Media Ignore The Hillary Papers

Filed under: Bill Clinton, Health Care, Hillary Clinton, United States — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on January 21, 2008 @ 7:00 pm CET

Ed Morrissey notes that the media do a stellar job of ignoring the Hillary Clinton Health Care Memos, or “Hillary Papers” as Ed calls them. His conclusion: “The silence from the Fourth Estate is deafening. It screams either cowardice or collaboration.”

Although I’ve posted about the HCHCM myself, I have to say that it’s possible that the media haven’t covered it yet because they’re either not greatly disturbed by it (and perhaps we’re making making out of the memos than they’re really worth) or, and this is more likely, they haven’t covered it yet because they’re doing more research on this matter themselves.

Either that or Ed’s right. I wouldn’t rule that out of course.

A short summary of what the released memos prove:

1. They weren’t sure about the effectiveness of the health care plans but wanted to push it through nonetheless.

2. They didn’t want to debate the plan, they simply wanted to discredit (read: smear) its opponents.

3. Senator Rockefeller, one of the people who worked on the plan, believed that they would receive the help of the media.

4. They didn’t want to mention abortion… at all.

5. The White House wanted to use the DNC to do its propaganda work for it. Aside from that they also wanted to use the DNC to do “intelligence gathering and opposition research” for them.

In short: politics of personal destruction indeed. It didn’t seem to matter to the people involved that the plan had a whole lot of holes in it. Instead, they decided to avoid the debate altogether and to make it personal.

Does that sound like something that’s unimportant? No, so that either means that the media are working on articles about this issue, that they’re too cowardly to write about it or that they’re not going to write about it because they’re allied with the Clintons on this issue at least.

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1 Tap

January 21, 2008 @ 7:47 pm CET

"Instead, they decided to avoid the debate altogether and to make it personal."

Is this not standard operating procedure?

As for the press ignoring it, this too is standard operating procedure. What could possible be more relevent to the biggest story of the day (the nomination of presidential candidates) than a story that sheds such light on a favorite for the Dem nomination?

I have to disagree with you about the media "working on it". How long would you estimate a story this revealing about a Republican to make the presses? Sure, there would be reporters working on more in depth analysis, but there would also be preliminary stories stating the basics in print the very next day.

Will the media cover the story? That depends. If the alternate media can create enough of a hulabaloo that it becomes impossible to ignore (as has happened in the past- think rathergate or swiftboaters) then yes. If not? Then no, not unless an Obama supporting reporter gets serious.

2 Bill W

January 22, 2008 @ 12:46 pm CET

And to think that they were talking about one of the most sweeping, all encompassing program proposed since social security. And to think that these people may still get to try something like this and worse again.