It would appear that the incurably leftist UK Guardian can be tougher on a Democratic Party presidential candidate than the U.S. establishment press.
The Guardian, the perch from which Edward Snowden exposed the activities of America's National Security Agency in June 2013, had reporter Adam Gabbatt at Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's Iowa City campaign appearance. The couple of U.S. press reports which noted that Mrs. Clinton spoke for less than five minutes seemed not to think that such a short speech was unusual. Additionally, only Gabbatt did the obviously necessary follow-up to see how the audience felt about getting so little attention from Her Majesty (bolds are mine). They weren't thrilled:
Hillary Clinton angers Iowa fans who waited hours for five-minute speech
Not even a special performance by singer Demi Lovato improved the mood of some supporters who were unimpressed by Democratic candidate’s brevity
Hillary Clinton left her audience cold in Iowa City on Thursday night, after she spoke for less than five minutes to a crowd of more than a thousand people, some of whom had lined up for more than an hour to see her.
... The rest of her speech (after thanking singer Demi Lovato) was so short that it is possible to summarize almost all of it in the next six paragraphs.
Clinton thanked the audience for attending. “I’d be so thrilled and honoured if you can caucus for me,” she said. She then promised to “work as hard as I know how to take it to the Republicans” and win the election.
Clinton said was proud of the progress made under Barack Obama and promised to deal “with the big issues” if elected. “Like: how do we get the economy working for everybody, not just those at the top,” she said.
“How we keep our country safe and lead the world with peace prosperity and security. And how do we deal with a lot of those prelims that people across Iowa talk to me about. How are we going to afford college, how do we get the cost of student debt down.”
She spoke about making prescription drugs more affordable and defending “human rights and women’s rights”. And about how she would “take on those big special interests” if elected.
“Join us in helping to change our country, keep it on a progressive path, make sure we don’t go backward, we go forward with confidence,” Clinton said.
And that was it. ...
... “I was like: ‘Is this done already?’” said Maggie Dressel, 21. “It did seem pretty short.”
Nicole Hall, also 21, and a senior at the university, echoed Dressel’s comments. “It was shorter than I expected,” Hall said. “I’m not sure she said enough to convince me to vote for her.”
Now let's see how this nation's press apparatchiks covered the situation:
- Eric Brandner and Dan Merica at CNN brought it up, and that's all — "For Clinton, who spoke for less than five minutes, the jabs from the day's earlier campaign events at Sanders were gone. The event was all about winning over that chunk of potential supporters in Iowa's February 1 caucuses." The short speech length only makes sense if one believes that the longer Mrs. Clinton talks, the more her support erodes.
- Hannah Fraser-Chanpong at CBS News also didn't think anything was unusual — "Clinton spoke for less than five minutes at the event before stepping up to the ropeline with Lovato, who took selfies and signed autographs for her fans -- regardless of their politics."
- Liz Kreutz at ABC News did not comment on Mrs. Clinton's speech at all, but we did learn that Ms. Lovato sang a whopping four songs.
- Monica Alba at NBC News also didn't comment on Mrs. Clinton's speech, but noted that "Lovato is just one of an army of surrogates blanketing Iowa this weekend."
- Tierney McAfee at People Magazine, apparently with some help from the Associated Press, did not mention the length of Mrs. Clinton's speech.
- Jessie Kotz at Billboard also didn't mention the speech's length, but she did let us know that the crowd which got the back of Mrs. Clinton's hand numbered 2,000 (another of the reports listed here had an estimate of 1,700).
The U.S. establishment press would be all over a Republican or conservative candidate who gave his or her audience such short shrift in such conditions. Instead, Mrs. Clinton gets to skate.
It would appear that politicians can treat their subjects like insignificant peasants without consequences as long as their views are in sync with the press — in other words, only if they are leftists or decidedly leftist Democrats.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
