Arianna Huffington is having a grand old time criticizing Hillary Clinton for trying to score cheap political points on the "bittergate" non-story (which the press is continuing to flog, five days on.) Writes Arianna today:
Here's Sen. Evan Bayh, commenting on the political firestorm surrounding Barack Obama's remarks -- broken here on HuffPost's OffTheBus -- about economically-depressed small town voters: "The far right wing has a very good track record of using things like this relentlessly against our candidates, whether it's Al Gore or John Kerry. I'm afraid this is the kind of fodder they might use to harm him."
They? They? It's not the far right wing relentlessly using these comments for political gain, Senator. It's your candidate, Hillary Clinton, adopting the frames, lies, stereotypes and destructive clichés long embraced by the likes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. She has clearly decided that the road to victory runs through scorched earth.
The question is, if she succeeds, what kind of Party will she be left to lead? She's burning down the village to save it -- or to prove that she would make the best fire chief. But the village won't be saved; only one house will be left standing. A house with room for just two occupants. Hill and Bill.
The trouble is, scoring cheap political points is, for better or for worse, Hillary's political strategy at the moment. She is losing the campaign, and is throwing the "kitchen sink" at her opponent in an attempt to wrestle away the nomination.
The Huffington Post, on the other hand, is a multi-contributor blog purporting to also be a journalistic outfit. As such, it is perfectly legitimate to ask, as Howard Kurtz did briefly in his WaPo column yesterday, whether it is ethical for the Huffington Post to send a supposed "Obama supporter" (Mayhill Fowler) into an Obama fundraiser, for which she purportedly made a donation in order to enter, and whether having her secretly tape the procedings and post a rambling cavalcade of personal opinion bears the slightest resemblance to actual journalism.
Fowler as blogger infiltrator, OK I get that. But Fowler as crack journalist? Hm. Today, Jay Rosen, Arianna's partner in crime on the blog that originally published Fowler's story (OfftheBus,) is complaining that the HuffPo and Fowler were not credited by Tim Russert and other MSM types for her story.
... Would Russert pick up on the novelty of the situation? An Obama supporter and donor, who also wrote regular dispatches for Huffington Post's pro-am campaign news site, OffTheBus, recorded Obama's words at an April 6th San Francisco fundraiser, and then wrote about what concerned her in them. From there it exploded. Pretty good story! (As the Guardian recognized today.) Plus, it would allow Russert to sound a savvy warning: "Heads up, candidates, your supporters include bloggers and they exercise their First Amendment rights. Barack Obama found that out this week...."
Tim and his staff decided on erasure. You'd have to ask them why. Mayhill Fowler's Obama quotes were shown on screen, but Meet the Press made no mention of her, or OffTheBus, or the Huffington Post.
Huh??? So the problem isn't that Ms. Fowler, a woman squarely in Hillary Clinton's age and gender demographic, faked her way into an Obama event and then conducted what amounts to a bugging of the candidate ... and the problem isn't that her "report" contained only her personal opinins, with nary a quote from another soul who attended the event, hence, it doesn't contain any actual journalism ... the problem isn't that the Huffington Post is now orchestrating campaign "gotchas" rather than covering them ... the problem is that Fowler didn't get her 15 minutes of fame? Interesting ethics over at the Huffpo.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
