Political Scandals

NY Times Finds Dem Who Thinks Hillary's Email Scandal is GOP's 'Swift Boat Issue of 2015'
By Tom Blumer | August 24, 2015 | 4:01 PM EDT

You can tell that the left is getting nervous about a scandal when they invoke the successful Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth campaign of 2004 against John Kerry.

As I noted on Saturday, Maria L. La Ganga at the Los Angeles Times did that as she described Planned Parenthood's attempts to fight back against the Center For Medical Progress's exposure of their baby body parts business. On Friday at the New York Times, in a story about how Hillary Clinton was "interrupting" her Martha's Vineyard vacation, Amy Chozick found a Clinton contributor who characterized her email and private server scandal as "somewhat of a tempest in a teapot," and also described it as "their (Republicans') Swift boat issue of 2015."

The Dean Pipedream: Hillary's Email and Server Scandal 'Manufactured' by a 'Bored' Press
By Tom Blumer | August 23, 2015 | 11:31 PM EDT

11-1/2 years ago, we had the "Dean Scream." After finishing a disappointing third in the Iowa caucuses, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean attempted to further fire up his strangely giddy supporters by telling them about upcoming state primaries they would fight to win. After finishing his list, Dean told them: "And then we're going to Washington, DC to take back the White House!" — and shouted out the scream heard 'round the world which ended his electoral viability.

Sunday on Meet the Press, we saw the "Dean Pipedream." Asked by host Chuck Todd how well Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has handled the scandal over her use of a private server for personal and government emails while serving as Secretary of State, Dean blamed her situation "partly ... (on) a press that's bored." 

LA Times Reporter: CMP's Anti-Planned Parenthood Vids Are Like 'Discredited' Swiftvets 'Smear'
By Tom Blumer | August 22, 2015 | 1:11 PM EDT

Well, this was inevitable. On the same day that the Center for Medical Progress exposed the CEO of former Planned Parenthood partner StemExpress laughing "about shipping whole baby heads," a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, in what I have beeen told is a front-page story, has compared CMP's video campaign exposing the commerce in baby body parts to the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth's campaign. The Swift Boat Vets' effort successfully exposed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's serial lies about his service in Vietnam and his smearing of Vietnam veterans as war criminals after he returned.

Times reporter Maria L. La Ganga joined the paper in 1981, and "has served as San Francisco bureau chief, edited in the Business section and pitched in on five presidential elections." Even if one of those five elections wasn't 2004, and even if she didn't dig into conflicting claims over whether Kerry truly earned the Vietnam War medals he received, it's virtually inconceivable that she doesn't know about his frequently stated "Christmas in Cambodia" lie.

AP Report on Hillary's Email 'Worries' Ignores Judge's Order, Reuters Bombshell
By Tom Blumer | August 21, 2015 | 4:16 PM EDT

The time stamp on an Associated Press report on Hillary Clinton's email "worries" ("CLINTON FACING FRESH WORRIES IN CONGRESS OVER EMAILS") by Ken Thomas and Julie Bykowicz this morning is 11:21 a.m. Eastern Time.

Despite that time stamp, the report fails to mention a bombshell report from Reuters ("Dozens of Clinton emails were classified from the start, U.S. rules suggest") originally posted at 5:17 a.m. (time stamp has since been updated). Going even further back, the AP story fails to mention a Thursday afternoon story about how "A federal judge has ordered the State Department to cooperate with the investigation into the Hillary Clinton private email scandal." The decision to ignore these developments is in all likelihood deliberate.

NYT Reporter: 'You Want Me to Indict and Damn Hillary Clinton? I'm Not Going to Do That'
By Mark Finkelstein | August 21, 2015 | 9:37 AM EDT

Finally! Something from a New York Times reporter you can absolutely, positively believe: that no matter the mounting evidence, he will not condemn Hillary Clinton for her email malfeasance.

On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough repeatedly tried to get Jeremy Peters to state whether he agreed with the federal judge who yesterday declared that Hillary had not "followed government policy" regarding her email.  After haplessly trying to do anything but answer the question, an exasperated Peters finally sputtered: "you want, you want me to indict and damn Hillary?  I'm not going to do that."

Who Got to Donny Deutsch? Suddenly Upbeat About Hillary
By Mark Finkelstein | August 21, 2015 | 7:52 AM EDT

Who got to Donny Deutsch? Seriously. Exactly one week ago, as we reported here, Deutsch was painting a very bleak picture for Hillary Clinton, saying that "Americans are just tired of Hillary," they have "fallen out of like with her," and that people he knows who would automatically be Hillary backers are saying "wow, there's got to be somebody else here."

But there was Deutsch on Morning Joe today, singing a much sunnier tune. Deutsch claimed that the email scandal won't really hurt Hillary and that her supporters are not deserting her: "I don't think it has a profound effect on her candidacy . . . at the end of the day, if you're a Hillary person, you're a Hillary person; people are staying in their lanes."  So tell us, readers, what happened to Donny over the course of the last seven days?

Networks Punt on Hillary’s E-Mail Scandal, New Order from Federal Judge
By Curtis Houck | August 20, 2015 | 11:49 PM EDT

In the on and off saga that is the liberal media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, the “big three” of ABC, CBS and NBC plus Spanish-language network Telemundo largely skipped on Thursday night the latest developments regarding the investigation into her e-mail aside from a vague reference on NBC and 26 seconds on Univision. 

Morning Joe on Hillary Aide's 'Disaster' of Email Interview: 'There Are No Good Answers'
By Mark Finkelstein | August 20, 2015 | 10:26 AM EDT

Hard for staffer interviews not to be a disaster when telling the truth could land Hillary in the hoosegow . . . Yesterday, this NewsBuster was gobsmacked by the spectacle of senior Hillary aide Jennifer Palmieri suggesting that the FBI would be happy to discover that Hillary's infamous email server had been scrubbed clean. We wrote about it here.

Today's Morning Joe picked through the smoldering ashes of that interview with the participation of John Heilemann, who conducted it.  Joe Scarborough said that "everybody" he talked to called the interview a "disaster." Heilemann suggested that top Hillary staffers are "in the dark."  The cruelest cut came from Mika Brzezinski, who said "there are no good answers."  So where does Hillary go from here?

Networks Censor Seventh CMP Video Describing Abortion Worker Cutting Baby with a ‘Beating Heart’
By Curtis Houck | August 20, 2015 | 2:56 AM EDT

In what’s become commonplace, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC partnered with Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision to censor from their evening newscasts on Wednesday arguably the most disturbing video yet in the Planned Parenthood baby parts scandal that included a description of an abortion worker harvesting an aborted baby while their heart was still beating. 

Defending Hillary, Politico's Gerstein Changes a Quote, Allows Defense Based on a 1974 Document
By Tom Blumer | August 19, 2015 | 11:18 PM EDT

You rubes. Don't you understand that the entire problem Hillary Clinton is facing over her use of a private server to process government communications is the fault of thousands upon thousands of people who don't know how to classify documents?

That's essentially the argument Hillary Clinton's spinmeisters are now employing. This evening, Josh Gerstein at the Politico was all too ready to relay such arguments, even to the point of cleaning up what one of her defenders said to advance the cause.

ABC Ignores Hillary’s E-Mail Server Scandal; Hypes Trump on Illegals, Rubio Hitting Boy with Football
By Curtis Houck | August 19, 2015 | 11:10 PM EDT

ABC’s World News Tonight chose to ignore on Wednesday the latest on the Hillary Clinton e-mail server scandal to instead continue obsessing over video of a little boy being hit in the head with a football after missing a pass from Republican Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio (Fl.) in Iowa. After the networks spent 18 seconds on Tuesday night and two minutes and 43 seconds Wednesday morning on the video, anchor David Muir spent another 18 seconds promoting “one unscripted moment from the campaign trail” with the football from Rubio.

James Carville Blasts Media ‘Stupidity’ of Covering Hillary's E-Mail Scandal
By Curtis Houck | August 19, 2015 | 8:34 PM EDT

Appearing on MSNBC early Wednesday afternoon, long-time Clinton adviser James Carville came out of the woodwork to condemn not only Republicans but the news media for their “stupidity” of harping on Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal and refuted the notion that there’s “a full-scale Democratic freak-out” underway.