Same News Outlets Who Said Bill Would Be Liability To Hillary Now Say He'll Need To "Rescue" Her
December 13, 2007 -- 11:45 AM EST // //
This blog refrains wherever possible from saying, "we told you so," chiefly because there are rarely if ever any grounds for saying this. But...
As predicted here yesterday, the very same news outlets that pushed the idea that Bill Clinton's presence could prove a liability to Hillary's Presidential campaign are...now saying that he'll need to rescue her.
CNN, a few months ago:
Bill Clinton Factor: Campaign Asset or Liability?CNN now:
Fox News analyst Juan Williams, a month ago:
When women, especially you know, as I said, educated upper income women look at Hillary Clinton, I think they have a lot of problems with her because of Bill Clinton and the way that she related to Bill Clinton because of the Lewinsky incident.Fox News' Sean Hannity, before that:
Fox News Opinion Dynamics did a poll, Frank, and they asked whether or not he was a liability or whether or not he would hurt Hillary's campaign. And a certain percentage of people said, yes, he would help it. And then, but by an eight-point swing against helping, it went negative towards his involvement.Fox News, now:
Purists will argue that this isn't a perfect contradiction. Fine. But this is still amusing. Back when Hillary was on top, the media meme of choice -- pushed by David Broder and multiple other pundits, in addition to these news orgs -- was that she and her advisers should worry that Bill Clinton could very well drag her down. Didn't matter that the polls said again and again that this wasn't true. This was the narrative, and nothing could change it.
But now that Hillary's not doing so well, the storyline of choice has suddenly become that his dazzling stump skills may be the only thing that can save her -- a meme that of course makes her look bad in comparison to him.
It's the sheer mindlessness of this sort of thing that really gets me, not to mention the glaring lack of self-awareness on display here.
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