Media Notes: Open Season on Hillary

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Open Season on Hillary
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 28, 2008

If Hillary Clinton has lost the Huffington Post, has she lost the Democratic Party? The liberal Web site published one Hillary-bashing piece after another yesterday, all of them tapping into an anger that she dares to remain in the race and criticize Barack Obama.

This is the new media narrative that the former first lady is confronting, that she is prolonging the agony and is just being selfish by refusing to pack it in.

I've read some pieces here and there saying it's not impossible for Hillary to prevail, or that there's no reason for her to fold her tent. But if there are commentators strongly pushing her candidacy at the moment, they've mostly escaped my notice.

This is a problem for HRC that goes beyond Obama's lead in pledged delegates. The entire race has now been framed around the contentious question of whether Hillary is mean or just delusional. Very few folks give her the benefit of the doubt as someone who's battling hard for a presidential nomination and still sees herself within striking distance. How many cable pundits have you heard speculate that if she can't win, she wants Obama to lose so she can run again in 2012? Who knows if that's true? After all, this year was the best shot she'd ever have at the White House, and her party has not exactly been kind to previous losers.

It's hard to dispute that the increasingly bitter warfare is hurting the Democrats, although there's still plenty of time for the party to heal its wounds. And it's hard to argue with the notion that Hillary has to damage Obama to have a chance at persuading enough superdelegates to rally to her side. But he hasn't been playing patty-cake either. Isn't that the essence of political campaigning?...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/03/28/BL2008032801169_pf.html

[pbca]

1. Mean, delusional or a bit of both

tough question. Good that it's open season though. Before people can come together against McCain we first have to come together to let Hillary know it's over.

[papau]

6. Letting Hillary know" = telling Clinton supporters to F-ck Off from the Dem party

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

10. What do you see as her path to the nomination then?

[Warpy]

2. The main problem I have with Clinton is her increasingly tone deaf

campaign team that has forgotten who the enemy really is. That quasi endorsement of McCain, citing the benefit of age and experience over youth and idealism, really crossed the line for a lot of people out here wondering what the hell happened to the Democratic Party.

If she allows these fools to keep running her campaign into the ground, she richly deserves to lose.

[gaiilonfong]

3. Hey Howie STFU LOSER

Disclose that your wife was a congressional aide for that CRIMINAL Tom DeLay...then maybe I will read your pathetic REtHUG drivel!

[Jane Austin]

8. Really? I thought that was

Jim Vandehei.

Have I conflated the two?

[AX10]

4. Cenk Uygur is one of the worse offenders.

:puke:

This crap being spewed against HRC makes Obama very unpalitable for me.

[Lerkfish]

5. and yet the Rev. Wright train keeps on rollin

but we don't accuse the media of having an "open season" on Obama.

[uberblonde]

7. Gee, I didn't know...

That the Huffington Post EVER backed Hillary Clinton. I mean, isn't it Clinton Bashers Central? (Besides DU and DK, I mean.

[Jane Austin]

9. HuffPo is the only place I see those

toxic Taylor Marsh anti-Obama screeds.

[Lerkfish]

11. when you're a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail

in other words, you're only going to notice "bashing" of clinton if you're a clinton supporter. There's a lot of different kinds of posts there, but its your perception based on your own position that rings true to you, selective though it may be.