Subject: ​Correct The Record Monday November 24, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 14:28:34 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Monday November 24, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> traveled the world, promoting the
importance of religious tolerance #HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/iinternational.html …
<http://t.co/R07lK2Kp6d> [11/23/14, 11:02 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/536550284038651906>]

*Headlines:*

*FROM MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA: Media Matters for America: “Media Lessons
From The Benghazi Charade”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/24/media-lessons-from-the-benghazi-charade/201687>*

“Benghazi conspiracies have come to represent a vile and ugly chapter in
American politics. It's a chapter built upon hypocrisy and cynical Fox News
ethics. Journalists should keep that in mind the next time the right-wing
media launch a hollow ‘cover-up’ crusade against a Democrat.”

*CNN: “Hillary Clinton has a 49-point lead in New Hampshire”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/24/politics/hillary-clinton-new-hampshire/>*

“New Hampshire remains Clinton country.”

*Bloomberg: “Hillary Clinton's Army Has Way Too Many Chicken Littles”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-24/hillary-clintons-army-has-way-too-many-chicken-littles>*

“From the press to the campaigns, no one really wants to believe that
Clinton is as strong a primary candidate as the polls insist she is.”

*MSNBC: “Obama’s ‘new car smell’ problem”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-new-car-smell-problem-hillary-clinton>*

“Clinton has one of the longest resumes of any presidential contender in
memory, which is both a strength, and a liability.”

*Washington Examiner: “Mark Halperin: Hillary Democrats' 'only hope' for
2016”
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mark-halperin-hillary-democrats-only-hope-for-2016/article/2556585?custom_click=rss>*

“Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics said Monday that former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party’s only shot for winning the
White House in 2016.”

*Harper’s Magazine blog: Publisher’s Note: “The New York Times tries to
marginalize the left”
<http://harpers.org/blog/2014/11/the-new-york-times-tries-to-marginalize-the-left/>*

[Subtitle:] “Nowhere did the Times define ‘the left’ or what might excite
its opposition to Clinton. Our imaginations are allowed to run wild: Is
‘the left’ a terrorist organization? A part of the outfield? Or is it just
not worth mentioning?”

*Politico blog: Dylan Byers on Media: “Harper's vs. The N.Y. Times, and
Hillary”
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/11/harpers-vs-the-ny-times-and-hillary-199193.html>*

“Harper's Magazine president John R. MacArthur has accused The New York
Times of trying to marginalize the left by ‘promoting the inevitability of
Hillary Clinton’s nomination’ in 2016.”

*Fox News: “Could Jim Webb give Hillary Clinton a run for her money in
2016?”
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/24/could-senator-jim-webb-give-hillary-run-for-her-money-in-2016/>*

“Webb’s greatest challenge may be going up against Clinton’s legendary
political network.”

*Articles:*

*FROM MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA: Media Matters for America: “Media Lessons
From The Benghazi Charade”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/24/media-lessons-from-the-benghazi-charade/201687>*

By Eric Boehlert

November 24, 2014

[Subtitle:] For Fox News, It's Six Strikes And You're Out

The calling cards of anger and denial have been on display since Friday
afternoon when the House Intelligence Committee, led by Republican Rep.
Mike Rogers, released the findings of its two-year investigation into the
2012 terror attack in Benghazi. Becoming the sixth government inquiry to
come to a similar conclusion, the report found nothing to support the
allegations behind Fox News' ongoing Benghazi witch-hunt. And that's where
the anger and denial came in.

Appearing on CNN, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has staked his
professional reputation on the endless claim of an elaborate White House
cover-up, flashed irritation when he denounced the House report as being
"full of crap."

Meanwhile, Fox News contributor Stephen Hayes did his best to deflate the
supposedly "deeply flawed" Republican report:

*Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes *@stephenfhayes: I'd caution against
reaching firm conclusions based on the #Benghazi report issued by the House
Intel cmte. It's deeply flawed. [11/21/14, 7:57 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/stephenfhayes/status/535960123911733248>]

For Benghazi conspiracy disciples, unanswered questions always remain as
long as devotees say so, and as long as the answers provided by government
(and Republican-led investigations) don't match up their conspiracy
narrative. But apparently if the seventh investigation finds wrongdoing on
the part of the administration, that's the one that will really matter?

Sorry Fox News, but six strikes and you're out.

Still, Benghazi Truthers, like Joel Pollak at Breitbart, soldiered on,
claiming the exhaustive House report was no big deal [emphasis added]:

“The House committee, chaired by Republican Mike Rogers (R-MI), found that
there was no intelligence failure leading up to the attack, and that the
CIA and military personnel present did the best they could. The crucial new
finding is that there was no ‘stand down’ order, as some there have
claimed, and that no further military resources were available.”

The three points Pollack mentioned that were debunked by the House report
represented almost the entire basis of the "scandal" crusade. They were
easily the inspiration for hundreds of Fox News programming hours over the
last two years, and likely thousands of hours of talk radio attacks on
Obama, Hillary Clinton and anyone connected to the administration. (Note
that Fox aired 100 segments on the "stand down" allegation alone during its
evening programs in the 20 months following the attack.)

While Breitbart and other right-wing media players gallantly tried to play
defense (it's just a flesh wound), Fox News simply went into denial as the
cable news channel essentially turned a blind eye to the story: Fox News
Sunday completely ignored the topic. But it wasn't just Fox News Sunday.
CBS' Face The Nation and ABC's This Week also ignored news about the latest
Benghazi debunking; a Republican debunking no less.

There was something fitting about those two omissions, considering CBS and
ABC likely suffered the two worst Benghazi-related black eyes within the
mainstream media when their reporters, Lara Logan and Jonathan Karl
respectively, flew too close to the far-right flame and got very badly
burned. (Note to reporters: When your sources have to make stuff up about
Benghazi, it's a pretty good indication the 'scandal' is lacking.)

And don't forget how Logan played ball with at least one vociferous
Benghazi critic behind the scenes while putting her fatally flawed 60
Minutes report together. According to a May report in New York magazine,
Logan met with Sen. Graham, who helped shape the Benghazi story. Then when
the 60 Minutes segment aired he immediately cheered it on, calling it a
"death blow" to the White House and announced he'd block every White House
appointee until he got more answers about Benghazi.

In other words, the Benghazi lessons to be learned here aren't only for Fox
News. Media Matters has spent the better part of two years detailing how
Beltway reporters, producers and pundits who should've known better have
played along with the contrived conspiracy talking points about the
Democratic president and a far-reaching cover-up. (Is Benghazi to Obama
what Whitewater was to Bill Clinton?)

There's clearly been plenty of Pavolivan behavior on display here:
Republicans ring the Benghazi "scandal" bell and the press presents is as
news. For two years. (See here, here, here, here and here for National
Journal columnist Ron Fournier's contribution to the bogus genre.)

For instance, just last spring major Beltway news outlets appeared to be in
complete agreement that Benghazi represented a major hurdle in Hillary
Clinton's path to the White House, should she choose to pursue the
Democratic nomination. The story was "quickly growing into a potentially
devastating target of opportunity for the GOP," reported the Christian
Science Monitor, while The National Journal claimed Benghazi represented
"perhaps the biggest thing" she'll have to combat on the campaign trail. By
playing along with the flimsy premise, the press simply bolstered the
Republican goal of portraying Benghazi as a pending Democratic doomsday.
(ABC News: "Scandal City.")

The media's proof for that sweeping claim about Benghazi possibly dooming
Hillary? There was none. But Republican sources were saying it was true, so
too many journalists typed it up as analysis.

As for Benghazi conspiracy theorists backing down? Not likely. Recall this
Associated Press report from July 10:

“The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by
Republican lawmakers that a ‘stand-down order’ held back military assets
that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed
at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.”

Even after nine U.S. military officers debunked and denied the "stand down"
claim under oath, it wasn't enough to move Fox off its talking point.

Keep in mind that over the last two years Fox News has claimed Obama never
called the Benghazi attack an act of terror, that former CIA director David
Petraeus was forced to resign because of Benghazi, and that the White House
had demanded changes in the original Benghazi talking points. They've
insisted Obama watched Americans die in real time on September 11, 2012 and
refused to send help. That so-called whistleblowers have been blocked from
testifying, along with Benghazi survivors. Also, that Hillary Clinton faked
a concussion in order to avoid testifying about the terror attack. (That
last claim is all you really need to know about the Benghazi charade.)

Why the endless obsession?

Two years ago I highlighted an unhinged Benghazi column from a Boston
Herald conservative, published on the eve of the presidential election that
seemed to perfectly capture the larger-than-life meaning of Benghazi within
the Obama-hating community. According to the conservative writer, Benghazi
confirmed that Obama is "cowardly," "dishonest" and that he lacks
"integrity" as well as "competence." Plus, he supposedly has a "reflexive
impulse to blame, rather than defend, America."

The point is, die-hard Obama haters are always going to say those things
about the president. Benghazi simply gave them a useful framework: He's the
Manchurian Candidate who let Americans die in Benghazi and "sacrificed
American lives for politics."

Benghazi conspiracies have come to represent a vile and ugly chapter in
American politics. It's a chapter built upon hypocrisy and cynical Fox News
ethics. Journalists should keep that in mind the next time the right-wing
media launch a hollow "cover-up" crusade against a Democrat.

*CNN: “Hillary Clinton has a 49-point lead in New Hampshire”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/24/politics/hillary-clinton-new-hampshire/>*

By Dan Merica

November 24, 2014, 11:36 a.m. EST

New Hampshire remains Clinton country.

Sixty-two percent of Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire say that if
the primary were held today, Hillary Clinton, the prohibitive favorite for
the Democrats' 2016 presidential nomination, would be their top choice,
according to a Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm College poll released Monday.

The number is a whopping 49 percentage points higher than second-place
finisher Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Independent Sen. Bernie
Sanders of Vermont finishes in third with 6% and Vice President Joe Biden
finishes in fourth with 5%.

Although Clinton has not declared her second run at the presidency, the
former secretary of state has admitted she is considering a run and many
close aides see a campaign as all-but-certain at this point.

New Hampshire has always been welcome ground for the Clinton family. Bill
Clinton's surprising second place finish in the 1992 primary provided his
campaign with a symbolic victory and re-energized the Arkansas governor as
"The Comeback Kid." Likewise, in 2008, after finishing a disappointing
third in the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton used her New Hampshire primary
win to right her campaign.

Despite her huge lead, even Clinton's most ardent New Hampshire supporters
have cautioned her to not take the Granite State as already in the bag.

"Inevitability is not a message, it is not something you can run on. And in
New Hampshire, we have a long history of (frontrunner) train wrecks," Terry
Shumaker, the 2008 co-chair of Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign,
said last week during a meeting of pro-Clinton Democrats.

Shumaker, a longtime Clinton supporter who was with Bill Clinton when he
filed his presidential bid papers in 1991, added: "As I caution all
presidential candidates in New Hampshire, taking New Hampshire for granted
is very dangerous. Last time I believe Hillary Clinton had an almost
30-point lead in the polls in our state in the summer and that lead melted
like an ice sculpture on the mall in Washington in July."

Monday's poll, however, is not all good news for Clinton.

In a 2016 general election matchup between Clinton and Mitt Romney, the
failed 2012 Republican nominee, Clinton's one point lead is within the
polls margin of error. When matched up against Jeb Bush, the former
Republican governor, or Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky, Clinton
enjoyed a 8 and 7 point lead, respectively.

*Bloomberg: “Hillary Clinton's Army Has Way Too Many Chicken Littles”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-24/hillary-clintons-army-has-way-too-many-chicken-littles>*

By David Weigel

November 24, 2014, 12:39 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Clinton's supporters talk down polling numbers that show her
with a strong lead in Democratic primaries.

The restless, roving hordes of Hillary Clinton 2016 supporters met in New
York City this past weekend, and one striking revelation from the coverage
is how worried Clintonworld is about blowing the primary again. While the
Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm poll was finding a historic 49-point lead
for Clinton in New Hampshire,  Terry Shumaker, a co-chair of Clinton's 2008
campaign there, was speculating about how the lead could wane.

"Taking New Hampshire for granted is very dangerous," Shumaker told CNN's
Dan Merica. "Last time I believe Hillary Clinton had an almost 30-point
lead in the polls in our state in the summer and that lead melted like an
ice sculpture on the mall in Washington in July."

Here, the word "almost" is asked to do some World's Strongest Man
dead-lifting. Clinton never enjoyed a 30-point lead in New Hampshire
polling. At this point in the 2008 cycle—i.e., December 2006—the few
pollsters measuring the Granite State found Clinton deadlocked with Barack
Obama. The closest Clinton came to an "almost 30-point lead" was in
September 2007, when a CNN/WMUR poll put her 23 points over Obama and the
field. You can't even round that to 30.

It gets worse for the (minority of) Democrats who want to replace Clinton.
In 2008, the last-minute Barack Obama wave that almost engulfed New
Hampshire started when the Illinois senator won the Iowa caucuses.
Clinton's advantage in Iowa is currently around 48 points, in the
RealClearPolitics average. She's stronger there, relative to her 2008
showing, than she is in New Hampshire.

What hope is there for the would-be upsetters? Well: On Friday, the
decade-old Democratic group Democracy for America released the results of a
"Presidential Pulse Poll" on 2016. DFA, built from the girders of Howard
Dean's 2004 campaign, opened up a web survey to its membership, sending
several emails that directed them to the website where they could vote and
maybe stick around to donate money. They got three emails, making "the
case" for various candidates. From the one promoting Hillary Clinton:

“Of course, when it comes to the income inequality crisis -- the most
significant issue facing Americans today -- it’s easy to criticize Hillary
Clinton for her close relationship with Wall Street. As the Senator from
New York, she often came down on the side of corporate America, calling
NAFTA ‘good for New York State and America’ and advocating for the
job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal while in the Obama
Administration.

“But, let’s be clear, her track record isn’t that simple. She also has a
long history of fighting for working families and the middle class. Her
first job out of law school was at the Children's Defense Fund and her work
on rural health care as the first lady of Arkansas helped get thousands of
kids and working parents coverage they could afford.”

From the one promoting Elizabeth Warren:

“If she ran for president, Elizabeth Warren could build a case for why
government is a good thing that actually resonates with people. That's
something Democrats need to talk about, and she does it better than anyone.

“Because of the life she's lived, Warren can talk frankly and personally
about issues many other Democrats can't -- things like class and misfortune
and the role government and community have in making each individual's
success possible.

“Elizabeth Warren already has most of the things a successful national
candidate needs: press interest, loyal supporters, and a donor list a mile
long.”

Of 1 million total DFA members, 164,733 of them voted. The result of this
self-selected and unscientific sample, with no focus on any particular
primary state: Elizabeth Warren at 42 percent, Bernie Sanders at 24
percent, and Hillary Clinton at just 23 percent. The news that Warren had
beaten Clinton in a poll conducted via emails that promoted Warren over
Clinton did not make it into most write-ups of the results. From the press
to the campaigns, no one really wants to believe that Clinton is as strong
a primary candidate as the polls insist she is.

*MSNBC: “Obama’s ‘new car smell’ problem”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-new-car-smell-problem-hillary-clinton>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

November 24, 2014, 1:10 p.m. EST

President Obama’s honesty may have just proven politically damaging for his
party.

Asked about the race to replace him in 2016, the president said Sunday that
he’ll probably stay on the sidelines and not campaign much for whomever is
the Democratic nominee, because the American people want, “you know, that
new car smell.”

“They want to drive something off the lot that doesn’t have as much mileage
as me,” Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Analytically speaking, Obama was almost certainly right. Voters hardly ever
elect a president of the same party of a president who just served two
terms. And the last time that happened, in 1988, voters threw out President
George H.W. Bush after only one term.

But while accurate, Obama’s self-deprecating (if even passive-aggressive)
joke about how Democrats are running away from him has the unfortunate
consequence of highlighting perhaps the biggest weakness of his most likely
Democratic successor, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has one of the longest resumes of any presidential contender in
memory, which is both a strength, and a liability. As Obama himself knows
from using this playbook to beat Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary,
she’s vulnerable to charges that she’s been around Washington too long and
should be sidelined by a fresher face. In other words, that she doesn’t
have “the new car smell” that, say, a young upstart Illinois senator had.

Obama’s comments were almost certainly not intended as a swipe at Clinton,
but Republicans pounced on them nonetheless, hoping to solidify the
interpretation that the president was criticizing Clinton.

The Republican National Committee sent out not one but two emails to
reporters highlighting the clip. If voters want a fresh candidate, RNC
Raffi WIlliams spokesperson said, “I guess that disqualifies all the
leading Democratic contenders.”

Party Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted, “Obama admits that Hillary’s bid to
be his third term isn’t the freshest concept.”

America Rising, the opposition research super PAC that has been slinging
dirt at Clinton for months, noted that Clinton was “criticized by Obama in
2008 as being part of the politics of the past,” the group wrote.

“It’s not just a matter of age,” Washington Examiner columnist Byron York
wrote of Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden. “The two will also have been
on the national political stage for an enormous length of time… New,
they’re not.”

In context, it seems Obama meant no harm to Clinton – whom he called a
friend and a potential “great president” – but was rather making a joke at
his own expense. “I am very interested in making sure that I’ve got a
Democratic successor,” he said.

But of all people, Obama should know by that now that his opponents will
find the least charitable meaning of his words if he’s not absolutely clear
about his intentions.

Ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, when every Democrat was running from
the president, it seemed he couldn’t help but insert himself in an election
that everyone in his party wanted to stay away from. “[My] policies are on
the ballot,” Obama said in a speech in early October, when ended up in GOP
campaign ads and earned a wince from a longtime adviser, David Axelrod.

2016 will be likely be very similar. As Obama himself acknowledged in the
interview, the Democratic nominee will have to distance themselves from the
unpopular president both for political reasons and because they’ll have
genuine policy disagreements. But his comments Sunday “didn’t do Hillary
Clinton any favors,” as NBC’s Mark Murray writes.

In both the 2014 and 2016 comments, Obama seemed to be expressing
displeasure about being sidelined by his own party. But both times hw ended
up causing only more headaches for Democrats, thus perhaps making them to
want to sideline him even more. This could be a problematic virtuous cycle
in next presidential election, where Obama will be sensitive about
preserving his legacy.

The question is whether the president and his protective team will allow
Clinton or whoever wins the nomination to do what they need to do to win,
or if they’ll undermine the nominee by reminding voters of their connection
to Obama. After Clinton criticized the president in an interview this
summer, there was a brief spat between the two camps.

It’s another example of the complicated dance Clinton and Obama will have
to do heading into 2016. At a gathering of Clinton allies in New York
Friday, they acknowledged the delicacy of being pegged as Obama’s third
term. “If she decides to run, she should not run as a third Bill Clinton
term, nor a third Barack Obama term. She should run as Hillary Clinton,”
said former Clinton political director Craig Smith, a senior advisor to
pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary.

“I’m going do everything I can, obviously, to make sure that whoever the
nominee is is successful,” Obama told Stephanopoulos. The problem is that
might mean not doing much.

*Washington Examiner: “Mark Halperin: Hillary Democrats' 'only hope' for
2016”
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mark-halperin-hillary-democrats-only-hope-for-2016/article/2556585?custom_click=rss>*

By Eddie Scarry

November 24, 2014, 4:04 a.m. EST

Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics said Monday that former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party’s only shot for winning the
White House in 2016.

“She’s their only hope,” Halperin said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” He added
that Democrats currently have no other candidates “projecting national
leadership.”

Halperin, co-author of the political insider books Game Change and Double
Down, said, “Democrats are just betting on her because they have no other
choices."

Clinton is not an officially declared candidate for 2016, but she is widely
believed to be a contender and her national approval numbers are typically
higher than other Democrats. She has said she will make her decision public
on whether to make a second presidential run close to the new year.

For Republicans, the field of would-be candidates is considerably more
diverse and has no clear favorite. Included are Sens. Rand Paul of
Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, as well as
governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Mike
Pence of Indiana.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and
former Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson are also considering
bids.

*Harper’s Magazine blog: Publisher’s Note: “The New York Times tries to
marginalize the left”
<http://harpers.org/blog/2014/11/the-new-york-times-tries-to-marginalize-the-left/>*

By John R. MacArthur

November 20, 2014, 7:25 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] “Nowhere did the Times define ‘the left’ or what might excite
its opposition to Clinton. Our imaginations are allowed to run wild: Is
‘the left’ a terrorist organization? A part of the outfield? Or is it just
not worth mentioning?”

Among the several depressing outcomes of the midterm elections, perhaps the
saddest has been the media establishment’s refusal to draw conclusions that
run counter to the ones promoted by self-interested politicians.

A typical media “analysis” was provided by The New York Times, which almost
immediately started promoting the inevitability of Hillary Clinton’s
nomination as the next Democratic candidate for president. “Midterms, for
Clinton Team, Aren’t All Gloom” declared its front-page headline on Nov. 7.
According to the paper’s reporter, Amy Chozick, the misfortune of President
Obama and Senate Majority (soon-to-be-Minority) Leader Harry Reid (D.,
Nev.) equaled good news for Mrs. Clinton and her “advisers,” among whom “a
consensus formed … that it is time to accelerate her schedule.” This move
toward a more rapid coronation was due to “pressure” on the former First
Lady “to resurrect the Democratic Party,” since Mrs. Clinton is “already
being scrutinized as the party’s presumptive nominee.”

Some, if not all, of the assumptions underlying the Times story can easily
be challenged. With a Democrat still in the White House and only a narrow
Republican majority in the Senate, the word “resurrect” seems a bit
hyperbolic. And couldn’t one reasonably conclude that the abysmally low
voter turnout was a sign of bipartisan dissatisfaction? Up to this point,
Chozick and her editors were basing their thesis on the statements of
“several advisers” who “insisted on anonymity,” and quoting even anonymous
advisers at least suggests an effort by the journalist to do some
interviews.

Two paragraphs later, however, the Times dropped any pretense of fair and
balanced reporting by presenting the institutional voice of people who have
very little interest in journalism, or, for that matter, democracy: “In
many ways,” quoth the Times, “Tuesday’s election results clear a path for
Mrs. Clinton. The lopsided outcome and conservative tilt makes it less
likely she would face an insurgent challenger from the left.”

On what information was this opinion based? We might conclude that Chozick
is just lazy. Or we can speculate that it reflects the preference of
Chozick’s editors for a Clinton candidacy. But whatever the motivation, the
assertion that Hillary’s path is clear was pulled out of the air.

Chozick evidently couldn’t be bothered to call anyone identified with “the
left.” She did mention an additional “silver lining” for the Clinton
campaign: the “diminished … likelihood that former Gov. Martin O’Malley,
another Democrat, would emerge as a serious primary challenge to Mrs.
Clinton.” But, again, it doesn’t appear that Chozick tried to call O’Malley
or his “advisers.” Nor, apparently, did she attempt to contact former Sen.
Jim Webb (D., Va.), or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), both of whom are
contemplating challenges to Clinton from this mysterious region that sits
to the west when one is facing north. Mysterious because nowhere did the
Times define “the left” or what might excite its opposition to Clinton. Our
imaginations are allowed to run wild: Is “the left” a terrorist
organization? A part of the outfield? Or is it just not worth mentioning?

I favor the latter explanation, since the Times so often exhibits contempt
for leftists and their insistence on alternative narratives to the one the
paper likes to peddle. Given that the voice of the left in America is
rarely heard in the corridors of power, the Times doesn’t feel it’s
important to report on it.

The Times only pays lip service to the left, mostly through its star
columnist Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist who often sounds
like a leftist compared with the other Times editorial and op-ed writers.
But Krugman appears to be a highly reluctant leftist—so reluctant that
before the midterm elections he wrote a cover story for Rolling Stone
defending Barack Obama against leftist critics who think the President’s
agenda has favored the rich and the powerful: “They’re outraged that Wall
Street hasn’t been punished, that income inequality remains so high, that
‘neoliberal’ economic policies are still in place. All of this seems to
rest on the belief that if only Obama had put his eloquence behind a
radical economic agenda, he could somehow have gotten that agenda past all
the political barriers that have constrained even his much more modest
efforts. It’s hard to take such claims seriously.”

Is Krugman serious? Obama’s efforts were so modest that he failed to
propose even a small increase in the minimum wage during his first term,
the initial two years of which were presided over by big Democratic
majorities in both houses of Congress. Nor did he back restoration of the
Glass–Steagall Act—a relatively tame New Deal law whose reinstitution now
has the tripartisan support of senators John McCain (R., Ariz.), Angus King
(I., Maine), Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), and Maria Cantwell (D.,
Wash.)—or price controls on prescription drugs, or a reform of job-killing,
Clinton-sponsored North American Free Trade Agreement (as he pledged during
the 2008 campaign). He did manage to push through Obamacare, the Romneycare
knockoff that has reinforced the power of rapacious health-insurance
companies and caused many employers to cut full-time workers to part-time.

Had a couple of modestly popular “left” initiatives passed the 111th
Congress, the House might not have changed hands in 2010, or the Senate in
2014. Tens of millions of financially beleaguered people—right, center and
left—could have expressed their gratitude by voting Democrat. As for
Roosevelt in 1940, they might even be clamoring for an Obama third term.
And we wouldn’t have to swallow The New York Times/Paul Krugman claptrap
take on politics.

*Politico blog: Dylan Byers on Media: “Harper's vs. The N.Y. Times, and
Hillary”
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/11/harpers-vs-the-ny-times-and-hillary-199193.html>*

By Dylan Byers

November 24, 2014, 12:06 p.m. EST

Harper's Magazine president John R. MacArthur has accused The New York
Times of trying to marginalize the left by "promoting the inevitability of
Hillary Clinton’s nomination" in 2016:

“Nowhere did the Times define ‘the left’ or what might excite its
opposition to Clinton. Our imaginations are allowed to run wild: Is ‘the
left’ a terrorist organization? A part of the outfield? Or is it just not
worth mentioning? ... The Times so often exhibits contempt for leftists and
their insistence on alternative narratives to the one the paper likes to
peddle. Given that the voice of the left in America is rarely heard in the
corridors of power, the Times doesn’t feel it’s important to report on it.”

Obviously not the incoming the Times is used to dealing with. But
MacArthur's piece signals a growing disenchantment on the left with the
Paper of Record. It also provides further evidence that the progressive
media will be aggressive in promoting an alternative to Hillary, something
my colleagues Maggie Haberman and Hadas Gold reported on earlier this month:

“Absent a strong challenge to Clinton from the left so far, progressive
media outlets are trying to fill the void — propping up [Elizabeth] Warren
... Jim Webb ... and [Martin] O’Malley, the only one laying any groundwork
toward a run. Even Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who styles himself a
‘Democratic socialist,’ is getting some play in an effort to avoid a
coronation. ...

“The anti-Clinton drumbeat in progressive outlets picked up quickly as soon
as the midterms were over. ... The Nation, which has been flexing muscle
after a wave of economic populism swept over the Democratic Party, has been
beating the drums for a Clinton challenger for months. At times, The New
Republic has chimed in about Clinton’s weaknesses. And in October, Harper’s
Magazine ran a piece by far-left writer Doug Henwood that ripped Clinton as
a hawkish centrist out of step with the spirit of the times.”

There's reason to believe that, once the progressive media rallies around
one alternative, the mainstream media will take over -- if only for the
sake of drama. For more on that, see Ryan Lizza's recent piece in The New
Yorker:

“In every fight for the Democratic Presidential nomination in the past five
decades, there has come a moment when the front-runner faltered. ‘Nature
abhors a vacuum, and so does politics,’ Anita Dunn, a Democratic
strategist, told me. Voters in the early states, perhaps spurred by a sense
of civic responsibility, begin to take an interest in candidates they had
previously never heard of. Those candidates seize on issues, usually ones
that excite the left, that the front-runner, focussed on the general
election, has been too timid to champion. The press, invested in political
drama, declares that the front-runner is vulnerable.”

Bookmark that for later.

*Fox News: “Could Jim Webb give Hillary Clinton a run for her money in
2016?”
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/24/could-senator-jim-webb-give-hillary-run-for-her-money-in-2016/>*

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

November 24, 2014

WASHINGTON –  Does Jim Webb have what it takes to give Hillary Clinton a
run for her money?

Webb thinks he does, and he fired his first salvo against her last week,
announcing in a video on  new campaign website that he had formed an
exploratory committee as the first step in a possible 2016 run for the
White House.

Without mentioning Clinton by name, the former Democratic senator from
Virginia stated bluntly that government is “paralyzed” and that he wants to
help — not as a “career politician,” but as a public servant — to
“re-establish a transparent, functioning governmental system in our
country.”

“In my view the solutions are not simply political, but those of
leadership,” Webb said. “I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam
that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership.”

“Obviously he is an incredible long shot,” said Terry Madonna, who directs
the Franklin and Marshall College Poll in Pennsylvania. “But as sort of a
moderate, more so a centrist, he will obviously have an appeal within the
Democratic Party.”

Plus, Madonna said, “There are apparently some Democrats who are not
willing to cede the nomination to [Clinton]. Conceivably she could have a
real battle on her hands for the nomination by people who are saying, no,
you are not just rolling away the nomination, it’s not necessarily yours.”

A Marine Corps veteran, Webb, 68, earned two Purple Hearts, the Navy Cross,
a Silver Star and two Bronze Stars in Vietnam. He is considered a blunt,
independent-minded Democrat who is conservative on issues like gun rights,
immigration and the military. But he is cautious on the use of military
force overseas and he wields more of a progressive — if not populist —
message on prison reform, income equality and reducing poverty.

He received a law degree at Georgetown University after Vietnam and
authored several critically acclaimed war novels before serving as
secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan in 1987-88, a position
he resigned from in protest of budget cuts. He was elected to the U.S.
Senate as a Democrat in 2006, unseating Republican George Allen by less
than 1 percent of the vote.

“As a veteran and now somewhat of a ‘blue dog’ Democrat, he has the street
cred and experience to bring swing voters to the table, especially in the
conservative South,” said Donna Lorraine Barlett, a retired Army judge
advocate general who lives in Georgia.

Webb was at the forefront in passing the sweeping reform of the GI Bill in
2008, and veterans consider him a champion of their issues. Coming from a
“family of citizen soldiers,” he spoke strongly against the Iraq War before
it was fashionable to do so — and while his own son was fighting with the
Marines in Ramadi.

During a White House party for freshmen senators shortly after his
election, Web refused to have his picture taken with President George W.
Bush, who sought him out to ask, “How’s your boy, Jim?”

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq,” Webb said.

Bush would not be deterred. “That’s not what I asked you — How’s your boy?”

Webb snapped back: “Mr. President, that’s between me and my boy.”

He and Bush have since buried the hatchet, but that vignette pretty much
encapsulates the “what you see is what you get” persona that Webb’s
supporters find so appealing.

“He’s fearless, he doesn’t cover it up or pretend to be one way or
another,” said Larry Korb, senior national security fellow at the
Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress.

During an interview with the American Enterprise Institute in 1997, Webb
said of President Bill Clinton: “I cannot conjure up an ounce of respect
for Bill Clinton when it comes to the military. Every time I see him salute
a Marine, it infuriates me. I don’t think Bill Clinton cares one iota about
what happens in a military unit.”

But there apparently were no hard feelings, because Clinton actively
supported Webb in 2006.

“I see him as a basic, old-fashioned conservative in the mold of Eisenhower
and Reagan who is able to talk and act across the aisle,” said Phil
Giraldi, a Vietnam veteran and libertarian who volunteered on Webb’s Senate
campaign in Virginia.

Korb, who worked with Webb in the Reagan Pentagon, said Webb would insulate
Democrats against the inevitable “soft on defense” attacks. “It would be so
good to get a real veteran in the White House,” he added. “You don’t have
to go to war to understand it, but it doesn’t hurt.”

During his 2006 Senate campaign, Webb was pummeled with attacks over the
risqué and taboo subject matter covered in his novels and his position
against having women in combat roles in the military. These issues are
likely to resurface with any run for president, observers say.

And where Webb’s strength is in his toughness, his rigid exterior has often
been mistaken for aloofness and a lack of charisma — “the antithesis of a
rock star,” said one Democratic political consultant who asked not to be
identified.

But Webb’s greatest challenge may be going up against Clinton’s legendary
political network.

“Where is [Webb’s] organization? Madonna said. “When you start these things
in Iowa, it is large, it’s grueling, it’s expensive — you need a campaign
organization.

“At this point in time, the money she has amassed, the infrastructure, the
support … you would have to say she is the odds-on favorite. But don’t
count Jim Webb out. He’s been down before.”