Hillary Clinton + Bill Cartoons

The virtues of dullness? Why Hillary's allies are saying she's boring and uninspiring

Hillary Clinton is really boring. A terrible campaigner. An awful politician who will have a tough time against Donald Trump.
And that’s the assessment coming from her allies.
It’s a bit of political jujitsu, taking your candidate’s weaknesses and trying to spin them into strengths. It is also a classic case of lowering expectations.
Above all, it looks like a coordinated effort by Hillaryland to blunt criticism of the presumptive Democratic nominee who’s still having trouble beating a 74-year-old socialist in many of the primaries.
My own reporting indicates that Clinton has decided she’s never going to out-Trump Trump, she’s never going to be flashier, so she would rather run as the candidate of stability. The campaign believes that if she’s seen as a nerdy wonk with lengthy position papers, that’s not a bad contrast with a Republican accused by some in his own party of being thin on policy specifics.
I was thinking about Hillary and the media even before this latest spate of stories. On my show, I often look for good sound bites after she has done an interview—she doesn’t do that many--or given a speech, and there’s very little to work with. The same thing applies to finding a juicy quote or two for a column. (This is not exactly a problem with Trump.)

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I’m not referring here to Clinton’s disciplined refusal to respond to Trump’s attacks. That may make sense from her point of view. It’s her plodding, cautious, bureaucratic style that often fails to break through. Her answers may be substantive, but to use a television term, she doesn’t pop.
Does this matter? Well, Trump has driven the news coverage surrounding this campaign from the day he got in the race. Clinton just doesn’t make that much news.
The Clinton camp’s view is that she gets plenty of good local press when she campaigns in such states as Kentucky, which votes today, and there’s little desire to compete with Trump in racking up segments on the cable networks—especially if those are about his relationships with women or not releasing his tax returns.
For many months, the imbalance in the national media could be explained away by the fact the Republican contest was a wild roller-coaster ride while Clinton was easily cruising to the Democratic nomination. But now that it’s essentially a general election—even though Bernie is still hanging around—Trump is still dominating the news.
Some of the Trump stories are obviously negative, as with the lengthy New York Times report saying he “crossed the line” with some women. (That story took a hit when the woman in the lead anecdote, Rowanne Brewer Lane, who dated Trump after he asked her to change to a swimsuit at a pool party, told “Fox & Friends” and others that her experience was positive and the paper unfairly spun her words.)  
But even the critical stories give Trump a chance to counterpunch against the media (such as calling the Times report a “lame hit piece”), grabbing the available oxygen and denying it to his Democratic opponent. Clinton tends to make news more through her aides and surrogates than with her own words.
That’s why a Time magazine headline declares: “Hillary’s new plan to trump Trump—by being boring.”
She doesn’t want a “mud fight” with Trump, the piece says. “She’s a lousy politician, by her own admission…Americans like Hillary Clinton the nerdy technocrat. They do not like Hillary Clinton the candidate.” The magazine casts the race as “the great boor vs. the great bore.”
The Washington Post weighed in yesterday by quoting “more than a dozen Clinton allies” who identified her “weaknesses” against Trump, “including poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump.”
Advisers, the Post says, are trying “to soften her stiff public image by highlighting her compassion…She is scripted and thin-skinned, they say. And with a sigh, they acknowledge the persistent feeling among a lot of Americans that they just don’t like her.”
They just don’t like her. Well, the polls show that many voters don’t like Trump either. But those who do are passionate about the billionaire, just as Sanders supporters are passionate about their man. Clinton, despite her long experience, doesn’t come across as an inspirational figure.
Stories like these don’t appear in the press by accident. Those in Clinton’s orbit are trying to justify a soft-spoken strategy that, at the moment, is being drowned out by the high-decibel Trump. They want Hillary to be viewed as a reliable grandmother, not the calculating politician who is under investigation for using a private email server, and not as risky as the bombastic Trump.
But she still has to find a way to make news, on her own. The danger is that she’ll come to be viewed as a dull and conventional candidate in a year in which voters are rejecting politics as usual.
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. 

Nevada Democrats warn DNC Sanders supporters have 'penchant for ... violence'

The Nevada State Democratic Party warned the Democratic National Committee Monday that supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have displayed a "penchant for ... actual violence' and could disrupt this summer's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. 
The allegation is the latest fallout from a divisive Nevada Democratic convention that had to be shut down Saturday night because security at the Paris Las Vegas hotel could no longer ensure order. The gathering closed with some Sanders supporters throwing chairs; later, some made death threats against state party chairwoman Roberta Lange.
Sanders' backers had been protesting convention rules that ultimately led to Hillary Clinton winning more pledged delegates. Clinton won the state's caucuses in February, 53-47, but Sanders backers hoped to pick up extra delegates by packing county and state party gatherings.
Sanders had released a statement Friday night asking supporters to work "together respectfully and constructively" at the convention. But the state party alleged in its letter to the co-chairs of the DNC Rules and By-laws committee, "The explosive situation arose in large part because a portion of the community of Sanders delegates arrived at the Nevada Democratic State Convention believing itself to be a vanguard intent upon sparking a street-fight rather than attending an orderly political party process."
Michael Briggs, a Sanders campaign spokesman, said, "We do not condone violence or encourage violence or even threats of violence." He added that the campaign "had no role in encouraging the activity that the party is complaining about. We have a First Amendment and respect the rights of the people to make their voices heard."
On Saturday, Sanders backers shouted down the keynote speaker, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and others they thought were tilting the rules in Clinton's favor. Protesters shouted obscenities and rushed the dais to protest rulings. 

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"We believe, unfortunately, that the tactics and behavior on display here in Nevada are harbingers of things to come as Democrats gather in Philadelphia in July for our National Convention," the state party's general counsel, Bradley S. Schrager wrote in a letter to the DNC. "We write to alert you to what we perceive as the Sanders campaign's penchant for extra-parliamentary behavior — indeed, actual violence — in place of democratic conduct in a convention setting, and furthermore what we can only describe as their encouragement of, and complicity in, a very dangerous atmosphere that ended in chaos and physical threats to fellow Democrats."
Several Sanders backers have condemned some of the threats against Lange and other actions Saturday. Former state assemblywoman Lucy Flores, a current congressional candidate, said in a statement: "There were actions over the weekend and at the Democratic convention that very clearly crossed the line. Progressives need to speak out against those: Making threats against someone's life, defacing private property, and hurling vulgar language at our female leaders."
State party offices remained closed Monday for security reasons after Sanders supporters posted Lange's home and business addresses, email and cell phone number online. Copies of angry and threatening texts to Lange were included with the letter.
Lange said she'd been receiving hundreds of profanity-laced calls and texts from inside and outside of the U.S., threatening her life and her family. Lange said the restaurant where she works has received so many calls it had to unplug the phone.
"It is endless, and the longer it goes the worse it gets," Lange said in an interview. "I feel threatened everywhere I go."

Congressman: Classified details of Iran's treatment of US sailors will shock nation

The classified details behind Iran’s treatment of several U.S. sailors who were captured by the Islamic Republic during a tense standoff earlier this year are likely to shock the nation, according to one member of the House Armed Services Committee, who disclosed to the Washington Free Beacon that these details are currently being withheld by the Obama administration.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.) told the Free Beacon in an interview that the Obama administration is still keeping details of the maritime incident under wraps. It could be a year or longer before the American public receives a full accounting of the incident, in which several U.S. sailors were abducted at gunpoint by the Iranian military.
“I’ve had a full classified briefing” from military officials, Forbes told the Free Beacon. “It could be as long as a year before we actually get that released.”
Details of the abduction are likely to start an uproar in the nation and call into question the Obama administration’s handling of the incident, which many experts say violated international and maritime law.
“I think that when the details actually come out, most Americans are going to be kind of taken aback by the entire incident, both how Iran handled it and how we handled it,” Forbes disclosed. “I think that’s going to be huge cause for concern for most Americans. That’s why I’ve encouraged members of Congress to get that briefing so they do know exactly what did take place.”
Forbes suggested that Iran’s treatment of the U.S. sailors—which included filming them crying and forcing them to apologize at gunpoint—may have been much worse than what has been publicly reported.

White House snubs Chaffetz, refuses to let aide testify after controversial Iran remarks

The White House confirmed Monday that Obama adviser Ben Rhodes will not be allowed to testify before House lawmakers on the Iran nuclear deal, after a last-ditch attempt by Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz to pry the controversial aide loose for the hearing.
Chaffetz and the White House have been engaged in an escalating feud, all on the heels of a New York Times Magazine piece where Rhodes was quoted boasting about the administration’s success in crafting a public narrative for the Iran deal. The profile on Rhodes quotes him saying they built an “echo chamber” of experts who sold that narrative to young, often inexperienced reporters.
Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wanted the deputy national security adviser to testify at a hearing set for Tuesday titled, “White House narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal.”
“We’re planning as if he is attending, and he’ll have a comfortable seat awaiting his arrival,” Chaffetz said Monday afternoon of Rhodes.
But W. Neil Eggleston, White House counsel, sent a letter to Chaffetz late Monday saying Rhodes would not attend.
He cited what appeared to be an executive privilege-related claim, asserting that such a senior presidential adviser’s appearance “threatens the independence and autonomy of the President, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel.” For those reasons, he said, “we will not make Mr. Rhodes available to testify.”
Chaffetz earlier had made a last-ditch attempt to pressure Rhodes into appearing. After White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest initially said he should invite GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, whom he accuses of spreading false information about the deal, Chaffetz did exactly that -- inviting Cotton to testify, on condition that Rhodes appeared as well.
“[Earnest] suggested that you should be invited to appear at the hearing as well, because you have some 'interesting insight' into the JCPOA [the Iran deal]. Therefore your appearance before the Committee would be contingent on Mr. Rhodes’ appearance at that hearing,” Chaffetz said in a letter Friday.
Asked earlier Monday about the possibility of a Rhodes appearance, Earnest did not rule it out but expressed what he called "thinly veiled skepticism about the whole exercise" and reiterated his claim that it is Republicans who should answer "for saying a lot of things about the Iran deal that turned out not to be true."
The letter from Eggleston later made clear Rhodes would not attend. Though Eggleston cited an executive privilege claim, Earnest told Fox News just four days earlier that “this has nothing to do with executive privilege.”
Sources tell Fox News that the committee was keen for Rhodes to appear voluntarily so they avoid the territory of a possible subpoena.
The magazine article that touched off the controversy outlined how Rhodes created a narrative of the deal coming out of the 2013 election of “moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iran’s subsequent “openness” and willingness to negotiate.
In fact, the story stated, the majority of the deal was hammered out in 2012, well before Rouhani’s election. However, the Rhodes narrative was politically useful to the administration as it presented them as reaching out to the moderates who wanted peace.