While it remains to be seen if Buzzfeed’s latest “bombshell” about Trump is a total dud (the more that is learned about the story the less explosive it appears), that hasn’t stopped many Dems from plugging it into their “Trump’s finished” narrative. As for Dem Sen. Brian Schatz, he again brought up an old line as a way of imagining what might have been:
Am I allowed to do one more but her emails?
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 18, 2019
A Washington Post congressional reporter wasn’t having any of that:
No. You shouldn’t. Because through arrogance or ignorance she set up an email system that prompted Obama’s DOJ to investigate. Stop blaming the media. https://t.co/uvMnNEtY2k
— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) January 18, 2019
And just guess what happened next!
The inability of the press to do any self-examination about the utter lack of proportionality of the email coverage As We Have Breaking News of Criminality During the Campaign leads to a lot of distrust. One candidate was obviously not vetted enough and it wasn’t Hillary. https://t.co/3T0pB5Utrl
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) January 18, 2019
The emails story received more coverage on television news than all policy issues combined.
Clinton is fully responsible for her choices but the producers and editors are also responsible for theirs. https://t.co/db73p1iag7
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) January 18, 2019
OMG you’re going to keep pretending this was something worth having dozens of reporters covering, even though it broke zero laws and Condi Rice, Powell and others did it? https://t.co/wllYvO090g
— Markos Moulitsas (@markos) January 18, 2019
We Were Right To Treat Hillary Emails Like Watergate+Iran Contra sure is a strange hill to die on….in 2019 https://t.co/scb92t4IMR
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 18, 2019
I think giving this 1,000x more coverage than Trump publicly asking a former adversary to hack that email system looks pretty horrific in retrospect. Russia, by the way, took the direction and tried to do exactly that later that very night. https://t.co/V93UFxjfDT
— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) January 18, 2019
hot take: there will NEVER be a reckoning for some media's failure in 2016 as many still buy the right-wing BS https://t.co/Rz516TBZHw
— ???? ???????? (@prof_gabriele) January 18, 2019
The media has rigged politics https://t.co/iBve132NVN
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) January 18, 2019
Paul – the issue wasn’t and isn’t whether it was a story at all. The issue was and is the saturation coverage of it, and the hyperventilating around it. It’s just not credible to say the legit media handled it with the proper perspective. https://t.co/ZBMCh6mX5U
— Jay Carney (@JayCarney) January 18, 2019
Wish you were this tough on McConnell, Paul. https://t.co/9LLK3i23rY
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) January 18, 2019
Apparently there are exceptions to the “slamming a member of the press is an assault on democracy and the First Amendment” rule.
As for Schatz and Kane, they ended up smoothing things over:
You are one of my favorites and I take your view seriously. But I think the running joke is about proportionality, not meant to imply that she was blameless.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 18, 2019
And you're one of my favorites, I get the joke. I just think that sometimes too many folks take "her emails" as an attack on media for coverage of her emails – particularly as an attack on my friends/rivals at NYT. Whose coverage, I think, was great. Mahalo.
— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) January 18, 2019
But obviously for many lefties, all is not forgiven when it comes to what happened in 2016. It beats admitting the Dem nominee ran a horrible campaign.
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