MY HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN

MY HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN
RATS DESERTING A SINKING SHIP

By: Phil Brennan



While it seems inevitable that the inevitability of Hillary Clinton's
winning the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination is no longer
operative, as I write this there remains a slight possibility that
she'll stage a comeback and yet emerge as the winner, but as one who
has lost her main bastion of support: the media.

To put it bluntly, like rats deserting a sinking ship, her formerly
worshipful media acolytes have gone scurrying down the rat lines in a
frantic race to embrace their newfound messiah, Barack Obama.

Many former worshippers at the altar of the once sainted Hillary have
turned on her like snarling pit bulls. A prime example is Bloomberg's
Margaret Carlson formerly of Time magazine where she served as chief
hagiographer for the cause of St. Hillary.

While at Time the Carlson woman gushed that Hillary's friends
described her as an "amalgam of Betty Crocker, Mother Teresa, and
Oliver Wendell Holmes."

In a Time magazine cover story Margaret Carlson pulled out all the
stops composing a hymn to the sainted wife of President Clinton, and
producing a classic journalistic emetic.

"As the icon of American womanhood she is a medium through which the
remaining anxieties over feminism are being played out," Carlson
rhapsodized. "She is on a cultural seesaw held to a schizophrenic
standard: everything she does that is soft is a calculated cover-up of
the careerist inside; everything that isn't a putdown of women who
stay home and bake cookies . . . Perhaps in addition to the other
items on her agenda Hillary Rodham Clinton will define for women that
magical spot where the important work of the world and love and
children and an inner life all come together. Like Ginger Rogers, she
will do everything her partner does, only backwards and in high heels
and with what was missing in [former Bush campaign manager Lee]
Atwater - a lot of heart."




That was Carlson then. Here's Carlson now. In an e-mail she wrote " I
often say rash things that on reflection I wish I hadn't said. On
Clinton, I covered the White House for 8 years and I don't think it
would be good for the country to go back there..."

That's not all. Writing in the Huffington Post Taylor Marsh noted
Carlson's "poison pen Bloomberg columns targeting the Clintons."

Clinton adorer, Chris Matthews went all aswoon over his new American
idol, Mr. Barack Obama. Sayeth Matthews "The feeling most people get
when they hear a Barack Obama speech, I mean, I get, I felt this
thrill go up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."

Perhaps the worst characterization of St. Hillary came from Newsweek's
Evan Thomas, grandson of the late Socialist presidential candidate
Norman Thomas. He described Hillary as "a Joan of Arc figure,
persecuted for her righteous crusade."

Listen to him now.

"Once scorned or reviled former presidents have a way of becoming
elder statesmen. Clinton, out of office, morphed into a globe-trotting
do-gooder, expansive and relaxed, even with reporters," he wrote in
Newsweek.

"Hillary Clinton came into her own as a U.S. Senator, not as
charismatic as her husband, but still solid and respected, even by
reporters. But as a presidential candidate, Hillary was back to the
old psychodrama, running as a once and future queen in a Restoration
drama. Her basic pitch - ready on day one -is the same one used by
George H.W. Bush when he ran for president in 1988. Hillary has been
unlucky to have a rock star as an opponent, the kind of dazzling
orator who is bound to make her seem plodding by comparison. Obama
appeals to the young millennial-generation reporters who fill the
seats on press planes, just as Bill Clinton struck a chord with baby
boomers 16 years ago. Her campaign has arguably alienated reporters by
stonewalling them at times, but the relationship between the press and
the Clintons is complicated - more in the nature of a bad marriage
than a cold war."

Media Research Center's Brent Bozell, author of "Whitewash" What the
Media won't tell you about Hillary Clinton, predicted the lady's
declining popularity in an interview.

I asked Brent if she was beginning to lose popularity.

"Yes she is," he told me. "She is always going to be the 50-50
candidate where half the country loves her and half the country hates
her. In recent days she's given those who don't like her reasons to
remember why it is they don't like her. Talk radio particularly, and
the Internet, have come alive with those stories.

"So that 50% is rising up again, and as that 50% rises, then people
who might otherwise be inclined in her favor begin to wonder 'can she
win this thing?' Among Democrats that is the single biggest question
Democrats have - can she win in a general campaign given her
overwhelming negatives?

"The dislike runs very, very deep because there are conservatives who
believe she is vicious in her personality, and I think there are some
liberals who believe that as well. Like him or loathe him, you get the
feeling that you could enjoy having a beer with Bill Clinton, you
don't get that feeling that you could enjoy anything with Hillary
Clinton - except maybe anesthesia."

All of which goes a long way toward explaining why the
overwhelmingly left wing Democrat media is jumping ship - they not
only fear she'll lose in November if she's their candidate, and they
have fallen under the hypnotic spell of Barack Obama.

Published in the February 27, 2008 issue of Ether Zone.
Copyright © 1997 - 2008 Ether Zone.
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