If the mainstream media were applying the sort of scrutiny to Hillary Clinton it has applied to Republican presidential candidates, we would by now have seen articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post about Whitewater, Travelgate, and the 1993 health care reform debacle. We would also have been treated to disparaging stories about Clinton dating back to her days as a Goldwater Girl.
But the MSM’s fondness for double standards has its limits. One of them is an institutional intolerance for government secrecy.
Thus, the New York Times was quite harsh in its article reporting that Hillary Clinton never used an official government email address during her time as secretary of state and likely violated government regulations regarding retention of her business related emails. Times reporter Michael Schmidt did not confine himself to stating these facts. Rather, he went on to opine that these facts “echo[] longstanding criticisms directed at both the former secretary and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for a lack of transparency and inclination toward secrecy.” He also noted that, unlike Hillary, “Jeb Bush, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, released a trove of emails in December from his eight years as governor of Florida.”
Now Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post has piled on. He presents five ways in which the Clinton email story “reminds and reinforces for people many of the traits that they do not like in the Clintons while also suggesting a level of hubris that is very dangerous for someone who is the biggest non-incumbent frontrunner for a presidential nomination in modern political history.”
The five reminders are:
1. The Clinton’s don’t think the rules apply to them.
2. They are surrounded by enablers, in this instance aides who apparently never warned Clinton to at least occasionally go through the motions of using a government email account.
3. They’re always hiding something.
4. They only think about politics.
5. They never own up to anything.
That about sums it up.
Is there more to the MSM’s treatment of this story than good old-fashioned reporting coupled with unhappiness about secrecy? Possibly. Perhaps certain reporters consider Clinton insufficiency left-wing. Or maybe they simply would like to cover a decent horse race on the Democratic side.
If so, Clinton will not get a free pass from the MSM, at least not unless and until she has the nomination locked up. By then, it will be difficult to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
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