When the Clintons are back in the White House and it turns out they’ve kept outsourcing torture to friendly dictators through the CIA, as Bush is doing now and as Bill Clinton did before him, I fully expect to hear the same excuses coming from Markos Moulitsas that we currently hear from the knuckle-draggers at Red State. At some level it’s just team jerseys with these people.

Thank you. That will be all.

Now, maybe this is “dangerous for democracy” but I think that after a couple hundred years of back and forth between papers and politicians the danger is pretty minimal. The problem with the press in the Bush years is really self censorship.

You can judge the strength of a public social and political culture by the strength of its middlebrow publications. The comments on celebrity and intellectual seriousness are silly. The clintons played Hardball and won. The refusal to understand, and then accept, that politics like all social life[!] is theater has cost the democrats too many elections.

There’s a reason the demoocratic renewal such as it is is not being led by academics.. .

HRC and WJC tell GQ: if you want Bill to appear on your cover, kill the story about Hilary’s campaign. There’s a word for that—blackmail. It doesn’t help Bill or his causes to not work with GQ unless his purpose is to punish GQ for printing unfavorable stories about his wife’s campaign. Bill is not refusing to work with GQ, he’s threatening not to work with GQ.

That said, indeed, infighting stories are not in and of themselves that interesting, but if the infighting is over policy differences, like how to approach the Iraq war or healthcare, then it is.

Is that all you’ve had to complain about the conduct of mass media? Because some of us have been horrified that they take the laziest, cheapest and most superficial line at all times. That does mean refusing to risk cozy relationships with sources, but it also means slashing the budgets for actual reporting on actual stories of political import, and replacing them with the gossip reporters collect without leaving home. Like PR sheets faxed over from other campaign HQ’s about things like “frontrunner’s campaign in disarray.” Remember, Jayson Blair was praised almost to the end for being so productive, collecting so many interesting stories from afar while filing expense claims from Brooklyn coffeeshops. You know, ‘doing more with less’.

So, if you want to draw an equivalence between GQ and the NY Times, I could be persuaded that their reporting is much of a muchness. But that ain’t praising GQ. (1) it still doesn’t make the gossip into news. (2) why not complain that GQ should have chosen the story over the interview? Surely their ethics are more in question here than Hillary’s? (Sorry to pile on, but Henry and Katherine, I’m really surprised.)

and the first sentence ends with “are comparable.”

I really don’t think you believe using leverage to try to to limit negative press coverage and voter suppression/cheating in an election.

Obviously, everyone here sees important legal and ethical lines that shouldn’t be crossed, even by those trying to win. What we’re puzzled about is why this ordinary PR act is thought to be on the wrong side of the line.

Maybe that’s it. Or maybe you just haven’t convinced us—or even offered any arguments, really—that what the Clinton campaign did was dishonorable.

If you have the power to make change, but you decline to exercise it, do you really have it at all? It’s good to see that Hillary has some power, and the will to use it.

Some people would call it “quitting.” The responsibility here belongs to the media. HRC’s responsibility is to win. She’s at least taking actions consistent with her job.

“OK, President Giuliani bombed Iran, killing hundreds of thousands, but at least Hillary Clinton didn’t twist any arms to get better coverage. My conscience is clear.”

I’d far, far rather have an asshole like LBJ who is willing to play fast and loose to pass the Civil Rights Act and Medicare, than a squeaky-clean Hubert Humphrey.

Do the ends justify the means? sure, sometimes they do.