Mark Halperin: Press hostility to Clinton to be even greater than in 2008

[IceSpear]

For once, Halperin is correct. And he can include himself in this as well, considering his statements about how Jeb could beat Hillary in California and how she's no longer the frontrunner because of emailgate...

[IceSpear]

One has to define what "hostility" means in this context. Is it the fact that the media is calling her out on her scandals (which it doesn't even completely do) or something else?

It's not exactly a secret that the press was solidly on Obama's side in the 2008 Dem primary. It was so blatantly obvious that those noted Hillary hacks over at SNL even parodied it.

https://screen.yahoo.com/democratic-debate-000000559.html

If you need more examples, look at her book tour. The month long tour was described as a "disaster" because she made that dead broke gaffe in an interview. Was it a dumb thing to say? Yes. Would any other candidate have gotten relentless negative media coverage over it for weeks? No. It would've been a couple day long story at most.

And then of course there's emailgate. The press made complete asses out of themselves here, screaming bloody murder about how she might have to drop out of the race and that Democrats were scrambling for an alternative. Now that Hillary's polling numbers in the primary have barely budged and she's about to enter the race, they have egg on their face and look stupid as hell. But since there's no accountability for the punditry, they will continue to spin these ridiculous narratives based off no evidence due to their personal vendetta aginst Hillary.

[IceSpear]

The media was in the tank for Obama in 2008, but surely even you'll admit SNL was part of the Hacks for Hillary brigade even in 2007 (it sounded like you were being sarcastic when you alluded to that).

Why do you think so? I'm not exactly a regular SNL watcher so I wouldn't know, but it doesn't seem like it would be a program overly friendly to Hillary at first glance.

I'm sorry but Mark is in his own little world. They were hostile to her because they wanted Obama.  The press will be fully in the tank for her come next November.

Except that doesn't explain why they're hostile to her now. Last time I checked, Obama isn't running.

[IceSpear]

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We're in different worlds here. I can certainly agree with you that they are not as "smitten" with her as they were for Obama, as I'm sure you would agree during the primary season.  But the email scandal got virtually zero coverage, and if it were a Republican you'd all be screaming about it.

Wait, what? The e-mail stuff was front page news on the NYT, Politico, Washington Post, etc. for weeks. The talking heads and punditry devoted large segments of time and columns to it. Morning Joe practically made it the highlight of their entire show for weeks. The coverage has weened now because there's only so many stories you can pump out of the same material, but the media was obsessed with it for the first three weeks of March.

[IceSpear]

The Clintons are the definition of old news, the family's been in the national spotlight since Bill gave the keynote speech in 1988 and became a serious candidate for the 1992 election. After a quarter of a century in the political limelight, and with the prospect of another decade of them at the forefront of American politics, can you blame the press for wanting to talk about someone else?

I've been under the mistaken belief that the job of the press was to report the news, not entertain themselves.

[IceSpear]

Not in the GE.

Depends. I could easily see them taking Hillary's side over a Cruz, maybe even a Walker, but Jeb? The guy's a media darling. I'd be very shocked if they didn't back him over Hillary.

[IceSpear]

They'll give him the McCain treatment.

I guess the question would be whether the media still would've turned on McCain had Hillary won the primary instead.