NYT Book Review: The Walls That Hillary Clinton Created
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/books/review/amy-chozick-chasing-hillary.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbooks&action=click&contentCollection=books®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfrontIn her funny and insightful memoir, Chasing Hillary, the journalist Amy Chozick grapples with this question while also providing a much-needed exploration of Hillary Clintons antagonistic relationship with the press. Unlike Shattered, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, which provided an inside look at Clintons dysfunctional campaign, or What Happened, which was a personal reckoning from the candidate herself, Chasing Hillary doesnt attempt to assess why Clinton lost the election. Instead, its a first-person account of Chozicks failed 10-year quest to see the real Hillary, a quixotic mission that is as revealing in defeat as it would have been in victory.
The Impressionist Claude Monet never painted haystacks; he painted the rain, sleet and sunshine between his eyes and the haystacks. In Chasing Hillary, Chozick has written neither a raw personal memoir nor a biography of Clinton, but rather an account of all the elements that came between Clinton and the journalists condemned to cover her. Her impressions of Clinton are less about the woman herself and more about the brutally effective apparatus that shielded her from public view.
People who know Clinton often complain that the press, and therefore the public, never gets to see how warm and funny she is in person. Chasing Hillary is the best explanation so far of why that is. Chozick describes Clintons press shop (which she calls The Guys) as an anonymous gang of manipulative, unresponsive and vaguely menacing apparatchiks who alternate between denying her interview requests (47 in total, by her count), bullying her in retaliation for perceived negative coverage (Youve got a target on your back, one of them tells her) and exploiting her insecurities about keeping up with her (often male) colleagues. The campaign quarantined the press on a separate bus and, later, a separate plane, often without even an accompanying flack to answer basic questions. It denied Chozicks interview requests even for positive stories, like a piece about Clintons experience in the early 1970s going undercover to expose school segregation in the South, and refused to confirm the most minor details, like whether Clinton ate a chicken wing or not.
It seems clear from Chozicks account that Clinton thought of her traveling press corps as more buzzard than human (although she did write Chozick a note when her grandmother died). Bill Clinton also had troubles with the press, but at least he would say hello at events or tell a long-winded story. Even Trump, who spent the campaign railing against the fake news media, seemed to intuit that a cordial relationship with reporters was essential to managing his public image. Trump once called Chozick out of the blue to provide a comment for an article, and they ended up chatting about The Apprentice. So grateful to be actually speaking to a candidate (in nearly 10 years, Clinton had never called her), Chozick made the mistake of telling him that Clinton hadnt had a news conference in months. Shortly afterward, the Trump campaign began blasting that Clinton was hiding from the press...
riversedge
(70,383 posts)ehrnst
(32,640 posts)BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)emulatorloo
(44,257 posts)THEATER CRITICISM COVERAGE OF POLITICS TURNS PEOPLES MINDS INTO MUSH
784 Comments
BY SCOTT LEMIEUX / ON APRIL 21, 2018 / AT 6:07 PM / IN GENERAL
This excerpt from Amy Chozicks book is a whiplash-inducing combination of courageous self-reflection and pure undistilled Clinton Rules. I have some other points to make about it, but I cant let this remarkable assertion slide:
I figured that if anyone knew whom Mrs. Clinton was referring to with that insidious they that, like some invisible army of adversaries (real and imagined), wielded its collective power and caused her to lose the most winnable presidential election in modern history, it was me.
<snip>
To state the obvious, the idea that 2016 was the most winnable election in modern history is absolutely insane. No matter how bad a candidate you think Trump was, 2008 was very, very obviously a more winnable election, and the argument that it was more winnable than 2012 isnt a lot more plausible. (Even if we assume arguendo that Romney was a substantially better candidate than Trump plausible, but given the anachronistic means by which the United States chooses a president not actually a slam-dunk its very far from clear that this difference outweighs the value of being a peacetime incumbent.) And, of course modern history at a minimum includes 1984, and very possibly 1972 and 1964 as well. So, in other words, to say that 2016 was the most winnable election in modern history means that Clinton with better choices not only could have done better than Obama in 2008, she apparently could have won all 50 states in the Electoral College and taken the popular vote by more than 20%. This is astoundingly stupid. Even structurally, 2016 was not an especially favorable context for the Democratic nominee no matter how bad you think Trump is, and thats before we get into stuff like the director of the FBI making repeated prejudicial statements about the Democratic nominee while saying nothing about the investigation into the Republican nominee and the media mostly treating the Democratic nominee as the presumptive president and the Republican candidate as a joke.
In the variety of people who share the meme, we can see the various reasons why people repeating something that is obviously, ludicrously false makes sense to them:
- The same thing is true of beat reporters like Chozick; one implication of the Halperinesque idea that elections are determined solely or almost solely by candidate quality is that horse race/theater critic coverage is immensely important. And since reporters are more likely to get political analysis from the operatives or other reporters they talk to than from political science or history, it creates a feedback loop in which the importance of candidate quality/tactics is greatly exaggerated and the importance of structural factors greatly understated.
- And Linker reminds us that theater critic analysis is useful for pundits with an axe to grind, and in the particular case of Clinton the derangement tends to be particularly pronounced. So while transparently silly the most winnable meme is useful to Linker because it allows him to claim that Clinton and her supporters have no legitimate grievances and nobody else needs to be held accountable, when of course Clinton does have perfectly legitimate grievances and there are a lot of people who made bad judgements and need to be held accountable. As Sargent says, Comey is openly admitting that he put his thumb on the scale because he assumed that Clinton would win. This is bad behavior! (And, incidentally, its another reason why high levels of confidence in the outcome of counterfactuals are misplaced. Rubio or Cruz might have been better candidates in some abstract sense, but Clinton wouldnt have been treated as the president-elect by the media or the FBI in those scenarios, and we have no idea how that would have played out. The question of whether Trump is a bad candidate is actually very complicated given the Electoral College and the media environment.)
And the thing is, in this case making absurdly exaggerated claims isnt even necessary if attacking Clinton is your thing. Unlike a lot of elections, 2016 was so close that you can make perfectly reasonable arguments that another candidate would have won or that Clinton would have won with different choices. Youre full of shit if you claim that you know how alternative scenarios would have played out, but Clintons mistakes might have been decisive and hence are worth assessing. But the idea that Clinton had an unusually easy job in 2016 is crazy, and its embarrassing that people who should know better are saying it.
<more at link>
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)She said Hillary was "out of touch" with the "anger of her constituents." Fuck that shit. Hillary was out there talking about universal health coverage, affordable college, equal pay for equal work, preserving the environment, wealth inequality, and the list goes on and on. I know. I actually went to one of her speeches. I watched as she stayed after her speech to shake hands with EVERYONE (including me) who had lined up after her speech to shake hands with her. But all journalists like Amy Chozick wanted to talk about was the damn emails--something Chozick herself admits played right into Putin's strategy. I am so pissed to hear lies repeated about Hillary, while the Orange Shitgibbon, who has never had a relationship with reality, let alone been "in touch" with the concerns of the middle class, sits in the White House. The only thing he had a connection to was the white-hot angry bigotry of American racists. Pardon the fuck out of Hillary for not tapping into that racist anger.
FUCK THAT SHIT.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)She writes: I think its fair to say that I didnt realize how quickly the ground was shifting under all our feet. I was running a traditional presidential campaign with carefully thought-out policies and painstakingly built coalitions, while Trump was running a reality TV show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans anger and resentment.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/06/hillary-clinton-election-trump-bernie-sanders-memoir
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)The statement you are referring to in no way admits she was out of touch regarding the concerns of the middle class. The anger and resentment Trump was stoking that she was referting to was anger and resentment at immigrants, people of color and women. You think she should have hopped on board that train?!
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)Forget Trump. Why did Sanders have an audience?
Then again, dont bother.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)Trump's support was about bigotry. So now you want me to "Forget Trump"?!
You bringing up Saunders' primary campaign (you ask, "Why did Sanders have an audience?" ) says a lot about why you posted this Hillary-bashing OP.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)Voted for HRC because I thought Sanders would be a disaster in the GE. Still do.
Now that thats out of the way, can we agree that not all of the anger and resentment that Hillary alluded to had to do with bigotry?
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)Bigotry covers a lot of types of hate. The assholes who voted for Trump were bigots, whether they hated immigrants, people of color women, LGBT or all of the above. They may have also had economic woes, but that is not why they voted for Trump. People with the most economic woes voted overwhelmingly for Hillary. Trump voters voted for Trump because they were bigots.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)She lost. And here we are.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)It obviously mattered enough to you to move you to post some bullshit trash about Hillary.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)It does matter why and how she lost by 74 EV's and in states that had been in our column for decades.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)And bashing Hillary with lies is not going to help us win.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)Not for those who think all critical observations are bashing of course.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)There was nothing "objective" about that "analysis." Hillary did not lose because she "created walls." Nor did she lose because she was "out of touch." That is a bullshit right wing talking point. It has no place on a reality-based Democratic site like this.
emulatorloo
(44,257 posts)People most concerned about immigration and terrorism voted for Trump.
Thats from exit polling.
We deal in facts here, not bad hot takes from absurd pundits.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)He won because Comey and the FBI destroyed our candidate.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)It changed/suppressed just enough votes to get Trump over the top during the final days of the campaign, when she did not have enough time to combat it.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)election upside down.
He cost her a ton of votes, including people that had just switched to Trump, in response to the Russian lies, and who in many cases would have switched back.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)Of course, 1-2% is itself "a ton" of votes. And it was just enough to turn the election upside down.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)There were also people who had just recently stopped saying they would vote for her, mainly because of the lies Putin was spreading, like making it appear that she was given the debate questions. Some of that would have worn off.
Also, she had to go very negative at the end, with her commercials and public comments, or at least felt she needed to. The original plan was to close on a very positive note, while Trump finished by spewing more hatred. And, of course, Trump would not have managed to stay calm for the last 11 days, instead of acting insane had the Comey intervention not given him the drive to stay focused. All of this would not have happened without Comey.
Hillary was up by as much as 10 points a week or two before the Comey intervention. Trump's gains were likely temporary. Hillary had repeatedly regained voters who had gone back and forth between her and Trump and there is every reason to believe that she would have again.
Without Comey she would won by at least 6 points and 333 EVs, more likely 8 points and 350+ EVs, and possibly 10 points and 375 EVs.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)It initially cost her about 4 percentage points in the polls, but she managed to regain about 2 points in the polls before election day, resulting in an overall drop of 2 points from where she was before the Comey letter.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)A couple weeks before the election the betting markets were already paying out for Clinton. They don't do that just because a particular candidate has been in the lead for awhile.
I agree that she recovered a little in the final days of the race.
Also, don't forget the damage Comey did with his July press conference. Or his initial decision to involve the FBI in the fake email scandal. Comey dominated the race from start to finish.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)a 4 point flipping (2 percent switching) by interviewing voters. And the actual number may be higher, since people who are leaning towards a candidate, but not completely certain, are not as likely to point-blank admit that they would have voted for her, especially it they don't like her.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Here's a sample, titled "90s Scandals Threaten to Erode Hillary Clintons Strength With Women," in which Chozick repeatedly writes that "scandals" are "resurfacing" and "taking on a life of their own," and she does it in classic NYT Clinton-hit-piece style, using innuendo and anonymous sources:
"...But the resurfacing of the scandals of the 1990s has brought about a rethinking among some feminists about how prominent women stood by Mr. Clinton and disparaged his accusers after the bimbo eruptions, as a close aide to the Clintons, Betsey Wright, famously called the claims of affairs and sexual assault against Mr. Clinton in his 1992 campaign.
Even some Democrats who participated in the effort to discredit the women acknowledge privately that today, when Mrs. Clinton and other women have pleaded with the authorities on college campuses and in workplaces to take any allegation of sexual assault and sexual harassment seriously, such a campaign to attack the womens character would be unacceptable...."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/90s-scandals-threaten-to-erode-hillary-clintons-strength-with-women.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)Lol. Youre joking, right?
Demit
(11,238 posts)You're double hooked.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)is pretty much unwinnable. It is to Hillary's credit that she was heading towards a landslide until the very end.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)spooky3
(34,510 posts)3 million more votes despite all types of inappropriate interference?
stonecutter357
(12,698 posts)stonecutter357
(12,698 posts)Crutchez_CuiBono
(7,725 posts)Clinton Cash-esque, in my singular opinion. So a reporter didn't get equal access from her media team...yawn. How's dt working out for her on her best day? When there's no civilization left to even buy a book from East coast to West....what then? This presidency isn't safe for any American, except dt. These books do a great disservice imho. I wasn't aware that Hillary had a different perfection standard than everyone else. It's been chaos ever since he came, and if anyone on any level , can say Hillary would have been worse...they're living in a dream world.
I guess bc dt gave her 5 minutes, he's a nice guy. If I was a presidential candidate like Hillary, I'd have been real birdy about ancillary reporters as well. One things for sure about Hillary, she fought off more than her share of third rail enemies and attackers.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)New Book, Clinton Cash, Questions Foreign Donations to Foundation
By AMY CHOZICK
APRIL 19, 2015
Sid
Crutchez_CuiBono
(7,725 posts)I know. I remember clearly a guy at the local Democratic Headquarters before the election, COMPLETELY CHANGING HIS MIND ON DEMOCRATS based on that stupid book. Beware what you read i guess.
riversedge
(70,383 posts)emulatorloo
(44,257 posts)Ninga
(8,281 posts)if HRC ate chicken wings?
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)It wouldn't have anything to do with the way they parroted rw talking points for years on stories that had been debunked would it? I remember Gore was treated similarly, but not for the length of time as Hillary, and being told he wasn't "likable" because he wouldn't suck up to the press.
Wwcd
(6,288 posts)How many hit pieces does this make now? How many have capitalized on the name "Hillary Clinton".
"MONEY & MEDIA"
Truth is not a requirement.
What a crock of b.s.
SunSeeker
(51,772 posts)Although she admits Hillary did write her a note when her grandmother died.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Link to tweet
@HillaryWarnedUs
More
EMAILS
EMAILS
EMAILS
EMAILS
EMAILS
EMAILS
Why doesn't Hillary like me?
EMAILS
EMAILS
EMAILS...
- Amy Chozick
9:56 AM - 20 Apr 2018
Sid
Cha
(297,890 posts)Thanks Sid!
mcar
(42,426 posts)NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Last edited Wed Apr 25, 2018, 11:20 AM - Edit history (1)
The howls from the far left would have been deafening, seeing how much seething went on about "correct the record" debunking fake news and smears about her.
still_one
(92,487 posts)the coverage of Hillary.
The sexism was rampant in the coverage, and that sexism was conveyed by reporters of both genders.
"Hillary was shrill, she never smiles, she is angry all the time", etc. Attributes that were NEVER expressed toward ANY of the MALE candidates.
These so-called wall were not created by Hillary, but by the "ELITE" media.
The "gray lady", fell from grace a long time ago when Judy Miller helped push the U.S. to invade Iraq based on a lie.
They had a front page story blaming the Democrats for pushing the republicans away from Climate Change:
"Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf, favoring extreme positions and uncompromising rhetoric over cooperation and conciliation."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html
While this may come as surprising to some it really shouldn't. They hired Bret Stephens, a climate change denier right at the time when the trump administration and the republicans wanted to undo any gains made to curb green house gases, pollution, and exit the Paris Accords.
The Times, and the media in general, for sometime now has been setting up false equivalences between the republicans and Democrats. A perfect example of this was the media saying that the Democrats support of Comey involving the Obstruction of Justice and other wrong doings of the trump administration and the republicans, was "politics as usual", because they equated it to the outrage by those same Democrats when Comey released the letter to the republicans in congress 11 days before the general election. Ignoring the fact that those are mutually exclusive events, and anyone with the smallest level of critical thinking can discern that difference.
This video by Mark Scheffle and Shane O'Neill of the Times were saying just that, how both republicans and Democrats have flip-flopped on Comey. It is so out of context it is pathetic.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005090191/comey-fired-democrats-republicans.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
They did a similar thing when one of the Democrats on the FEC stepped down, building the false equivalency argument how there is deadlock because both sides won't budge. That was NOT the case at all, and was a gross distortion of the facts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/fec-elections-ann-ravel-campaign-finance.html
In fact that report was so messed up, that the Democrat who resigned from the commission wrote a rebuttal to state the reality of what happened:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/dysfunction-and-deadlock-at-the-federal-election-commission.html
I don't need the NY Times telling me how Hillary alienated the press. I need the NY Times telling me why they feel the need to paint an equivalency between republicans and Democrats, thinking that it gives THEM the apperance of objectivity, when in fact it distorts and mangles the facts
I used to subscribe to the NY Times.
I now subscribe to the Washington Post.
Cha
(297,890 posts)still_one
(92,487 posts)Cha
(297,890 posts)agendas trying to re-write history. Not working.
emulatorloo
(44,257 posts)StevieM
(10,500 posts)That is simply a repeat of the lies that were told after the book Shattered was released. That book told people what they wanted to hear. The truth wasn't important to them.
HRC's campaign was not dysfunctional, nor was it close to dysfunctional. Nobody said that when the race was going on. And a dysfunctional campaign is characterized by identifiable chaos when the campaign is unfolding. In Hillary's case, it was simply declared to be so after the fact.
lapucelle
(18,374 posts)From liberal critic of the "liberal" media, Bob Somerby.
Part 1Chozick bungles again: If we were asked to pick the Most Problematic New Journalist of the past few years, one possible winner would leap to mind:
We'd be forced to consider the New York Times' Amy Chozick.
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/search?q=chozick+