"I might. I have to ponder it. I will put it on my list," @HillaryClinton says when @edhenry asks if she will take questions from press.
— Amy Chozick (@amychozick) May 19, 2015
Today, in the Washington Post:
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Hillary Rodham Clinton broke a long drought to take a few questions from the traveling press here Tuesday, distancing herself from President Obama’s trade pact and defending the millions of dollars she and her husband have made from giving speeches.
At the end of an event focused on small-business issues at a bicycle shop, Clinton also said in response to a reporter’s question that she favors having the State Department release e-mails from her time as secretary of state as soon as possible: “I want those e-mails out.”…
“Bill and I have been blessed and we’re very grateful for the opportunities we had,” Clinton said. “But we’ve never forgotten where we came from and we’ve never forgotten the kind of country we want to see for our granddaughter, and that means that we’re going to fight to make sure that everybody has the same chances to live up to his or her own God-given potential.”
She also fielded a question on the Iraq war, a topic that has bedeviled Republican presidential candidates in recent days. Clinton, who voted to authorize the war in 2003 as a New York senator, reiterated that she now believes the decision was wrong.
“Look, I know that there have been a lot of questions about Iraq posted to candidates over the last week. I’ve made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple,” Clinton said. “And I have written about it in my book, I’ve talked about it in the past, and what we now see is a very different and very dangerous situation. The United States is doing what it can, but ultimately this has to be a struggle that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people are determined to win for themselves.”…
FOR THE RECORD — since she hasn’t given the same rote answers several dozen times already. The Media Village Idiots don’t want information, they want the candidates to properly reiterate this week’s ritual phrases — points off for stumbling over the exact arrangement of the subclauses, and bonuses all round if the speaker commits a “gaffe”. Jay Rosen, at PressThink:
So Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post — whose mission in life is to explain to us how things really work in politics — is rolling along in his “Hillary Clinton is shamefully avoiding the press” column when he cries out to us:
Do you not think it is of value to know how Hillary Clinton spent her time since leaving the State Department? And how the Clinton Foundation handled its business with various donors who would, undoubtedly, still be in the picture if she was elected president?… The role of the media in this process is to show voters who these people are, really, and to explain how these people would govern the country if elected. Like the media or not, that’s a very important role — and one that is essential to a functioning democracy.
The role of the media in this process? What on earth are you talking about, Chris?
You’re supposed to be our super-savvy guide to the way things are in the power game that is national politics. You are the least sentimental creature to walk that system’s halls… remember? No one can out-realism you! You’re Mister “let me tell you how it really works.” That’s your whole franchise. And yet here you are, bawling about “the role of the media” as if it had some sort of guaranteed status within what reporters (mindlessly) call the process...
Political reporters: You have no guaranteed “role.” That’s a fiction you and your colleagues created to keep the game the same every four years so you don’t have to go to school on how to be useful and powerful in the election system as it evolves. The fiction works if you can get the right people to believe it, but when they clearly don’t care about your “role in the process” how are you going to make ’em care? Got a plan for that?…
I have a better idea, journalists. Figure out what the voters want the candidates to talk about. (And when they’re ready to listen.) Persuade the voters that in your coverage you’re on their side— so many of them that the campaigns have to take notice. Then leverage your superior connection to the people the candidates want to reach. (That’s what Univision and Jorge Ramos plan to do, I’d bet.) It’s a power game, not a frozen process in which you are granted some role by the mighty hand of James Carville or Ed Rollins…
As Hillary Clinton got in this red van, @edhenrytv shouted: "why won't you answer any questions?" pic.twitter.com/FhJ62MyOzi
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 18, 2015
"What about your lack of gaffes??" https://t.co/sjnffPzwZi
— William Jordan (@williamjordann) May 18, 2015
Open Thread: It’s An Election, Not A CeremonyPost + Comments (132)