Hillary Clinton Surrogates Threaten the Competition

Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) spoke on behalf of inchoate candidate Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press.  Granholm's defense of Hillary's record included an oblique threat against prospective Democrat candidate Governor Martin O'Malley (D-MD)

Granholm may not have been the best surrogate for Mrs. Clinton considering her record governing the Great Lake state.

But Granholm's technique is characteristic of Hillary's presidential politicking. 

Just like the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton is relying upon the inevitability argument for the nomination and the White House.  Thus no one should stand in the way of the inevitable coronation, lest they be labeled "sexist". 

The HRC Super Volunteers emailed a New York Times reporter warning the press not to use thirteen terms which are deemed "coded sexism" when applied to the former First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State.   These forbidden words include:  "polarizing," "calculating," "disingenuous," "insincere," "ambitious," "inevitable," "entitled," "over-confident," "secretive,"  and "out of touch."  

Many of these adjectives could easily be applied to many politicians.  But somehow when referring to HRC they become coded sexism. Even a female panel on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews is skeptical that all of the banned words were coded sexism.

How convenient.  Limit the lexicon of the press when referring to the chosen candidate, limit access of reporters covering the campaign and pull credentials of pesky press which are willing to publish "inconvenient truths". 

It is not happenstance that Clinton surrogates sent the cyber dead horse head to Amy Chozick.  Chozick was the journalist who had the temerity to report that the Clinton Global Initiative sent monitors to follow credentialed journalists into the bathroom as well as limiting access to real participant. 

How the Clintons' Treat Presstitutes

The First Amendment of the US Constitution is in part intended to ensure Americans of a the Freedom of the Press.  But that fundamental freedom does not ensure access when progressive politicians want to manage the message by rounding up reporters and controlling access.

New York Times reporter Amy Chozick revealed how the Clinton Global Initiative separates reporters from an event which they are supposed to cover.  Of course, the special treatment is attributed to "security".  

This monitoring went to the extend of a 20 something year old aide following Ms. Chozick into the bathroom.  Kind of sounds like North Korea, but with electricity.

Perhaps the New York Times reporter earned some extra special treatment considering the critical pieces which the "Old Grey Lady" published in 2013 about the disarray with the Clinton Foundation:

“For all of its successes, the Clinton Foundation had become a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest. It ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of money flowing in.”

Control access and effectively manage the message.  So much for "All the news that's fit to print".

The Obama Administration brags that it is "absolutely" the most transparent Administration ever.  But just because White House Spokesman Josh Earnest uttered the phrase, it ain't necessarily so. In July 2014, 38 press organizations and transparency groups sent a letter to the White House calling for  the Obama administration to end “politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies".    The plea from the press noted:

“Over the past two decades, public agencies have increasingly prohibited staff from communicating with journalists unless they go through public affairs offices or through political appointees. This trend has been especially pronounced in the federal government. We consider these restrictions a form of censorship—an attempt to control what the public is allowed to see and hear.”

Confining journalists is not just a Clinton trick. Reporters have recently been sequestered in a bedroom during an Obama fundraiser.

One unlucky journalist was made to wait in a maintenance  shed while the Golfer in Chief hit the links at the tony Robert Trent Jones Golf Course in Gainesville, Virginia.  While Houston Chronicle reporter Kevin Diaz could not see any of the drives on the golf course, he could report a motorist on I-66 give the Presidential motorcade a "lone eagle salute" to the motorcade.  And in 2011, Vice President Joe Biden's aides locked a reporter in storage closet during a fundraiser.

While these shoddy treatments of the press can be chronicled through jocund journalistic jibes on social media or short comedic reports on television morning news, this is because the perpetrators were liberals with whom the reporters generally agree.  If a Republican treated the press in such a high handed manner, no doubt the Fourth Estate would be clamoring for impeachment.

Controlling access and projecting positive optics as an easy story for prospective presstitutes.  Former Senator Hillary Rodman Clinton has been touted as one of the smartest and most accomplished women in America thus she should become President.  When I queried a die hard Hillary! supporter, I asked her to cite one concrete accomplishment from her four year tenure in the Obama Administration's Secretary of State.   This Hillary fan did not not even try to claim that Hillary's extensive travels counted as an accomplishment. When pressed, the Hillary supporter resorted to retorting that Hillary earned it by standing by her man through thick and thin.

So to reach low information voters predisposed to support a leading female candidate, it may be enough to feed presstitutes with positive stories and manage messages by controlling unfiltered access.

This might explain why the Lamestream Media ate up the Clintons' photo op at the 39th annual Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) Steak Fry but criticized President George W. Bush for posing with a fake turkey when visiting troops in Afghanistan for Thanksgiving.

[L] Ex-Sen.  Hillary Clinton (D-NY) [C] Ex- President Bill Clinton [R] Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) at Steak Fry 

Whereas, National Review's Jim Geraghty, who certainly would not get a press credential on a Hillary! campaign, presented more piquant coverage of the Iowa photo op.

“How perfectly Clintonian: ‘While a crowd of several thousand Democrats waited on a sloping, grassy field below, Mrs Clinton, her husband and Senator Harkin staged a mini-grilling of steaks for the press at a single barbecue grill in a fenced-off enclosure, framed by a handsome tree and a picnic table filled with some patient Iowans. Mrs Clinton gamely posed, pretending to grill a steak that had been pre-cooked for her"