CNN: Republicans Admitted To Us That Their Latest Hit On Hillary Is Bogus -- But We'll Air It Anyway!
October 19, 2007 -- 3:40 PM EST // //
I'm not sure I've ever seen this before. In a CNN report about the Republicans' latest criticism of Hillary, the reporter came right out and said that Republicans had privately told her that their attack on her is purely political. But the reporter nonetheless cheerfully aired those very same attacks, anyway.
The segment, by CNN's Dana Bash, concerns one of the silliest GOP hits on Hillary yet. The GOP is faulting Hillary over an earmark she inserted into a health spending bill that would grant $1,000,000 to a museum in upstate New York devoted to preserving memories of Woodstock.
Republicans -- I'm really not making this up -- are using this to link Hillary to the dope-smoking hippies of the counter-cultural 1960s, accusing her of a "taxpayer funded Woodstock flashback." CNN packaged this story with the headline "Clinton & `Woodstock Flashback'" on the screen, along with pics of Hillary's face superimposed over footage of shirtless, bearded far-out types grooving to Jimi Hendrix.
But look what else Bash says in her report:
You heard right:
"Republicans privately admit they're making an issue of the Woodstock earmark to go after Presidential contender Hillary Clinton, to hit her for misplaced priorities and link her to a liberal mecca."Hey maaan, dig it -- the Republicans admitted to CNN that they're only making an issue out of this to link Hillary to the flower children and their "liberal mecca." But the network aired this story with precisely the same framing that the GOP is giving it, anyway! Groovy, maaan. Far out!
Look, reporting on the earmark issue is legit. And so is reporting on the Senate vote. But really, as we all know, this isn't why the GOP is making an issue out of this at all. It's really about furthering the narrative that the GOP has been hitting on since the 1992 campaign -- namely, that the Clintons have never truly moved beyond the draft-dodging, soldier-disrepecting, not-inhaling personas they allegedly harbored in that Godawful, turbulent decade that we're still fighting about.
We know the GOP is doing this because Republicans privately said so. If they had told me this, I probably wouldn't have held the "Woodstock flashback" GOP talking point on the screen for so long or superimposed Hillary's face right on the images of the crowds of freaks. But that's just me.
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