Soft on Hillary and other Demo stories

Dick Morris details exactly what Hillary did wrong when she underreported almost $1 mil in expenses associated with fundraising. He also wonders, rhetorically, if this is yet another scandal that Hillary will walk through untouched:

Will the Teflon Senator skate by yet another scandal? Count them up: The cattle-trading windfall, the Travel Office firings, the retainer from the Madison Bank, the disappearance of the Rose Law Firm billing records, falsely telling the grand jury that she did not work on the Castle Grande real-estate deal, the FBI file scandal, the pardons her brothers were paid to secure — and now the Hollywood fundraiser. When the fine was announced (as arranged between regulators and her campaign), Hillary and Bill were conveniently out of the country, together in the Dominican Republic. Call it damage control, Clinton style: Arrange not to be around when awkward questions would be asked. [Emphasis mine.]

It's the last sentence that gives the game away, and reveals what I believe to be a weird naivete on Morris' part. There aren't going to be any questions. The MSM does not intend to do anything but barebones reporting on this subject, which it can conveniently bury below the fold or in the back. What I discovered this weekend is that this "monkey see no evil" reporting style is nothing new when it comes to the MSM and a beloved Democratic administration -- and I'm not talking about the Clinton years. I've been reading a surprisingly good book called Dish, by Jeannette Walls (see my sidebar for details). The book is about the business of gossip -- that is, how the American media has handled gossip since the Walter Winchell era. It's an entertaining book, reminding us about the changes in paper and TV reporting (including interesting histories about the meteoric rise of People Magazine and the National Enquirer); and tell us about the "stars" of the gossip era, from Hedda Hopper, to Rona Barrett, to Liz Smith. What the book emphasizes is that gossip -- which really boils down to information about famous people's private lives, especially scandalous information -- has gone in and out of style. One of the longest droughts of MSM gossip coverage started shortly before Kennedy became President, and it occurred because there was no way the MSM could report gossip as news and simultaneously protect their dreamboy candidate. Kennedy's pecadillos were so well known that his candidacy would have imploded if the media breathed even a word about his hound dog habits. Dish also makes plain that the Kennedy's used their power to control and manipulate the media, including the infamous cover-up associated with Marilyn Monroe's death. This is the second book I've read that exposes John and Bobby Kennedy as really loathesome individuals, with a pathological sense of entitlement. It's scarcely surprising, then, that Teddy should have precisely the same sense of entitlement, merely made worse by watching for 40 years as the media gave everyone in his family a free pass for the most egregious, immoral and criminal behaviors. (And I'll note here that the one scandal Teddy couldn't avoid, the Smith rape trial, was brought out under the aegis of the new tabloid media that the MSM so disdained.) It is, therefore, entirely unsurprising that Hillary has, and will continue to have, a pass from the media. The media learned back in 1960 that it pays to keep quiet about their favorite candidate's "little" problems. I do wonder, though, whether this policy will continue to be viable in an age when every person with a computer is his own publishing company. Talking to Technorati: Hillary Clinton, Gossip, Media, Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Scandals