Jeff Cohen: Can Indy Media Stop the Corporate Media's Hillary Bandwagon?

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Can Indy Media Stop the Corporate Media's Hillary Bandwagon?

Prominent pundits seem ecstatic over Hillary Clinton's entry into the presidential race just days after Barack Obama's media-created candidacy became official. Media talking heads are having so much fun lately they don't seem to notice that our political system is failing to address ever-worsening problems: social, environmental, fiscal and imperial.



For the coming election season to be fact-based and reality-based instead of just power-based, independent media (online and off) will have to play a bigger role in shaping the debate and correcting the record. For example, a recent San Francisco Chronicle news report (headlined "Obama Emerges as Clinton's Rival for Dems' Left") asserted that Hillary Clinton was "widely regarded as the left's most influential voice inside the now-revered Clinton White House."

Widely regarded? Actually, progressives see Hillary Clinton as having been consistently wrong on the war and a host of other issues, especially trade. Her absurdly bureaucratic healthcare proposal in 1993 - shaped by and for big insurance companies - was a slap in the face of unions, Congress members and grassroots forces who'd built a movement for simple, nonprofit national health insurance: in effect, enhanced Medicare for All. She helped set back the cause of universal coverage for years.

And far from being "revered," many Democratic activists see the Clinton era as one of decline in which Democrats lost their strong majorities in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governorships and state legislatures. It's simple math .

more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/can-indy-media-stop-the-c_b_39304.html

[dsc]

1. Just how deluded does one have to be to think the media promotes Hillary Clinton

I have no idea if I am going to vote for her or not, but if anyone can watch the current media and think they are cheerleading for Hillary Clinton they are totally deluded.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

2. deluded/ hardly

have you seen the fawning covers of the ny papers?
did watch the sunday shows?
they're already limiting coverage of the race to obama/hillary a year before the primaries. they're picking the nominee before the others have even announced.

they're building her up-quite possibly to turn on her when she gets the nom.
or maybe they want her. she is, after all, a corporate stooge

[dsc]

3. I watched two early morning interviews today of Hillary surrogates

In both cases we had several questions about her marriage, Monica, her supposed unelectability, and her being cold. Neither interview included polls showing her leading (except when mentioned by her surrogate), any policy position of hers (except when mentioned by her surrogate), or any aspect of her Senate career (except when mentioned by her surrogate).

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Er

.. this particular Newsweek cover is more than a month old

[Hun Joro]

7. Every CSM reference I see calls her the frontrunner...

If that isn't promoting her, I don't know what it is.

[dsc]

9. like it or not she is

Should the press lie and say she isn't the frontrunner? Sometimes facts have a bias you don't like.

[AbbyR]

4. I think the question is "How do we stop it?"

I'm am serious - is there any way we can stop the media from deciding who the Democratic candidate is, and then tearing said candidate to shreds? I don't want a Democrat to get the free ride that Bush got. No candidate should have that. But we must find a way to stop the media from deciding what the issues are and who the candidates will be. And we have to stop them from allowing and condoning the swiftboating of any candidates, no matter what their party. Surely I'm not the only reporter who really likes to find the truth and print it.

Any ideas? Please?

[Tom Joad]

6. We can stop it. We can stop the prowar machine of ms. clinton.

There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all. - mario savio

The machine that is the Hillary Clinton campaign will be stopped by women and men of goodwill, those who choose peace over war.

[cui bono]

8. Let's hope. nt

[KharmaTrain]

10. Is The Election Next Week?

Yep, those "pundits" are ecstatic over Hillary cause they've been storing up so much bile and ridicule to throw at her. It's been their wet dream since before the 2000 election...and so they can build her up to bring her down...and re-use all that old Clinton crap since its far easier to make shit up and spread lies than to deal with facts and reality.

According to my calendar the first primary is still over a year away and the '08 elections are 17 months off. That's an eternity in both politics and the corporate media world. As my late father would call this..."it's all mental masturbation" going on.

I get the feeling anyone who takes these morons seriously will suffer from Hillary and Obama fatigue...if they haven't already.

Of course the right wing couldn't be happier with Hillary running. They've had this cartoon image of her that has generated millions in campaign and PAC contributions. She's been the meal ticket to goons like Jonah Goldberg and others who are still fighting the '92 election.

Find me a politician...any one...and I can easily find fault with them. I want to hear what these people's visions of the future is and how they're going to accomplish it. Everything else is pure white noise that is ignored.