Let Hillary Clinton roar [View all]

[MrsCoffee]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/opinions/let-hillary-clinton-roar-bordo/index.html

By Susan Bordo
Updated 3:54 PM ET, Wed September 13, 2017

(CNN)Something very strange is going on in post-mortems about the 2016 election. On the one hand, the hard evidence is piling up that a combination of factors largely outside of Hillary Clinton's control were responsible for her loss to Donald Trump. On the other hand, many apparently don't want Hillary Clinton to talk about any of that.

Every day, we hear fresh reports of the extent and insidious nature of Russian interference in the promotion of fake news stories and nasty accusations about Hillary Clinton's character -- a smear campaign that was bound to have had an effect on voters' perceptions (why else would the Russians invest so much energy and money?). But when Clinton mentions the Russians, she's accused of shuffling responsibility away from herself.

Studies by respected think tanks such as Harvard's Shorenstein Center have documented a negative bias against Clinton in ordinary news reporting. This was not "fake news" but a daily, repetitive media buzz of (often GOP-inspired) "scandals" and "suspect" activity, which always had Clinton hiding something, from her basement server to her pneumonia. And this obscured coverage of her policy speeches and core messages.

But she dare not talk about that, lest she be seen as boo-hooing about unfair treatment by the press.

-snip-

Interesting that no one criticized the authors for "looking backward" when "Shattered," a book that puts the blame squarely on Clinton and her campaign, was published. Or when Bernie Sanders, who now suggests "it's a little bit silly" to talk about the election, published his own diagnosis a week after the election. Yet on Sunday, Susan Chira, in The New York Times, called Hillary Clinton "the woman who won't go away," and as I write this, the day after publication of Clinton's new book "What Happened," the annoyed, often vicious customer reviews are piling up on Amazon.