Presumptuous Politics : Aug 9, 2016

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Media justify anti-Trump bias, claim he's too 'dangerous' for normal rules

The media’s legions of Trump-bashers are finally acknowledging the obvious.
And trying their best to justify it.
But there’s one problem: Tilting against one candidate in a presidential election can’t be justified.
This is not a defense of Donald Trump, who has been at war with much of the press since he got in the race. Too many people think if you criticize the way the billionaire is being covered, you are somehow backing Trump.
And it’s not about the commentators, on the right as well as the left, who are savaging Trump, since they are paid for their opinions.
This is about the mainstream media’s reporters, editors and producers, whose credo is supposed to be fairness.
And now some of them are flat-out making the case for unfairness—an unprecedented approach for an unprecedented campaign.
Put aside, for the moment, the longstanding complaints about journalists being unfair to Republicans. They never treated Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush or Bob Dole like this.
Keep in mind that the media utterly misjudged Trump from the start, covering him as a joke or a sideshow or a streaking comet that would burn itself out. Many of them later confessed how wrong they had been, and that they had missed the magnitude of the anger and frustration that fueled Trump’s unlikely rise.
But since the conventions, and fueled by his own missteps, Trump has been hit by a tsunami of negative coverage, all but swamping the reporting on Hillary Clinton. Liberal investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald recently told Slate that “the U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president”—and, given his views, he has no problem with that.
Now comes Jim Rutenberg, in his first season as media columnist for the New York Times. He’s a good reporter and I give him credit for trying to openly grapple with this bizarre situation.
But Rutenberg is, in my view, trying to defend the indefensible:
“If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.”
Yet normal standards, says Rutenberg, may not apply.
By “closer to being oppositional,” he means openly siding against Trump and thereby helping Clinton. And that’s precisely the kind of thing that erodes our already damaged credibility. If a reporter believes Trump is a threat to America, he or she should go into the opinion business, or quit the media world and work against him. You can’t maintain the fig leaf of neutral reporting and favor one side.
Rutenberg acknowledges that “balance has been on vacation since Mr. Trump stepped onto his golden Trump Tower escalator last year to announce his candidacy. For the primaries and caucuses, the imbalance played to his advantage, captured by the killer statistic of the season: His nearly $2 billion in free media was more than six times as much as that of his closest Republican rival.”
I have to push back on this $2-billion argument. Trump got more coverage not just because he was good for clicks and ratings, but because he did many, many times more interviews than anyone else running. Much of this “free” media, rather than being a gift, was harshly negative. But that too helped Trump, because he drove the campaign dialogue and openly campaigned against the press.
Next Rutenberg argues that Trump is just too over the top in his rhetoric:
“And while coded appeals to racism or nationalism aren’t new — two words: Southern strategy — overt calls to temporarily bar Muslims from entry to the United States or questioning a federal judge’s impartiality based on his Mexican heritage are new.”
What’s disappointing is that Rutenberg doesn’t cite a single example of biased coverage from his paper, or any other paper or news outlet. (He does point to criticism from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who is, as the columnist acknowledges, a commentator.)
Instead he quotes Carolyn Ryan, the Times’ senior editor for politics, as saying Trump’s candidacy is “extraordinary and precedent-shattering” and “to pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous with readers.”
And Rutenberg agrees, saying it would “be an abdication of political journalism’s most solemn duty: to ferret out what the candidates will be like in the most powerful office in the world.”
No one wants to abdicate that duty. No one is pretending Trump’s candidacy isn’t extraordinary. No one is saying he shouldn’t be fully vetted.
But there is an assumption among many journalists and pundits that of course Hillary Clinton is qualified, she’s been around forever, she just doesn’t need the relentless reporting that Trump requires. And so critical stories about Clinton—even when she said she “short-circuited” in that Chris Wallace interview on the email mess—are overshadowed by the endless piling on Trump.
Many of the reporters who feel compelled to stop Trump are undoubtedly comfortable because all their friends feel the same way.
But they are deluding themselves if they think that going after one candidate in a two-candidate race is what journalism is about.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Gore's Climate Change Cartoons

Clinton, Trump clash on economy

Hillary Clinton clashed from afar with Donald Trump on the economy Monday, accusing him of peddling “old, tired ideas” that benefit the “really wealthy” – after the Republican nominee hammered the Democrats' “job-killing” agenda in a speech of his own where he unveiled a revised plan to jolt the economy by slashing taxes and regulations.
Trump delivered his economic address early Monday afternoon in Detroit, touting a plan he called a "night-and-day-contrast" with the “job-killing, tax-raising, poverty-inducing Obama-Clinton agenda.”
Clinton returned fire hours later during a rally in St. Petersburg, Fla., saying her GOP rival has simply hired advisers trying to “make his old, tired ideas sound new.”
“His tax plans will give super big tax breaks to large corporations and the really wealthy,” she said. "He wants to repackage trickle-down economics."
Clinton said economists have already warned Trump’s policies “would throw us into recession.”
The sparks mark an abrupt return to the economy on the campaign trail, after a post-convention week during which Trump was caught up in controversies that had little to do with policy.
Despite Clinton’s accusations, Trump insisted Monday that his proposals would help lower- and middle-class Americans the most.
And he used the setting of the speech – Detroit – to draw a stark contrast with his rival’s approach.
“Detroit is a living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic policies,” said Trump, arguing bad international trade deals like NAFTA have resulted in record unemployment for the city and made a “total disaster” of the entire U.S. economy.
“Detroit is still waiting for Hillary Clinton’s apology,” he continued.
Trump vowed to create 500,000 jobs annually in the first seven years of his administration, while cutting business taxes and reducing federal regulations. Trump touted his plan to eliminate the estate tax, put a moratorium on new federal regulations and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, in his speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
He also vowed to re-negotiate the decades-old North American Free Trade Agreement and warned that Clinton, if elected, would enact the Obama administration’s Trans Pacific Partnership, which critics argue would create even more disadvantages for the United States in international trade.
“We cannot let her win because that will be disaster for Detroit and everybody else,” Trump said. “Hillary Clinton’s Trans Pacific Partnership will be even bigger and even worse than NAFTA.”
Clinton says she opposes the TPP in its current form.
In an appeal to unemployed steel workers, miners and other blue collar workers whom Trump hopes to win over in Rust Belt states, the GOP nominee also vowed to end federal regulations that have throttled coal plants and eliminated jobs.
“The Obama-Clinton [agenda] has blocked jobs through anti-energy regulations,” he said. “The Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan jobs. Clinton said she will put coal miners out of business. … A Trump administration will end this war on the American worker and unleash an energy revolution that will bring vast new wealth.”
The businessman and first-time candidate hopes to steady his campaign after a rough week in which he was criticized for comments about a Muslim-American family whose son, an Army captain, was killed in the Iraq War and for temporarily withholding his endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan in Tuesday's Wisconsin primary.
The Clinton campaign ripped into the proposed Trump plan earlier Monday morning, saying his tax breaks are only for the wealthy and includes no paid family leave or increase in the federal minimum wage.
“We wanted to offer a look at how a Trump presidency would cause damage to the American economy and working families,” the campaign said in a 7-point memo. “We can be certain of this because we’ve read Trump’s ‘plans,’ listened to his words, reviewed what analysts have to say about what he wants to do. And it's the only logical conclusion.”
Trump, though, hammered Clinton Monday for seeking tax hikes as part of her economic agenda.
Clinton indeed has proposed raising taxes on the highest-income earners, including a surcharge on multimillionaires, but analysts have found lower-income earners would see little change beyond measures like additional tax credits for expenses like out-of-pocket health care costs.
In his speech Monday, Trump also announced his plan to allow parents to fully deduct the cost of childcare from their taxable income. He also called again for boosting domestic energy production -- a plan his campaign estimates can add $6 trillion in local, state and federal revenue over the next four decades.

Report: Clinton's jobs push as senator fell flat, helped donors

Hillary Clinton’s jobs record as a New York senator – which her campaign has made a centerpiece of her pitch to voters – is coming under fresh scrutiny, with a new report claiming her economic initiatives fell flat for workers, while benefiting deep-pocketed donors.
The Washington Post report found that, as a senator from 2001-2009, the now-Democratic presidential nominee was unable to pass “big ticket legislation” that she introduced to benefit upstate New York, as job growth stagnated and manufacturing jobs fell by almost 25 percent.
The Post cites U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers showing upstate New York lost jobs during Clinton’s first term, with Albany losing more than 31,000 payroll jobs between October 2001 and December 2006.
Former officials told the Post that smaller-scale projects also fell flat despite positive news coverage, with jobs failing to materialize and others leaving the state ahead of her failed 2008 presidential run.
Republican rival Donald Trump seized on the report Monday, citing the “devastating” findings as he delivered an economic address in Detroit.
“She was all talk, no action,” he said.
The report casts doubt on Clinton’s claim to be a pragmatist who can overcome Washington gridlock and give the economy a lift. Her campaign has cited her work in New York as a blueprint for her presidency, and has used her record to try and neutralize Trump’s selling point that he has a record as a job creator and knows how to boost the economy.
Further, the Post notes that a number of the companies Clinton worked with in upstate New York also contributed to her campaign and the Clinton Foundation – the Clintons' charitable wing that has come under scrutiny for its financial dealings amid accusations of “pay-to-play.”
In the Senate, for instance, Clinton struck up a relationship with Corning – an upstate glass and high-tech product manufacturer. The Post reports that while Clinton helped steer money to Corning through legislation and federal grants, Clinton’s efforts did not reverse the economic decline of Steuben County, where Corning is based.
Meanwhile, employees of the company have donated to Clinton’s campaign; the company paid $225,500 for her to speak in 2014; the chief executive co-hosted a 2015 fundraiser for her; and the company has given over $100,000 to the Foundation, the Post reported.
Clinton also cited her role in creating an “eBay university” to train budding entrepeneurs to sell products on eBay. The relationship with the company followed a similar pattern – then-CEO John Donahoe hosted a 2015 fundraiser for Clinton; eBay paid $315,000 for a 20-minute Clinton speech in 2015; and eBay’s charitable wing gave more than $50,000 to the Foundation.
Campaign spokesman Glen Caplin told the Post: “It’s no surprise that people who saw that work wanted to support her election campaigns and efforts to make a difference in people’s lives around the world.”

Parents of 2 Benghazi victims sue Hillary Clinton for wrongful death, defamation

The parents of two of the four Americans who died in the Benghazi attack in 2012 filed a lawsuit Monday against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, alleging her "reckless handling" of classified information contributed to their deaths.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch USA on behalf of Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, and Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, for allegedly wrongfully causing the death of their sons as well as for defamation and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit suggests that Clinton's use of a private email server contributed to the deaths of Smith and Woods, adding that terrorists were able to "obtain the whereabouts of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and thus the U.S. State Department and covert and other government operations in Benghazi, Libya and subsequently orchestrate, plan, and execute the now infamous September 11, 2012 attack."
"Having used a secret private email server that we now know was used to communicate with Ambassador Christopher Stevens with confidential and classified government information, and which we also now know was likely hacked by hostile adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea aligning with terrorist groups, it is clear that Hillary Clinton allegedly negligently and recklessly gave up the classified location of the plaintiffs' sons, resulting in a deadly terrorist attack that took their lives,” Klayman said in a statement announcing the suit.
In addition to the wrongful death and negligence charges named in the suit, the parents also claim that Clinton defamed them in statements to the media, according to court documents.
"During her campaign for President, Defendant Clinton has negligently, recklessly, and/or maliciously defamed Plaintiffs by either directly calling them liars, or by strongly implying that they are liars, in order to protect and enhance her public image and intimidate and emotionally harm and silence them to not speak up about the Benghazi attack on at least four separate occasions," Klayman wrote in his complaint.
Patricia Smith has previously spoken out against Clinton, most recently at the Republican National Convention in July.
Clinton's campaign has not yet responded to requests for comment about the lawsuit.
In an interview last week on "Fox News Sunday," Clinton denied telling family members of those killed that the attack was sparked by an anti-Islam video, and was not terrorism.
She instead suggested the family members misunderstood her because they were overwhelmed by grief.
“I understand the grief and the incredible sense of loss that can motivate that,” Clinton said. “As other members of families who’ve lost loved ones have said, that's not what they heard. I don't hold any ill feeling for someone who, in that moment, may not fully recall everything that was or wasn't said.”

Iran's ex-president Ahmadinejad asks Obama to 'fix' $2B Supreme Court ruling

Iran's former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter on Monday to President Barack Obama, asking him to "quickly fix" a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing families of people killed in attacks linked to Iran to collect damages from some $2 billion in frozen assets.
While writing that his letter "is by no means of (a) political nature," Ahmadinejad's message to Obama arrives amid swirling speculation that the hard-line politician may run as a candidate in Iran's presidential election next year.
It also comes as average Iranians largely have yet to see the benefits of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers -- something a discontent Ahmadinejad and other hard-liners could mine in any potential campaign against moderates.

In the letter, posted on a website associated with the former president's office, Ahmadinejad focuses on the Supreme Court's decision in April. The court's 6-2 ruling allows families of victims of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and other attacks linked to Iran to collect monetary damages from Iran.
At risk for Iran is $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulating interest, owned by Iran's Bank Markazi and held by Citibank in New York.
"It is the clear expectation of the Iranian nation that the particular case of property seizure ... be quickly fixed by your excellency and that not only the Iranian nation's rights be restored and the seized property released and returned, but also the damaged caused be fully compensated for," the letter said.
"I passionately advise you not to let the historical defamation and bitter incident be recorded under your name," Ahmadinejad added.
Ahmadinejad's letter was delivered to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which has overseen America's interests in the country in the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and U.S. Embassy takeover. Embassy officials declined to comment.
It's unclear what steps Ahmadinejad expects Obama to take. There was no immediate comment from the White House regarding the letter.
The timing of the letter, however, is interesting as Ahmadinejad's name continues to circulate as a possible challenger to moderate President Hassan Rouhani in Iran's coming May 19 election. Rouhani's administration negotiated the nuclear accord, which put limits on Iran's atomic program in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.
While Ahmadinejad previously served two four-year terms, Iranian law calls only for a one-term cooling-off period before he's eligible to run again.
How Iranians would react to another Ahmadinejad run, however, remains to be seen if and when it happens.
Under his presidency, Iran found itself heavily sanctioned over the nuclear program as Ahmadinejad questioned the scale of the Holocaust and predicted the demise of Israel. His disputed 2009 re-election saw widespread protests and violence. Two of his former vice presidents have since been jailed for corruption.