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Tell The Media What You Think

By SusanUnPC on January 9, 2008 at 7:52 PM in Clinton, Media, Presidential Candidates

A friend in Pennsylvania called me today. He’s an ardent supporter of John Edwards, who I also admire. He called to check in on me, and because he is pissed off by the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton. He was outraged by the extremely skewed, sexist remarks by pundits and so-called reporters. Taylor Marsh addresses the problem: “Mark Halperin was on “Charlie Rose” last night. Halperin is one of the few people talking about the biased coverage against Clinton, and the glowing love for Obama.” (More from Taylor below the fold.) Whether or not you’re for Hillary, please let the media know its coverage is unfair, and sign this at Working Assets’ Credo Mobile (Working Assets has been fighting for progressive issues on the ‘net for as long as I can remember):

“Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?”

That was the headline of a Maureen Dowd column in today’s New York Times.

Hillary Clinton’s win in New Hampshire was shocking. The performance of the national press corps in the days preceding the vote, unfortunately, was not.

Journalists have been replaced by a punditocracy that makes its living (and gets its kicks) by perverting our democratic process. The misogyny that was unleashed by the media’s feeding frenzy on the video of an exhausted Clinton tearing up at a small New Hampshire roundtable of voters was just the tip of the iceberg.

To be clear, we are not endorsing any candidate. This is not about who we choose for president, but rather how we choose our leader. Voting based on sexist logic propagated by media monopolies is no way to select a candidate.

Sign our petition and tell the major media outlets: Stop pimping prejudice.

Here’s a cartoon from today’s Washington Post that my pal Dar found. It sums up the difficulty that female candidates face:

2181488482_ee9c4f8730.jpg

Taylor Marsh — as always — nails it. She quotes Halperin on Charlie Rose:

HALPERIN’S TAKE: How the world will explain Clinton’s win despite final polling showing her way behind Obama. … .. read more (update to original post)

Taylor continues:

[Halperin] took the media to task for it last night, as they so richly deserved. He and Arianna Huffington also got into a back and forth on it a bit later, with Halperin zeroing in on the lobbyist charge that Obama’s camp refused to answer during the debate, as well as later when ABC asked the campaign for a comment.

Then she quotes Mark Halperin again:

“How did you feel in the debate, Arianna, when Hillary Clinton said, One of your top people in New Hampshire is a registered lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry? He disdainfully denied it and it’s a true fact. Did you feel– (Arianna interrupts him here)

Taylor continues, “Here’s the video of the exchange. Arianna agreed it should have gotten more coverage, but… watch the video”:

Fast forward to this morning. Remember Chris Matthews last night? He said, after talking to Howard Wolfson, “I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton.” Take a look at this:


via
Greg Sargent

“Well, well, well, that didn’t take long now did it? Chris Matthews never lets us down,” Taylor continues.

Clinton got re-elected by convincing New Yorkers she could do the job for them. Has Matthews not been listening to her talk policy? To the details of what she wants to do for this country? Or is he just too lost?

Hillary Clinton is not a victim. She’s a U.S. Senator fighting for the nomination to the presidency. Somebody tell Chris, will you?

Paging Mark Halperin. Everyone else seems to be asleep. Are the media going to ever ask Barack Obama tough questions on things that need answered? Or is he going to get off the hook this time too? Fairness, that’s all we’re asking.

Read ALL of Taylor’s piece.

  • Retired

    I watched the Hillary “crying video” and felt like I was totally faked out by the hype. From the description, I was expecting a Noah’s Ark level flood which, in my limited experience with Sen. Clinton, would’ve really been completely uncharacteristic. I mean, let’s face it, if you’re looking for tough in a presidential candidate, Hillary should be on your A list. You can’t criticize her for being a soul-less, political bitch when it comes to sucking up Bill’s crap and then turn around when she shows a moment of emotion under stress and say that she’s not tough enough to be President. Even Nixon broke down and cried under stress, and I don’t see anyone claiming that Nixon wasn’t tough.

    Aside from that, as far as the Democratic primaries are concerned, voters should be looking at a candidate’s track record of performance, and not just how good their speeches sound. Any actor can deliver a good speech. What you’ve actually accomplished is another matter. In the case of legislators, this means voting record. What did they vote yes and no on? Or did they weasel out of voting at all? Check it out, and then decice.

    • Shirin

      “Aside from that, as far as the Democratic primaries are concerned, voters should be looking at a candidate’s track record of performance, and not just how good their speeches sound.”

      Uhhhh – yeah! Just what I have been trying to say in my own verbose way!

    • TeakWoodKite

      If you’re looking for tough in a presidential candidate, I your gal” is close to what she said. Parting the panic attack curtains, the players are all assembled. Not one of them had the grace to note history had been made. I mean when it comes to sports, we have stat’s at the fingertips.
      But no! Only in America, are our tears politically outlawed. Like the flagged drapped coffins of our family members and friends. We are NOT allowed to see them.

      A lie died yesterday.

    • Nellie

      Mr. Retired,

      As always you are right on the money. And, as a former English Prof, I’d like to highlight the fact that Napolean, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, among many, many others were charismatic speakers – as is the waiting to be convicted Mr. Taylor. Frankly there are many B/S artists, and JD’s from Harvaard are rigously trained in “speaking” and court room presentations.

      So you get an “A” in speaking but a “D” in honesty and that’s supposed to be okay???

  • J

    Susan,

    i can’t sign the poll, as i don’t have (nor need) a cell phone. as far as long distance comm is concerned, two tin cans with a l-o-n-g string attached in the middle works great for me, also if i need a message relayed, all i have to do is moo at one of my cows who in turn will moo and that moo gets transferred on down the moo-line. it’s great living in the boonies, my cattle exhibit more common sense than sadly what we have to read about human species antics, especially critters like matthews.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      I don’t have a cell phone either, but was able to sign the petition!

      Ohhhhhh … lucky you having cows! I grew up on a small farm, a “gentleman’s farm” my parents liked to call it, because my dad had a business and my mom taught school. We had steers, a few pigs, and we had cherry and pear trees and Concord grapes — I’ll never forget that fragrant scent in the early fall when the grapes ripened. Heavenly.

      I want a pig as a pet. Just love them. My brother and I always took the leftovers from dinner down to them . So cute.

      • Shirin

        I used to loooooooove concord grapes! I love the blend of sweet, tart, and bitter. They are so hard to find, though, if you don’t grow them yourself.

        • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

          Yes! A friend brought me grapes from her backyard recently, and they had that rich, deep flavor that I remember from my childhood — like you describe, Shirin, with that contrast of sweet, tart, and bitter. My god they were good.

          Supermarket grapes don’t begin to compare. Sad.

          (I don’t think anyone where I grew up has Concord grapes anymore. The local Welch plant shut down years and years ago. And now they all have wineries.)

          • Shirin

            There is a Mexican produce place hear my home where most of the patrons are Latinos, Arabs, or South Asians (mostly Latinos and South Asians, but I heard some people speaking Iraqi dialect there a few weeks ago, and nearly went crazy!), and they have concord grapes in the summertime, but the flavour is mediocre compared to the ones we used to have. I always buy them, but rarely finish them before they cease to be edible.

        • TeakWoodKite

          Upstate NY …they are the best.

    • Taters

      The cell phone stuff is optional, J.

  • Retired

    Speaking of Dowd, she once wrote a piece titled, “Are Men Necessary?” I would observe that to some women, men are not necessary. However, to just about any man, Dowd herself is completely unnecessary.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      She seems to have some serious hangups about men. I think men are FABULOUS — most of my dearest longtime friends are men. My only beef is making sure that women get fair opportunities, and that female political candidates aren’t straitjacketed by extreme requirements that male candidates aren’t required to uphold.

      Dowd: I also dislike her “cattiness,” particularly the pettiness of it. Even when she dissed Bush and Cheney, it was usually on a trivial, pseudo-psychological level.

      • Retired

        I have been lucky enough to work with, and a couple of times for, competent women. A lucky break, because even though I try to “maintain” as a gentleman, I generally don’t suffer fools, men or women, gladly, and I probably would’ve told female incompentents the same thing that I have told males of the same persuasion. In that regard, I guess I am an equal opportunity leader.

        I also fight just as hard for female subordinates that have done an outstanding job for me as I do for males. This has earned me some disdain and false accusations of inappropriate relationships (funny how no one ever accused me of being gay when I fought for a guy’s promotion) from male contemporaries, but screw’em. If I’m going to get the credit at my level for the outstanding performance of one of my female employees, the least I can do is get her promoted.

    • Shirin

      Men. Can live with ‘em, can’t live with ‘em.

      • Retired

        But surely an occasional evening out can be nice.

        • Shirin

          Oh, evenings out are very nice! It’s living with ‘em that is impossible!

  • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

    About Mark Halperin: I have liberal friends who write him off because they think he’s a conservative.

    Frankly, I don’t know his politics. And, at his blog, I haven’t seen a single instance in which he’s shown his hand as to what he personally believes. He covers all of the presidential candidates — both Republican and Democratic — and seems extremely fair. He gives them all a hard time, from time to time. If they have it comin’.

    He also updates his blog all day long, so it’s a great resource for political junkies. And he has a right-column list of all the candidates’ daily schedules. Very interesting to follow.

  • http://www.evergreenpolitics.com shoephone

    Well, whaddya know? Maybe Clinton’s win hurt Obama more than he let on during his concession speech last night. I just heard on NPR that Obama says “maybe now it’s time for some rough and tumble politics”.

    I guess the conciliatory-let’s work-for-consensus-can’t-we-all-just-get-along Obama was a mask.

    Fasten your seatbelts. Nevada and South Carolina may be turbulent rides.

    MSM, what say you?

  • izarradar

    Don’t you just love that cartoon? The kind of scrutiny Hillary is facing is exactly what any other working woman in this country faces. If you don’t show emotion you’re considered cold and a bitch. But at the smallest sign of a catch in the throat, or eyes that start to fill, well, you’re not strong enough to handle the job. Guess we’re just supposed to stay in the kitchen, where nobody cares what we feel.

    • http://www.evergreenpolitics.com shoephone

      Except if you’re working in a commercial kitchen, and then it’s the exact same scenario.

  • GR3

    Thanks, Susan. I signed the petition. (My steers did not!)
    BradBlog has an interesting take on the poll numbers versus Diebold machines. Just another issue Big Media refuses to talk about… Except for the following article.
    http://commonwonders.com/archives/col429.htm

  • wethornet

    breaking. richardson to exit the race tom. (thur.)


    MERRIMACK, N.H. – New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will announce Thursday that he is ending his campaign for the presidency, sources inside the Richardson campaign confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578720/

  • Bill Keyes

    Slightly off topic but on topic for me….

    Americans still pretend they brought Democracy to Iraq.

    Read it here…

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19033.htm

    • Shirin

      They think elections – even unfree, unfair, seriously manipulated ones in which entire segments of the population are left out (including, by the way, non-Kurds, especially Christians in Kurdistan) – constitute democracy.

  • kspena

    It was very striking to me in Hillary’s tears, (but not yet commented on by any media I’ve read or seen), that she was not crying for herself. She was not crying for her party, or for any persons or events in particular. She was crying for the nation. That was powerful…

    • Shirin

      She SAID she was crying for the nation, and maybe she was, or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she just took brilliant political advantage of a moment of genuine emotion over her disappointment, and if so, good for her for being able to think on her feet and turn a difficult and potentially embarrassing situation to her advantage. Isn’t that an ability that is valuable?

      In any case, you can bet your life that she WAS crying for herself and her disappointment whether or not she was also genuinely crying for the nation. And as someone who is anything but a Hillary supporter, I have to ask so what if she was crying for herself? What’s wrong with that? It is a natural, normal, completely human thing to do, and is it a bad thing to have a natural, normal human being in the White House?

    • s. hall

      Yes, Hillary cried for the nation. For all the wasted lives in a war of choice, for the 1 trillion which the war in Iraq has cost so far, for a nation which allows 45 million people to go without healthcare. Now Jesse Jackson Jr. wants her tears analyzed. Seriously he wants the media to analyze her tears because she didn’t cry for Katrina and how dare she cry because she was tired. After jackson’s angry rant he said without missing a beat. Its time bring our message of hope to South Carolina.

      • Shirin

        Well, first of all, she wasn’t really crying. She had a surge of emotion, her voice wavered, and tears welled in her eyes. That is not crying.

        And you don’t know WHAT she was crying for, nor do I, nor does anyone else. You were not inside her mind, nor was I. But to imagine that the emotion she was feeling was not at least for her own disappointment after so many years of going after this one goal is to imagine that she is superhuman. No human being is that selfless.

        But if you need to idealize her and not allow her to be a normal human being, that is your business.

        • TeakWoodKite

          No human being is that selfless.

          The Dali Lama is.

          • Shirin

            Yeah, well, they used to say that about Mother Teresa too.

  • Taters

    Susan,
    I signed the petition.

  • ybnormal

    I watched the HRC so-called “crying” video repeated a # of times. I didn’t see her cry; although her voice waivered a couple of times.

    I watched the Edwards comment repeated a # of times. I didn’t see him de-gender-ize her; although he did say one needs to maintain strength to make it through a tough campaign. A definite dig, but hardly the sexist jugular attack it’s made out to be.

    I watched Chris Matthews blabber as usual. The one true thing he did say was that, regarding NH, the media polls and the candidate’s polls [maybe based on the media polls?] got it wrong.

    So what’s the Big Wow?
    We’re being played for ratings as usual.

    • ybnormal

      Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it.

  • J

    Susan,

    the banker brownshirt ideals of the 30′s-40s of europe that gave the world hitler through the funding by the brit banking crowd appears to be again rearing its ugly head in the 21 century, and on american soil with this latest lets run nyc mayor bloomberg as an independent candidate garbage. when you strip off all their bows, bell, whistles, and look at the nitty-gritty of david boren’s so-called ‘national unity’ stuff, one finds ‘national socialism’ at its base. hmmm…somewhere i seem to remember that ‘national socialism’ was referred to as nazis in the last century. hmmm….the meeting this past weekend on the campus of ou to try and sell nothing more than banker’s fascism with a ribbon on top. it was repleat with the standard fascism cow manure of that our greatest problems we must defeat the enemy (terrorism), overcome budget deficits, and rein in entitlements. in other words squeeze the little people even more and take away what semblence of a decent life through financial slavery. those promoting bloomberg are the same ones who gave america extortion-rate interest rates on their credit cards and loans. the only difference between this particular bloomberg/national unity promotion crowd and the old pistol totting bank robbers like the daltons and james gang, is that the bloomberg/national unity crowd does it with a pen. national socialism is just that, national socialism.

  • Kathy

    I think of the Huffingtons, Dowds and all the Hillary Haters and wonder why they are not fighting for Hillary’s right to be treated equally when running for president Remember that poem about the jewish people, it says something about who will be left to stand up for me when they come for me….. As woman, we have got to fight for her right to participate in a fair election. I don’t care if you vote for her but she has to be treated with the same dignity and respect as everyone else.

    Also, Obama has to answer and be vetted like all the other candidates. What the hell is wrong with everyone? How is a black man suppose to run for president shouting “racism” when questioned by his opponents? He has to be treated like all the other candidates.

  • Sometime-CIA-Defender

    I found Bill Kristol’s response the most disgusting. Paraphrased:

    “Yeah, I thought she was faking it and women felt sorry for her.”

    Read the exact quote (and Erica Jong’s response) here:

    Tears & Fears

  • Kathy

    I just e-mail the following gentleman who works for Jeff Zucker, president of MSNBC requesting that he fire Chris Matthews. Maybe if we could get thousands and thousands of woman to do the same, someone can shut him up.

    Shields, Cory
    Executive Vice President – Communications
    Phone: (212) 664-6999
    Fax: (212) 664-5726
    E-mail: cory.shields@nbcuni.com
    Division: NBC Universal Corporate

    • Shirin

      Kathy, you are not that naive, surely! They’re not going to fire him because thousands and thousands of women request or even demand that he be fired. They will fire him when he stops making money for them by bringing in millions and millions of viewers.

      It simply makes no sense whatsoever for you to demand he be fired while you keep watching him. Honestly, it reminds me of a prude who reads pornography every day and rants and raves about how evil it is every night.

      IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIM, STOP WATCHING HIM.

      I have heard the man talk once – that time I have already written about here. That was enough for me to understand that he is to be avoided. I have never once watched his show, and I never will.

  • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

    As a woman, when I see another woman cry who just happens to be running for president…of course, I’m going to vote for her! Isn’t that the rationale all these pundits, such as Bill Kristol, are giving for Clinton’s NH win? Well, just wait until Super Tuesday!

    • Shirin

      Interestingly enough, it appears that a significant number of women in NH WERE affected in that way by the “moment”, but from what I have heard, it was not sympathy or pity that prompted them to vote for her – thank god!

      You know, whether it was a genuine moment or a contrived one, after all, election campaigns are all about strategy and manipulation, so…what’s the big whoop, as they say?

      As I have said before, I do not believe the emotion itself was contrived – I know acting, and that kind of thing is one of the most challenging things to pull off convincingly even for a very well trained experienced actor. From her face, and her voice, I could tell she was not forcing anything. As I think I said before, I have never seen her face look so soft – or so pretty (she is an attractive woman, but pretty is not a word that has ever come to my mind before), and her voice, which usually has a tight, somewhat forced, often almost shrill quality, also sounded softer-edged and more natural. I am convinced it was a genuine, moment.

      One possible scenario – and I think the most likely one – is that what she said was planned as part of her strategy, and the emotion wasn’t planned – it just welled up. I can easily see how that could happen – it happens to most of us at one time or another.

  • http://1950democrat.livejournal.com 1950democrat

    I’ve supported Hillary from the first, but been lazy. The media treatment of her that weekend (starting with the debate) made me so mad I donated for the first time. Iron this!

    So you don’t need to just look at undecideds breaking for H at the last minute — but also decideds getting mad enough to go vote.

    I’m actually a little disappointed in Hillary for showing weakness. But she bounced back and the treatment on this and other things — and the GOP/media attacks on her all these years — needed an Iron this! It’s wonderful to think that by making this protest-by-vote we’re fighting the chattering tweeties and we’re getting a good fighting feminist leader into an office where she can fight for us. Somehow all this happening at once may make feminism and sexism a fresh issue 2008-2016.

    Yay for Susan and taylormarsh and hillaryis44 and whoever else I haven’t heard of yet. I don’t want to spend energy rebuking MSM and sending their sexism underground, just firing tweety and using people who sound more credible. I want to use this energy to expand the network y’all are building here and get other women reading it and finding out there is an alternative to MSM.

    I do think there needs to be an alternative in the sense of a place where women can get quick ‘evening news’ sort of overview of what is going on in ‘general news’. Things in this … femisphere? … are a little too wonky for general taste at the moment.

    Hm, equivalent of Oprah show? Dunno, don’t watch it. Equivalent of late night comedy shows? — some people really do get their serious news there, figuring the comedians are going for non-partisan laughs.

    Sorry, I’m still ranting.

  • http://link Anke

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