As part of a series promoting excerpts of leading conservative books, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Sunday ran an excerpt Brent Bozell sent from the MRC book "Whitewash" by Bozell and Tim Graham. These paragraphs explained some of the publicity surrounding Hillary's 2003 memoir:
Time magazine excerpted the book, and senior editor Nancy Gibbs interviewed Senator Clinton with kid gloves. When Hillary said the Bush administration was conspiring to defund the federal government's "ability to do anything other than fund defense," Gibbs followed up: "Would you call Bush a radical?" Hillary replied, incredibly, that the Bushies "are certainly more radical than Ronald Reagan." Gibbs also asked about the VRWC--but her question presumed that the charge was true from the beginning! "Is the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' bigger than you thought when you brought the term into our vocabulary?"
On TV, NBC's Katie Couric came next, and NBC dragged out her taped interview with Senator Clinton over three days on Today. There was plenty of talk about her Illinois childhood, and nothing on the financial scandals. True to her record of interviews with Hillary, Couric brought up the male chauvinist pigs, this time about the health-care debacle: "But were you surprised at the backlash? The really vitriolic, violent backlash against you in many ways? Do you think it was good old-fashioned sexism?" That drew a surprising answer. Hillary regretted the health czar job: "In retrospect, it shouldn't have happened. It was a mistake."
But on the sex scandals, Couric could only ask naively why Senator Clinton felt the need to discuss them: "I'm wondering how you square that with the fact that you are a feminist. That means you're against things like sexual harassment. And given some of the things your husband allegedly engaged in as president, do you think that fell under the purview of the public's right to know?" Allegedly? Couric couldn't even acknowledge that any of the sexual allegations were proven true.
