A Fat Lady Singing
Hillary Clinton's campaign is over, but that has not penetrated the bizarre world her campaign staff inhabits. This is easily the most unflattering picture of a downright delusional campaign that I have ever read. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank describes a recent meeting between the Clinton campaign and the press corps.
They are in the last throes, if you will.
As Vice President Cheney knows, such predictions can be perilous. Still, there was no mistaking a certain flailing, a lashing-out, as two Clinton advisers sat down for a bacon-and-eggs session yesterday at the St. Regis Hotel.
The Christian Science Monitor had assembled the éminences grises of the Washington press corps — among them David Broder of The Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and columnist Mark Shields — for what turned out to be a fascinating tour of an alternate universe.
First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects that severed all ties with reality. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down," he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction.
But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip.
"I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign." He went on to chide the journalists for their "woefully inadequate" coverage of Obama, "a point that has been certainly backed up by the 'Saturday Night Live' skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to."
The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton's campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning over Obama.
"That's your assignment editor?" responded Post columnist Ruth Marcus.
"That's my assignment editor," Singer affirmed.
I noted that particular bit of insanity when it first hit. The Saturday Night Live strategy was nutty when they first used it, it's even crazier that they are pushing it to the press in an antagonistic manner. The Clinton campaign has lost the press corps with this stunt, I suspect.
I can hear that lovely aria, Clinton's staff is apparently as tone deaf as the candidate.
Here's Hillary's uber-secret winning strategy, BTW.
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Plumb Bob Blog » Goodnight, and Good Luck, Madame Clinton — Tuesday, 26 February , 2008 @ 7:12 am
By Plumb Bob, Tuesday, 26 February , 2008 @ 7:08 am
I think perhaps I’ll slap together a montage of TV anchors fawning over Madame Hillary and email it to Mr. Singer. Hillary Clinton has arguably been the beneficiary of more adoration from the press than any human being on the planet, and to hear them complaining now about negative coverage from the press evokes snorts of derision, followed by a sense that justice has been served.(Unrelated to this topic, please visit my political blog, "Plumb Bob Blog: Squaring the Culture," at http://www.plumbbobblog.com. Thanks.)