MMfA highlights the cherrypicked negative comment of the Washington Post.
You didn't compare apples and oranges. You compared apples and car engines.
I'm sorry, Tommy, but these two things seem sentirely consistant to me.
MMFA highlights O'Reilly selectively using reader comments to make a larger point
MMFA highlights WaPo selectively using reader comments to make a larger point
Do you disagree with this analysis?
"Fox Security? Do you copy? This is T-Warrior. We have another hate site to expose. "
Locked, loaded and loofah-ed, T-Warrior ! We'll beat 'em til they S-P their pants, and conscientiously object to the War on Christmas !
First:
Biden was the winner of the debate last nite. He is the only candidate that is ready to move into the WH tomorrow. He is capable of getting things done. He is winning the online polls about who is the most knowledgeable.
I agree with that opinion. Of course we might have to muzzle him occasionally ;-)
I don't believe he has any chance of winning the nomination, but I would hope whomever does win will pick him for VP, or at least--should they win--bestow him a Cabinet post.
I believe Hillary is fully capable of being President. Just wish I agreed with her on most of the issues. Of course Bill would be part of the package...and that's a strong selling point [at least to me]
The entire post should have been offered not just snippets. And the media wonders why they get a bad rap?
I like Biden a lot, and think that he could be a good leader. He's a common sence, no BS kind of guy. Things he has said make me believe he has a bigotry streak. We don't need that from the Presidency.
Rick,
I think Biden has sometimes spoken without fully understanding how his words might be interpreted. Like calling Obama "articulate". I don't think Biden meant to imply that he thought this was unusual for an African-American. Yet that's the way some took it.
I've often described Bill Clinton as articulate. If I were to describe Barack Obama as articulate [which he is], I'd mean it in the same way I meant it about Bill Clinton. As a compliment. I believe Biden meant it that way also.
You two are freakin' me out, man.
Get back to your own sides before I lose it completely...
He also called him 'clean'. Articulate and well-spoken are compliments a lot of African Americans have a problem with because of the implication that those qualities are hard to come or at least unexpected. Still, it's a subtle offense, I think, in comparison to the implication that it's a surprise to find a hygenic African American. It was the dumbest possible thing to say because while I don't think it was bigotted, the arguments that it was, sort of write themselves.
He's sort of a bastard in a good way. He knows that he's the smartest kid in the room and doesn't give a damn about letting everybody else know it. During these debates he's like, 'why the hell are these people on the same stage as me? They either don't know what they're talking about or they take the rest of you for a bunch of rubes.'
I think he's great.
Yeah,
This may seem like a fairly trivial post by Media Matters. But it isn't.
It shows clearly just how far these corporate media organizations will go to drag down Democrats and get their preferred Cons in office.
No doubt they thought this one was a sure thing. Who would call them on it?
Please provide substantive proof and a verifiable bias pattern by the Washington Post of their desire to beat down Democrats and get "cons" in office.
Excuse me, "drag down" Democrats and "preferred" cons.
See the Post's Whitewater coverage. Compare to any Bush scandal. Be sure to note the relative frenzy, ferocity, and frequency of the criticism, not just its mere existence.
This item got under my skin. The point of quoting a random citizen is to get a point that we don't hear every day. But no, the media had to have a "see our storylines are correct" self-love session.
There is no profession as intolerant of criticism and tolerant of incompetence as journalism.
Any implication that there's a conspiracy or even a concerted effort between news organizations (or their parent companies) devised at bringing down one candidate and building a preferred party's candidate is unfounded and sort of silly.
Why, breaker, is it "silly"? If it walks like a duck... I mean, there doesn't have to be a "concerted" effort even. It comes natural to corporate owned media conglomerates to see the world throught the lenses of conservative (meaning low taxes, less Government regulation, un-ending war, because what's more "news-worthy" than war?) ideology and thus have, even unintentionally, a tendency to represent the sides of every story that mirror/reinforces their internal biases. It is not far-fetched when the evidence is posted here on a daily basis.
What's silly is maintaining a belief that directly contradicts verified facts that have been presented to you.
There's a clear difference between recognizing symptoms of a problem and then diagnosing what that problem is.
I'm not trying to imply there isn't plenty of sloppy or dubious reporting from any or all media outlets. I'm simply suggesting that it's easier to diagnose the disease when you're only willing to accept one possible culprit. And once the diagnosis has been made, it's pretty easy to single out the symptoms to back up your case, and ignore those that may provide cause for doubt. An accusation MMFA could hardly, in good faith, back away from.
I simply make the argument that a lot of people allow their own bias to cloud the way they're willing to view an issue. Why do you think it is that both conservatives and 'progressives' complain that the media is biased against them? Why do you think they almost always reject the notion that they benefit from bias? Why is it preferable to always portray oneself as the victim?
What's silly is that we're all supposed to pretend like we don't know what's going on. You don't go to biased sources looking for anything other than a confirmation of your own bias. That's why people listen to talk radio and it's why people come to sites like this.