Opinions CNN's Jeffrey Toobin -- again -- expresses regret for his Clinton email coverage

[Gothmog]

Link to tweet

At which point, CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin added his self-critical perspective. “This is also a story about the news media, about how much time we spent on that," said Toobin. "And that’s something that I have felt a great deal of personal responsibility for because I talked about the emails here at CNN, I wrote about it in the New Yorker and I think I paid too much attention to them and I regret that, and I hope a lesson is learned. I mean, this story turns out to be ... a big nothing. And we spent months on it. Hillary Clinton very likely lost the election because of it, and I think I should have been talking about other issues, not about the emails.”

In January 2018, Toobin made similar remarks in a podcast with comedian Larry Wilmore. “I think there was a lot of false equivalence in the 2016 campaign," said Toobin back then. "That every time we said something, pointed out something about Donald Trump — whether it was his business interests, or grab ’em by the p---y, we felt like, ‘Oh, we gotta, like, talk about — we gotta say something bad about Hillary.’ And I think it led to a sense of false equivalence that was misleading, and I regret my role in doing that.”

For both of his meae culpae, Toobin has received applause from media-watchers. After all, not all pundits, editors and correspondents offer honest reflection of this sort.

[Gothmog]

1. From my twitter feed

Link to tweet

[demtenjeep]

2. make up for it by going into overdrive of the REAL CRIMES

and corruption from this asshole

[calimary]

3. NOW he regrets it. Cute.

He’s the ONLY member of the media who’s even tried to come clean on this.

Even Andrea “oh but her emails” Mitchell just HAD TO bring it up, again, just recently, in connection with something on the trump side. One of those “but in fairness...” moments to make sure we were all reminded about the “problem” of Hillary’s emails, which has now been confirmed by investigators as one big fat nothingburger.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Kind of late Buddy!!

[WhiteTara]

5. History will not forgive him.

No mea culpa will erase his culpability.

[Midnightwalk]

6. Lesson has been learned a long time ago

Unfortunately it is not what we want them to learn.

The pundits are richly paid to put on their serious faces to tell us about their shallow insights on subjects they actually know nothing about.

Then when it turns our they were disastrously wrong the truly heroic ones come out and tell us “ooops”. But don’t worry. Being so wrong won’t slow any of them down one bit.

The lesson is there is no standard or accountability for pundits.

[abqtommy]

7. Don't feel too bad, Jeffrey. HIllary did win the popular vote by a count of 3 million and only lost

the Electoral College due to ratfuckery. Always remember and never forget that.

[Gothmog]

8. Jeffrey Toobin expresses regret over 'mistakes' in Clinton email coverage

Link to tweet

The New Yorker and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin now says he devoted too much attention in 2016 to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, becoming the first big-name journalist to acknowledge having second thoughts about the story since a State Department probe cleared Clinton of serious breaches of rules on Friday.

Toobin told POLITICO he has been flooded with responses since his surprise admission Monday morning on CNN. The feedback have largely fallen into two categories, he said: “Thank you for saying this” and “You’re a jerk, you shouldn't have done it in the first place.”

The conclusion on Friday of a nearly three-year State Department investigation into the Clinton email saga has reignited criticism among Democrats of the news media’s heavy coverage of the issue in the 2016 election. The claims that she had exposed classified secrets through her use of a private server dogged Clinton down to the final days of the campaign, when a surprise admission by then-FBI Director James Comey that the bureau was reopening its probe into the emails corresponded with a last-minute downturn in her polling numbers.

Nonetheless, the State Department found that there “was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” by any officials while Clinton was serving as secretary of state, a conclusion that Democrats quickly seized upon to bemoan the campaign coverage.

[Garrett78]

9. Meanwhile, virtually zero coverage of Trumps using personal electronic devices for govt biz.