Ok, now that we’ve done the elephant in the room let’s get to the jackass, I mean donkey, I mean Democrat, I mean Hillary Clinton out of the way.
Hillary has been involved in politics for the last 52 years and with that in mind you may assume any scandals would be forgotten and she would be wise enough to at least not get caught. Well, you’d be wrong. To claim media bias for the Clintons is not fair as it is something more akin to media exhaustion. The Clintons have been running from national scandals since the Whitewater emerged in 1992. This scandal was the beginning of what would be a decade full of them, culminating with Bill Clinton’s impeachment and eventual acquittal in February of 1999. I know what you’re saying, Hillary is not Bill and I agree. However, Hillary was investigated just the same as Bill in many of the scandals and was accused by the alleged victims of Bill of threatening them if they spoke.
Now let’s get biased! Of the many of Bill Clinton’s accusers, the story of Juanita Broaddrick remains the most scrutinized yet least utilized. This is because after going years as Jane Doe No. 5 and not wanting to be involved in any of the Clinton proceedings, she finally gave an interview in January of 1999 as the impeachment process was just beginning. Lisa Myers of NBC gave the interview and to this day believes there has been no evidence that can disprove Broaddrick’s story. However, NBC executives did not believe the story was airtight and claimed the story needed more vetting. You may think this is good journalism, but what if I told you they looked at it for 35 days following the year long investigation by Lisa Myers; compare this with the two day turnaround between Kristin Anderson’s accusal of Trump to her CNN interview. Not only did it cost the network the scoop to the Wall Street Journal, but the interview aired on February 24th, opposite the Grammy Awards a full twelve days after the senate voted to acquit Bill Clinton. This effectively kept the interview out of the public eye during the impeachment process. When has there been another time where a news network with such a story vets it for so long it loses out on potentially huge ratings and the scoop entirely? Isn’t the goal to break news?
Since then there have been claims (even by Broaddrick herself) NBC was helping the Clintons; I say Clintons because NBC still hasn’t released the full interview in which it is reported Broaddrick accuses Hillary of threatening her. Today the media pours onto Trump after multiple women have claimed he sexually assaulted them. Women who, like Juanita Broaddrick have stories unsubstantiated by witnesses. So my question is, why has Hillary gotten a pass on her alleged actions? In one of her rare press conferences Hillary was asked in response to her tweet stating victims of sexual assault “should be believed”, why she dismisses the accusations of Bill’s alleged victims including Juanita Broaddrick. Her response; “well, I would say that everyone should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence.” Where is this evidence then? Don’t expect the media to ever investigate it.
Now let’s skip ahead to Benghazi. Have you thought about the deceitful press tour by UN ambassador Susan Rice blaming it on a video and Hillary corroborating with her? Good, let’s move on then.
More recently, people from Donald Trump to Dr. Drew questioned the health of Hillary Clinton. Hillary’s health has oft come up in speculation of her future politics since, during her tenure as Secretary of State she became ill with a stomach bug described which led to her fainting, resulting in a concussion, blood clots in her head, and delaying testimony in the Benghazi hearings. In perhaps my most favorite example of media bias towards Clinton, the Huffington Post called those questioning her health sexist, even when citing her numerous coughing fits as evidence. Well, as if scripted for comedy, two weeks after the article arrived from the Post Hillary famously collapsed at the 9/11 memorial. Turns out she had walking (dragging?) pneumonia. Not a big deal, but maybe there were some indicators leading up to the collapse. I guess when the only news that matters is attacks on Trump, why waste your time questioning Hillary’s problems; especially when it could lead to your termination.
I would be remiss to go any further without mentioning WikiLeaks. The world became familiar with WikiLeaks after PFC Chelsea (AKA Bradley) Manning released classified documents to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. What is WikiLeaks? A site with the intent to expose government secrets. Good or bad, I’ll let you decide, but now we have seen a barrage of emails taken from John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman and the former Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton. I’m not even going to talk about what was in the emails yet, but rather their coverage or lack thereof. The spin on this from traditionally non-conservative news sources is twofold; first find everything that humanizes Hillary and bring it to the forefront, secondly discredit everything else as potentially tampered with or just ignore it outright. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a foreign government interfering with our elections, but I also don’t want the news media to ignore news as well. In their defense, the Trump Access Hollywood scandal broke around the same time but ask yourself, which is really news; Trump being a pig or shady dealings throughout the Clinton Campaign? I’d at least say the latter deserves more than 67 seconds of airtime, wouldn’t you? So now let’s get to those devilish emails!
The leaked emails have brought to the forefront several pay-to-play schemes involving the State Department working with the Clinton Foundation and the FBI. While collusion between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary during her tenure as Secretary of State has been suspected by conservatives for a long time, the issue has not been pressed on her throughout her campaign. In fact, it was not until the third presidential debate in which the Clinton Foundation was brought up at all (thanks Chris Wallace). Sure, nothing has yet been completely proven, but as a voter I want to know about the even potentially shady deals of someone vying for the highest public office. One scandal now proven is Clinton campaign was allowed to edit articles for a Politico reporter; this after they attacked the New York Times into submission on an article they said was unfair. At this point I feel like I can just stop writing as every article written about Hillary ever should be held suspect, but I’m not finished yet. Let’s talk about the portrayal of Hillary in pop culture.
John Oliver (AKA funny Piers Morgan) has found the time to do a twenty minute segments on both Donald Trump and the third party candidates, but so far has done nothing about Hillary Clinton except to exonerate her of the numerous scandals surrounding her for the last two decades. Scandals including the Clinton Foundation and their suspected involvement with the State Department. I know what you’re saying, “Dylan, John Oliver is just a comedian, and it’s not his job to tell us the news.” You’re right, it’s definitely not. However, in today’s social media connected world, written articles aren’t as important as the catchy video, meme, or gif. Case in point, how many of you saw a meme claiming Ted Cruz said “there was no place for gays in his America”? This was entirely false but I know it came across my Facebook feed on numerous occasions.
Today the issue is too much information and the near impossibility of differentiating fact from fiction which is why now more than ever we need an unbiased media. I’m going to finish with a quick rundown of the difference in coverage between Hillary Clinton and Gary Johnson. Quick disclaimer, though I am a supporter of Gary Johnson I in no way fault the media’s coverage of his various snafus. The point is to illustrate the lack of coverage on Hillary’s mistakes.
Gary Johnson had his first national headline news with the infamous Aleppo flub. The media proceeded to attack him and his campaign, which they should do. The same however holds true for other candidates such as Hillary Clinton. In the final debate, Hillary claimed Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq and major stronghold of ISIS was on the Syrian border. Completely untrue as a simple look at a map will tell you. Why is there no concern the former Secretary of State who presided over a war there for three years, voted for it as a senator, and receives security briefings doesn’t know the location of such a key city?
After getting omitted from the first debate, Gary Johnson made a point he could act like an idiot in the debate and his poll numbers would go just because his name recognition would go up. This led to people claiming another gaffe. Goofy? Yes. Unpresidential? Far more embarrassing mistakes have made it to the oval office. Hillary is not without quirks either, have you seen how she reacts when talking about chai tea? I guess it’s only good to be goofy when you’re one of the least liked candidates in the history of the nation.
Gary Johnson missed the mark again when asked if he could name a foreign political leader he respected. The Libertarian nominee couldn’t remember the name of his favorite leader (former president of Mexico Vicente Fox) until his running mate Bill Weld helped him out. Well, here’s a name Hillary Clinton respects: Margaret Sanger. She claimed she admired Margaret Sanger the same way she does Thomas Jefferson; acknowledging his flaws (i.e. slavery) but respecting his works for the nation. This would be an adequate comparison if Thomas Jefferson’s work for the country included a plan to systematically eliminate anyone he saw as undesirable. I’m not trying to argue the merits of Planned Parenthood of which she is the founder, but simply point out while many conservatives are labelled racists for their small government policy stances, Hillary Clinton is unscathed in her open admiration of an admitted eugenicist.
If you have learned something in reading this, the media has failed. The Juanita Broaddrick scandal merits a pause. The attacks on the people questioning her health should make you leery. The State Department and Clinton Foundation scandals tied with the Wikileaks released emails should make you worried. All of this I hope encourages you to do your own research because a campaign slogan of “I’m Not Donald Trump” is very effective – after writing it I’m actually considering voting for her – there should be more you want to see out of your president.
Read about Donald Trump media bias here.
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