I wanted to let you know that next week I’m launching my own weekly podcast. It will be made up primarily of interviews and mainly about politics, except when it’s not. In other words, like the Editor’s Blog itself. As regular readers know, my real interest outside of this political journalism racket is history. Not the stuff I studied in graduate school and virtually never contemporary or recent history history but history from a least a couple centuries in the past.
The podcast will be for subscribers only. But we’ll have a highlights version that will be available for everyone. So if there’s some particular quote or exchange that’s especially newsy or interesting we’ll include it there.
We’ve had a number of looks recently at how The New York Times appears to be revisiting its ‘whitewater’ glory days with its increasingly parodic coverage of the “Clinton Foundation” – I’m adding scare quotes to match the dramatic effect, even though of course the Clinton Foundation is a named legal entity. Beyond the ‘clouds’ and ‘shadows’ TPM Reader AR flagged to our attention, as Paul Glastris explains here, the latest installment from the Times explains how Bill Clinton’s request for diplomatic passports for aides accompanying him on a mission to secure the release of two US journalists held captive in North Korea constitutes the latest damning revelations about the corrupt ties between the Foundation and the Clinton State Department.
The Times uniquely, though only as a leading example for the rest of the national press, has a decades’ long history of being lead around by rightwing opposition researchers into dead ends which amount to journalistic comedy – especially when it comes to the Clintons. But here, while all this is happening we have a real live specimen example of direct political and prosecutorial corruption, misuse of a 501c3 nonprofit and various efforts to conceal this corruption and the underlying corruption of Trump’s ‘Trump University’ real estate seminar scam. It’s all there – lightly reported here and there – but largely ignored.
This is an important piece on the increasingly nonsensical coverage of the Clinton Foundation. It’s starting to echo of all the worst nonsense of the 90s, particularly the latest ‘scandal’ that Bill Clinton sought diplomatic passports for aides who were accompanying him on a mission to North Korea to secure the release of two captive US journalists.
I want to send out a big thanks to our many new members. We’re now six weeks into our annual membership drive. In August, we signed up 1213 new members. So far today we’ve signed up 43 new members. Thanks much. And if you have a moment now, please join us. You’ll be glad you did.
TPM AR writes in to alert us that the Times obsession with “clouds” and “shadows” swirling around Hillary Clinton continues in their latest hit.
Even now, after all that’s happened, most political reporters find themselves either unwilling or unable to identify Donald Trump’s tirades as hate speech. But they fit the textbook definition, inasmuch as it’s even a useful concept. The New York Times is on the receiving end of a storm of criticism at the moment for their botched story on Trump’s whirlwind Wednesday from Mexico City to Phoenix. And they deserve it. But the offense is mainly one of laziness and sloppiness – offenses which the Times’ privileged position makes it again and again vulnerable to. You write the story about the arc of the day, file it to edit and production. But while the piece is on autopilot in those later stages of the journalistic process the reality of the day changes radically and you end up publishing a story that is night and day of the reality everybody has just seen. But this embarrassment is a pedestrian stumble. The far greater offense is the one almost every news organization committed with the Times. This isn’t ‘tough’ or ‘hard edged’ speechifying. This is hate speech.
Just a reminder before the long holiday weekend and the sludgefest of the fall campaign, we want you to sign up for TPM Prime, become a member. It’s a big part of the future of this site and news organization and I promise you’ll be happy you did. Just click right here. And thanks.
You’ve likely seen news that Donald Trump has hired David Bossie as his Deputy Campaign Manager. The good news for Democrats on this front is that it’s not clear to me that Bossie has any real experience running campaigns or winning elections, certainly not at the presidential level. What he is is a career ‘investigator’ of the Clintons who’s been the promoter of most of the ugliest, most surreal and unhinged Clinton conspiracy theories. He also has a decent historical role as the head of the plaintiff organization in the Citizens United case. The actual group Citizens United is his group. That was his lawsuit.
Mexican President again contradicts Trump in escalating Twitter spat. “I repeat what I said to you personally, Mr Trump: Mexico never would pay for a wall.”
I thought it’d be helpful to compile a timeline of the last 10 days of build-up to the big Trump immigration speech that was supposedly going to represent a break from his past demagoguing on this issue. Yes, you should have been skeptical all along that much was going to change, or that any change would be more than window dressing. But there was ample evidence from Trump himself and his aides that some sort of shift was afoot. It wasn’t just media hype or cluelessness. What emerges from the timeline is how utterly unmoored and erratic Trump and his campaign are. Nothing captured that quite like the day and night contrast between Mexico City yesterday afternoon and Phoenix last night. But the timeline shows that’s consistent with the same erratic dance Team Trump has been performing for a week and a half. Take a look.