With over two years to go until the 2016 presidential election, the media are already trying to ban unflattering topics about Hillary Clinton. From Tuesday morning through Thursday morning, NBC, ABC, and CBS aired 9 full stories – totaling 20 minutes 12 seconds – defending Clinton from health questions raised by Republican strategist Karl Rove.
NBC was first to go after Rove and devoted the most coverage to issue, with 4 stories adding up to 7 minutes 42 seconds of air time. On Tuesday, Today hosts declared that Rove had "stepped a little bit into it" with his "explosive new claims" and Nightly News anchor Brian Williams proclaimed it to be a "nasty" Republican "smear campaign."
Karl Rove
By Kyle Drennen | May 15, 2014 | 11:30 AM EDT
On 'The Kelly File,' MRC's Tim Graham Laments Hillary Gets Celebrity Treatment, Like 'Beyonce of Politics'
By NB Staff | May 15, 2014 | 8:01 AM EDT NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham appeared on The Kelly File on Wednesday night to discuss the media's intense defense of Hillary Clinton after Karl Rove raised some questions about her fall and concussion at the end of 2013.
Fox News producers lined up a series of network stars calling Rove "reprehensible" and running a "smear machine." Graham accused the media of attacking anyone who tries to raise questions they don't care to get answered about the Clintons. (Video, some transcript below)
By Matthew Balan | May 14, 2014 | 9:50 PM EDT
On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams continued his network's defense of Hillary Clinton by setting aside 63 seconds of air time to a soundbite of Bill Clinton "firing back at Karl Rove, after comments Rove made about Hillary Clinton's health." Williams trumpeted how "shades of the old political warrior Bill Clinton were on display today," as he introduced the extended clip of the former president.
By contrast, on ABC's World News, Jonathan Karl detailed how the former New York senator was "not seen in public for nearly a month as secretary of state" in late 2012, and how State Department officials "downplayed her [Mrs. Clinton's] condition:" [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
Paul Waldman Rant: If Hillary Runs, Can GOP Refrain From 'Fantasies About Torturing and Killing Her'?
By Tom Johnson | May 14, 2014 | 6:55 PM EDT
Republicans, the American Prospect's Paul Waldman suggested Tuesday, are a bit like Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel inasmuch as they "can't seem to keep themselves from...turning the accusations up to eleven" on matters involving Hillary Clinton.
Waldman discussed Karl Rove's recent "traumatic brain injury" comments about Hillary and then transitioned to the broader issues of GOPers' "infinite loathing" for HRC and its implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, during which Waldman predicts Hillary will be the target of Republican "outbursts...more shocking" than Rove's.
Chuck Todd: If GOP Questions Hillary's Health They 'May Have To Be Throwing...Ronald Reagan Under The Bus'
By Jeffrey Meyer | May 14, 2014 | 1:15 PM EDT Chuck Todd, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent, Political Director, and host of MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, was at it again spinning for Democrats, this time Hillary Clinton, following remarks made by GOP consultant Karl Rove where he suggested that Hillary Clinton’s health may play a factor if she decides to run for president in 2016.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday, May 14, Todd remarked that if the GOP questions Hillary’s health and or age “Then you may have to be throwing your own guy, Ronald Reagan under the bus a little bit.” [See video below.]
By Brent Baker | May 13, 2014 | 8:41 PM EDT
Moving to discredit, as illegitimate, Republican operative Karl Rove’s inquiry about Hillary Clinton’s health, on Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams denounced the “smear campaign” oozing from “some very nasty politics.”
Williams teased at the top of his newscast: “Smear campaign. Are we witnessing a new GOP line of attack against Hillary Clinton and did Karl Rove take things too far?”
By Quin Hillyer | May 13, 2014 | 5:02 PM EDT
First, let’s get this straight: By very definition, Hillary Clinton actually did suffer a "traumatic brain injury" in 2012. She fell; she hit her head; she suffered a concussion; and she developed a blood clot which hospitalized her. A concussion is precisely a “traumatic brain injury,” according to official medical definition.
Thus, when Karl Rove indelicately -- and perhaps not wisely for political purposes -- raised a point the other day about Hillary Clinton’s health, based on the "traumatic brain injury" she suffered in 2012, he was technically on solid ground. What wasn’t so solid was the over-reaction by media outlets to Rove’s rather unchivalrous suggestion. To see the difference between the “pile on Rove” mentality and actual, balanced coverage, consider how CNN rushed to paint Rove as evil, compared to how Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza put the issue in broader perspective.
By Kyle Drennen | May 13, 2014 | 12:30 PM EDT
On Tuesday, the cast of NBC's Today felt it necessary to spend a minute of air time defending Hillary Clinton from Karl Rove raising questions about her health, with co-host Savannah Guthrie proclaiming: "Karl Rove's explosive new claims about Hillary Clinton. The Republican strategist has suggested that she may have a brain injury." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Guthrie quoted Rove "reportedly" claiming at a recent conference that Clinton being hospitalized for "thirty days" in 2012 after suffering a fall may have been evidence she had a "traumatic brain injury." Following the quote, Guthrie noted: "Well, for the record, Clinton was in the hospital for three days, not thirty. And her team is hitting back hard this morning."
By Randy Hall | April 14, 2014 | 10:42 PM EDT
On Friday, Erik Wemple -- a blogger for the Washington Post -- announced that the “renowned investigative reporter” Michael Isikoff was leaving the “Peacock Network” that day because “it was increasingly clear" that the news division “was moving in directions in which there were going to be fewer opportunities for my work,” Isikoff told the New York Times.
After 33 years, NBC investigative reporter Lisa Myers left the network in January. In a statement later on Friday, Richard Esposito -- the senior executive producer of the shrinking NBC News investigative unit -- praised Isikoff by asserting:
Rove Rips Former Ohio Gov. Strickland, Whose Admin Invaded Joe the Plumber's Privacy, for Criticizing Christie
By Tom Blumer | February 17, 2014 | 10:27 AM EST Democrat and former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, who has been "shadowing" Chris Christie while taking every possible opportunity to accuse New Jersey's GOP Governor of either "lying" or of being "the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable," tried his schtick yesterday morning on Chris Wallace's Fox News show.
Unfortunately for Ted, establishment Republican and former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove was there to do what the press should have been doing, namely calling out his blatant hypocrisy. But the clever Strickland managed to get in the last word. Viewers not familiar with the details of how Strickland's Buckeye State government went after Joe the Plumber after his preelection encounter with Barack Obama in October 2008 will likely believe that the argument ended in a standoff. That situation needs to be remedied.
By Tim Graham | October 18, 2013 | 8:40 AM EDT
The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty is trying to help the Republicans on the front page of Friday’s paper. It's not labeled "Analysis," but "Politics Debrief." The alliance between the “agreeable” GOP and the media is getting more transparent.
“What will it take to save the Republicans from the self-destructive impulses of the tea party movement? That the government shutdown was a political disaster for the party that engineered it is widely acknowledged, except by the most ardent tea partyers.” Soaking a handkerchief full of crocodile tears, Tumulty insists “very bellicose” junior conservatives will have to be quashed:
By Noel Sheppard | July 27, 2013 | 11:02 AM EDT
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Friday that the McCain campaign in 2008 prevented her from talking about Barack Obama's controversial background or his lack of job experience for fear "the media would eat us alive."
Fox News's Greta Van Susteren responded by saying, "I think at some point [people are] going to look at us in the media and think we're just a bunch of fools. We don't have any credibility anyway" (video follows with transcript and commentary):