Washington Post political reporter/pundit Chris Cillizza resolutely (and unpersuasively) denied last April that the media had a pro-Hillary bias. But he certainly exemplified it in his “Monday Fix” column in the newspaper. The topic was Hillary refusing to release transcripts of her six-figure speeches. He correctly noted that her “I’ll look into it” answer to Chuck Todd in Thursday night’s MSNBC debate is code for “not gonna happen.”
But he clearly didn’t read his own newspaper before claiming that Hillary was far too savvy, and political, and politically savvy, to leave anything damaging in those speech transcripts beyond harmless "standard small talk" to donors:
There will be a tendency — particularly among Republicans — to assume Clinton's unwillingness to release her speech transcripts is evidence that she was up to no good in these addresses, conveying some sort of secret information that she shouldn't have been conveying.
I struggle to imagine that someone as savvy and political — and politically savvy — as Clinton would do anything even close to what some Republicans are imagining. She's just too smart for that — and too cautious.
I generally take Clinton at her word when she describes what the nature of her speeches were: Recounting high profile events and her role in them.
Taking Clinton at her word? What hard-bitten “objective” reporter does that this late in her career of dishonesty? It’s not just “secret information” a Republican could suspect. It could be exaggeration of her role in taking out Osama, over-boasting about her influence on events. Perhaps she would gloat enough to give the MoveOn peaceniks in the Democratic base some ideological nausea.
But Cillizza doesn’t seem to think it’s possible the Republicans would find the same vulnerability that he thinks is in those transcripts: Kissing up to her Big Money speech-funders, and how much the Sanders camp would exploit them. And how does someone as “savvy and political, and politically savvy” as Hillary do that?
Why not release them then — since they would likely reaffirm Clinton's argument in the race that she has been there and done that at the highest level of national and international diplomacy? My guess is that in the speeches, Clinton likely acknowledges her various friends and acquaintances at Goldman Sachs (and other Wall Street firms) and praises them for the work they are doing.
Yes, it's standard small talk. But it could look really, really bad in the context of the current campaign. Imagine a transcript of Clinton speaking to some big bank or investment firm where she thanks a litany of people she's "been friends with forever" and then praises the broader enterprise for "all you do."
In the hands of Sanders and his campaign team/supporters, that sort of thing could wind up being very problematic to Clinton's attempts — already somewhat clumsy — to cast herself as a true progressive fighter for the 99 percent against the 1 percent. It might even prove deadly to those attempts.
So, no speech transcripts. Not today and my guess is not ever.
Earth to Chris: If the media weren't pro-Hillary, they wouldn't cynically roll over when they imply her answer means "not today and not ever." They would hound her to release the transcripts, like they hounded Mitt Romney for his tax returns.
Back in 2012, Cillizza announced "The truth of the matter is that Romney is in a damned if he does/damned if he doesn’t situation when it comes to his tax returns." So why isn't Hillary?
This is the sickening effect of pro-Clinton bias. The media hail them as wonderfully savvy as they stonewall damaging information....that would make them look less politically savvy. Journalists -- the people supposedly championing transparency -- reward opaqueness.
But back to just “standard small talk”? Why can’t Cillizza locate the imagination there was more than small talk? In Friday’s newspaper, “Fact Checker” Glenn Kessler found the evidence that Silly-Za didn’t bother to research.
ProPublica obtained a video of the 28-minute speech and said she “steered a middle ground” to the business executives gathered at the Nasdaq stock exchange on December 5, 2007. As ProPublica put it:
Clinton gave a shout-out to her “wonderful donors” in the audience, and asked the bankers to voluntarily suspend foreclosures and freeze interest rates on adjustable subprime mortgages. She praised Wall Street for its role in creating the nation’s wealth, then added that “too many American families are not sharing” in that prosperity.
She said the brewing economic troubles weren’t mainly the fault of banks, “not by a long shot,” but added they needed to shoulder responsibility for their role. While there was plenty of blame to go around for the spate of reckless lending, and while Wall Street may not have created the foreclosure crisis, it “certainly had a hand in making it worse” and “needs to help us solve it.”
Memo to Chris: Oops. Sanders would mock the "middle ground" here. To be fair, his “Monday Fix” column was also posted online on Friday, so he may have finished before Kessler. But somebody at the Post may have wanted to alert the editors over the weekend?
