Continuing with the trend this week, Chuck Todd and his guests looked to protect Hillary Clinton from Karl Rove's remarks regarding her age and health. Former Democratic political consultant Mike Feldman -- husband of NBC journalist Savannah Guthrie -- took protecting Clinton to the next level by simply asserting that, “Nobody has been lied about more by her political opponents in a political career than Hillary Clinton.”
That's quite the claim to make, but Todd didn't bother to press him on that statement for being, at best, a touch too melodramatic.
Perhaps this is simply a preview of what is to come should Hillary Clinton decide to make a run for the White House. The media simply can't countenance serious criticism of Mrs. Clinton and are seeking to sway the public to discount any serious criticism of Mrs. Clinton as unworthy of serious consideration.
Here's a transcript of the conversation:
CHUCK TODD: I wanna go through, what did we learn this week about the Clinton's and about Republicans when it comes to Hillary Clinton. Sarah, I'm gonna pose the first question to you. I feel like I learned this, that the Republicans are so afraid of a Hillary Clinton candidacy that they hope to talk her out of running. Am I wrong about that?
SARAH FAGEN: I don't think Republicans think they can talk her out of running. Hillary Clinton has been preparing for this her entire life.
TODD: You don't there's a constant barrage in treating her almost like an active candidate now?
FAGEN: She knows what goes into this. She knows better than anybody, less perhaps Jeb Bush. And if she wants to run, she's gonna run. She isn't going to be scared by Republicans talking about her age or talking about Benghazi. I don't buy that at all.
TODD: Mike, I guess what surprised me was not what Bill Clinton said. He treated it light hearted and he had fun. It was that sharply toned statement from the Hillary camp, the official response to Karl Rove, which was aggressive in saying you want to do this, let's go, let's fight.
FELDMAN: Yeah, well look, it was a tactic, it was a tactic so that we'd all be talking about this now. She's completely healthy and it was just, you know, a distraction but I think the way you deal with it and I think the way the Clinton team dealt with it is exactly as they should have. It was aggressive. Aggressively, be dismissive about it and then get on to talking about other things. Nobody has been lied about more by her political opponents in a political career than Hillary Clinton. It's not the first time somebody's thrown out something completely outrageous about her and she's had to deal with it publicly.
