ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITHIN: Despising the Clintons in block-long estates!

THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2014

Part 4—Anthropologist Leibovich speaks: In this morning’s Washington Post, the famous newspaper’s jihadic obsession burns on.

It’s true that Philip Rucker, the cub reporter, has been exiled to page A3 today. But on that page, he is given 1358 words, and a photograph, to extend his “Ahab watch” concerning those grotesque and obscene speaking fees, the sign of a sick society.

Today, Rucker considers the unseemly amounts Hillary Clinton has received, or will receive, for speeches at eight universities. He highlights “outrage” from student leaders about these very large fees, before semi-explaining, in paragraph 9, that these youngsters’ complaints are based on inaccurate information.

The humor is saved for paragraph 11. In a comical but familiar twist, the youngster from Yale types this:
RUCKER (7/3/14): Clinton’s six-figure campus speaking fees could become a political liability for her in the 2016 campaign given that President Obama and other Democrats have made college affordability a central plank of the party’s agenda. Student debt is a signature issue for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whom some liberals would like to see challenge Clinton in a primary. It is also something Clinton has talked about.
“Clinton’s speaking fees could become a political liability in the 2016 campaign!” As Rucker conveys this obvious fact, he fails to mention a second obvious point:

He and the Post have been working hard to make that come to pass!

This is standard insider press corps behavior, of course. We've been noting this for the past fifteen years:

When the insider press corps stages a jihad against Politician X, they will always remove themselves from the story.

They will pretend that the jihad in question is coming from the pol’s “political opponents.” Or they’ll pretend that it’s coming from nowhere! That’s the stance Rucker adopts today. Gene Robinson adopted the same familiar stance when he discussed this sudden jihad in Tuesday’s Washington Post.

Robinson framed the sudden political problem as an issue between Clinton and the voters. Because he’s paid to keep his trap shut, he failed to note the world’s most obvious fact—the role of his employers and colleagues in creating this latest jihad.

The Robinsons will never tell you the obvious truth about their own guild. As usual, career liberals are sitting in pure/perfect silence this week as this latest jihad unfolds.

They’re paid to keep their pretty traps shut. And that’s what they’re going to do!

You won’t hear about the Post’s jihad from Drum or Dionne or Chait or Maddow. If you’re the type who plays for pay, such things simply aren’t discussed—not in the case of the War Against Gore, not in the case of this jihad.

What kinds of people behave in these ways? Last year, in his best-selling book This Town, the New York Times’ Mark Leibovich provided some basic answers.

Leibovich is a long-time member of the insider press corps. He wrote for the Washington Post until 2006, at which point he moved to the Times.

In his very witty book, he behaved like an anthropologist—an anthropologist within.

To be clear, Leibovich wrote about Washington’s politicians and about Washington’s press corps. That said, he painted a familiar profile of these intertwined groups, fleshing out “the not-terribly-new assumption that This Town imposes on its actors a reflex toward devious and opportunistic behavior” (page 362).

According to David Carr,
that’s exactly the kind of conduct the late Michael Hastings saw around him when he worked for Newsweek during the run-up to war in Iraq. In our view, that devious conduct has been on display as the Post has constructed its new jihad, an amazing 29 months in advance of the next White House campaign.

What kinds of people behave in these ways? Consider a portrait Leibovich paints, near the end of This Town, about two gods of the Washington Post.

It’s December 2012. Ben Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn, are throwing a party, dubbed “The Last Party,” at their Georgetown home.

Welcome to Occupy Georgetown, the kind of preserve where magpies decide that the Clintons have too much wealth:
LEIBOVICH (page 354): As it turned out, The Last Party was not meant as any special tribute to ben, at least officially. Rather, it was meant as a play on the end of the world—which, according to the Mayan calendar, was scheduled for the next day or so...Whatever the occasion, it’s always a thrill to score the invite to Ben and Sally’s: a landmark house, once owned by Robert Todd Lincoln (Abe’s son), whose grounds occupy nearly an entire block. Portraits of Ben’s ancestors, Josiah and Lucy Bradlee, hang in the foyer, while a mingling local royalty mosey through, sipping drinks. (Is “ColinPowellJimLehrerAndreaMitchell” one word?)
As far as we know, Quinn and Bradlee have not taken part in the current jihad. We hope they never will.

This morning, the high lady Collins joins in, with an entry in one of the columns she throws together when she lacks a real column.

We’ll have to guess that the Battleship Dowd will soon open fire on Clinton’s wealth. Unless she has moved, she’ll do so from the Georgetown house our darling JFK once owned. Even there, she’s trumped by Ben and Sally, who own Tad’s block-long home.

In such wealth-drenched settings, people inclined toward “devious” conduct may find themselves reaching a Group Decision: the Clintons have too much wealth! On staff, there’s always some ambitious young fellow from Yale who’s willing to serve as top spear-chucker, once Diane Sawyer (net worth, $80 million) has expressed the guild’s heartfelt concern about the Clintons’ cash.

The celebrity press corps is drenched in wealth. For that reason, it may seem strange to see them pushing this concern about Clinton’s wealth.

Granted, these are very bad people, a point on which the anthropologists Hastings and Leibovich seem to agree. That said, why would they wage this improbable war against the Clintons?

On page 3 of his book, Leibovich may have given a partial answer. He describes the scene as the Clintons arrive at the memorial service for the late Tim Russert in June 2008.

Over a period of many years, Russert had been the most influential journalist in Washington. Right at the start of his anthropological work, Leibovich offers a strange observation:
LEIBOVICH (page 3): [T]rue to her stoic and gritty precedent, Hillary is keeping her smile affixed like hardened gum and sending out powerful “Stay away from this vehicle” vibes. Ignoring the vibes, an eager producer for MSNBC’s Countdown beelines toward her, introduces herself to the Almighty, and prepares to launch a Hail Mary “ask” about whether the senator might possibly want to come on Countdown that night.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Clinton responds to the eager producer, while the smile stays tight and she keeps right on walking. Hillary has a memorial service to attend: the memorial service of a man she and her husband plainly despised and who they believed (rightly) despised them right back.
Say what? The Clintons’ believed—believed correctly—that Tim Russert despised them?

Leibovich dropped this bombshell on page 3, the better to be completely ignored by the rest of the guild. As we noted on Tuesday, you aren’t allowed to mention the fact that very large chunks of the Washington press corps have been conducting wars against the Clintons, and against Candidate Gore, ever since the New York Times initiated its bungled, front-page Whitewater reporting in January 1992.

If you live within the guild, you aren’t supposed to say such things—it simply isn't allowed! You aren’t supposed to raise the suggestion of any such animus, certainly not at the very top of the guild’s very wealthy pig-pile.

As an anthropologist must, Leibovich revealed a raft of tribal secrets and rites. Still describing the Russert memorial service, he eventually went there again:
LEIBOVICH (page 29): Russert was a longtime Clinton nemesis dating to Russert’s former patron, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had been chairman of the Senate Finance Committee during the Clinton years. Moynihan felt slighted that the Clintons did not seek his collaboration on their ill-fated health-care bill in 1993. The Clintons always believed Russert was much tougher on Hillary than on her opponents. They are convinced Russert disliked then and were not wrong. He thought the Clintons were “phonies,” he told many people privately. And the Monica thing—in the OVAL OFFICE!!! Jesus, don’t get him started.
Is this analysis accurate? We can’t necessarily tell you.

We can tell you this—such assertions cannot be discussed! Part of the fun of the Leibovich book involved the way insider reviewers avoided these early bombshells concerning the Lion King, Russert.

You’re not allowed to discuss the possibility that the press corps’ major insiders had or have a jones against the Clintons! Meanwhile, speaking of phonies, you’re also not supposed to talk about this:
LEIBOVICH (page 20): Tim liked his seat in the corporate boardroom and his large home in Nantucket, “The House That Jack Built,” as the sign outside identified the Nantucket house—Jack being Jack Welch, the longtime CEO of NBC’s corporate parent, General Electric. Russert and Brokaw attended Ronald Reagan’s funeral as guests, and then walked outside the Washington National Cathedral to anchor the coverage for NBC.

Tim lived in the sweet spot of the big, lucrative revolving door between money, media and politics. He also died there.
Anthropologists say such things. No “journalist” will ever discuss them!

It isn’t just Maureen Dowd, living in Dear Jack’s Georgetown home. It isn’t just Bradlee and Quinn, living in Tad’s block-long estate.

It isn’t just the former crown prince of Merrywood. It isn’t just the oleaginous Sawyer, net worth $80 million.

According to Leibovich, Russert was also “liv[ing] in the sweet spot of the big, lucrative revolving door between money, media and politics.” Russert, the mayor of the insider press!

Russert's summer home on Nantucket was valued at $6.7 million, far more than what the Clintons paid for their two homes combined. If Leibovich is right, Russert jokingly called it “The House That Jack Built,” referring to the conservative Republican near-billionaire who made him rich and famous.

It was also thanks to Welch’s astounding largesse that Chris Matthews was able to buy his own Nantucket summer home for $4.4 million. That was after he waged his two-year war against Gore while seeing his salary quintupled.

Kevin Drum won’t talk about this. Dionne’s and Robinson’s lips are sealed. The children at Salon are quiet. They’re dreaming of Candidate Warren, as their hapless, unprincipled elders once dreamed of Candidate Bradley, giving us President Bush.

The guild which is thrilled to visit these homes is waging a jihad on Clinton. A cub has enlisted as top speak-chucker. Darling Rachel (salary, $7 million) won't say the first freaking word.

Neither will “The Puppy,” Chris Hayes. Lawrence O’Donnell? Don’t ask!

As good liberals, we know our own role in this tribal rite. We gulp this ridiculous Kool-Aid down, as we did in the War Against Gore.

Will Rucker make it to Ben and Sally’s? Michael Hastings’ “conniving” colleagues are fairly sure no one will ask.

Still coming: The anthropologists Fallows and White

46 comments:

  1. When did Tim Russert die?

    I guess, according to Somerby, never.

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    Replies
    1. If you really, really need to know, just go away and Google it.

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    2. Some people are irony challenged.

      For the record, Russert is apparently still directing major media coverage from the grave, six years after his death.

      But hey, Somerby has to prove he's smarter than someone. Why not a dead guy?

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    3. Thomas Friedman [Unit] type journalists are all about making the "history began yesterday" members of the public their lawful prey. Who else is going to get suckered by their tripe? That's to say nothing of the angles being played by the "this time it's different" business elite and each generation's "war, what a noble adventure" entrepreneurs who are ever found plying their schemes as on the make government officials, merchants of death, and yellow and certain other types of journalists, all of whom inevitably find themselves supported by a cast of thousands upon thousands of amateur blowhards who rely on the frequency with which they repeat slogans as evidence of their geo-political acumen.

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    4. Say what? Hillary and Bill Clinton plainly despised a guy but went to his funeral anyway?

      How come such assertions are not discussed?

      And vice versa, of course according to TDH:

      "We can tell you this—such assertions cannot be discussed! Part of the fun of the Leibovich book involved the way insider reviewers avoided these early bombshells concerning the Lion King, Russert.

      You’re not allowed to discuss the possibility that the press corps’ major insiders had or have a jones against the Clintons!" Somerby

      From review of "This Town" by Carlos Lozado, Outlook Editor of the Washington Post:

      "In “This Town,” we’re told that Chris Matthews and Matt Lauer have joked that David Gregory would rub out a few colleagues to advance his career. That Bill and Hillary Clinton are convinced that Tim Russert disliked them, and that they’re not wrong."

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/review-of-mark-leibovichs-this-town/2013/07/03/5d882b8c-de9f-11e2-b94a-452948b95ca8_story.html

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    5. Somerby will never let the mere fact of a guy's death get in the way of kicking him one more time.

      It's what Malala, Mandela and King would do.

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    6. "That Bill and Hillary Clinton are convinced that Tim Russert disliked them, and that they’re not wrong."

      He misspelled "despised". This is why you can't rely on spellcheck. Since the book review raised that point, though, i'm sure a discussion of it will begin at any moment.

      As always, Somerby only repeats old lessons that aren't learned yet.

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    7. @3:10 Too soon? Somerby describes a culture, he names names. Don't despair, we still have his award winning journalist son to help us make gosh darn common sense out of these weighty matters. Just like Pops would have done, or Big Russ for that matter.

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    8. to CMike, who are you? I am listening.

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    9. to July 5, 2014 at 2:36 AM,

      I'm someone trying to maintain a longer than five or ten year historical perspective when considering current events and the nature of particular institutions. (BTW who are you?- for the purposes of having a discussion in these threads any distinctive pseudonym would do.)

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  2. I recently engaged in a twitter spat with a media member who assured me that the meme that HRC is disconnected from the masses...comes straight from The Masses...

    Uh huh. Sheesh.

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    Replies
    1. So share. Name names as TDH would urge.

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    2. Joe Concha sounding just like Diane Sawyer and Chuck Todd.

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    3. Well, if Joe Concha says it, then all "media members" in the U.S. must certainly agree.

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    4. Oh, you don't have to take his word for it. You've seen some real heavy hitters quoted here.

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    5. Thanks for tweeting with and hanging with the real light hitters here CMc.

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  3. So Kevin Drum is definitely on Bob Somerby's shit list. Very sad.

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    Replies
    1. Considering that Drum makes his living offering insights that come from his experience and talent isn't it interesting that he's silent about the flak the media is giving HRC for doing the same?

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    2. We never noticed you being critical of those who tell commenters here they have no right to bitch about what Somerby does not cover.

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    3. Sorry you skipped out on Tuscaloosa. You must not care about the gaps. Or black kids.

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    4. Must have been an interesting exchange of e-mails last winter when Drum made mincemeat out of Somerby's "legitimate traffic study" theory.

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    5. There you go 3:12 with another in the jihad against Somerby. You failed to mention that he always acknowledged that it was bungled.

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    6. Whatever, 3:31. It does appear, however, that Drum and Somerby are no longer BFF.

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  4. I thought the controversy about Hillary's speaking fees didn't have anything to do with the fact that she was getting rich.That it had more to do with:

    1) The hypocrisy of her trying to portray herself as "just one of you" while raking in millions, through the "hard work" of a speaking tour. (As if someone who spent a great deal of their adult life as a high-level politician could ever claim to be "close to the people". Do you recall her "I haven't driven a car since 1996" remark? Most everybody now days has given up driving, as being chauffeured about at taxpayer expense is so terribly convenient , eh?)

    2) If you consider Hillary a shoo-in as the Democratic nominee in 2016, the fees paid by certain groups, Goldman,Sachs, for example, could be considered an effort at "buying influence". Not that Hillary is likely to turn on any of the Democrats' biggest donors, but it doesn't hurt to keep the people in power "buttered up", eh?

    3) These speaking fees could be considered a backdoor way of donating to her campaign without said fees being actually declared as campaign donations. Pretty sneaky way of getting around any campaign financing/reporting laws, eh? And anyone who thinks that The Clinton Foundation isn't going to be heavily involved in her campaign is deluding themselves.

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    Replies
    1. Maybe Dems can go for Elizabeth Warren. She's just a regular everyday for the people millionaire.

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    2. Why don't we just disqualify her now and be done with it. Let's look for another freshman senator with no experience and no record of demonstrated competence. Let's ignore her record of fighting for progressive values and instead slime her with innuendo and no evidence. Just cause she's a Clinton and there are some democrats who just can't abide another wildly successful President.

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    3. My memory doesn't go back that far. To which "wildly successful" Democrat President were you alluding? It certainly can't be Barack Obama. By most any metric you care to apply, he's been an abject failure. Bill Clinton perhaps? Sure, there was an economic boom during his time, but it was entirely due to the Computer Revolution rather than anything he did. And don't forget that he sowed the seeds that lead to the Financial Meltdown of 2008. Jimmy Carter? You've got to be kidding. So please, enlighten me.

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    4. It's not that Hillary is so great. It's that those taking her down are far worse.

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    5. "And don't forget that he sowed the seeds that lead to the Financial Meltdown of 2008"

      That was done by a supermajority of congress.

      This is the one single point that an irrational Clinton-hater will always bring up. It lets you spot them from miles away.

      Clinton legacy is ruined only by the fact that nobody was watching when he was president. He proved supply-side theory wrong, but we weren't looking so we had to prove it again. He proved that republicans are insane nihilists, but we weren't looking so we had to prove it again. He proved that the media is incredibly stupid, lazy, and conservative. But we weren't looking.

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    6. Does Bob expect the powerful, kiss-asses in the media to all of a sudden change their ways? Power has always attracted obsequious clowns and always will. It's seems to be so entrenched that it will never change.

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    7. They have changed, quite a bit. W scared them too. Compare Whitewater to the totally ignored huffing and puffing of "The IRS Scandal." We should make things even worse then they are.

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    8. "Sure, there was an economic boom during his time, but it was entirely due to the Computer Revolution rather than anything he did."

      Yeah, that's another thing about that evil Bill Clinton. Luckiest sunofabitch to ever occupy the oval office. Competence and political skill had nothing to do with it. You're either too stupid or too young to appreciate the rarity of having a true progressive in the white house. It certainly hasn't been so for the last 6 years.

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    9. mm mentioned "record of demonstrated competence." In my book, one demonstrates competence by not only holding high level jobs but by accomplishing big things in those jobs. That's how I judged job applicants in my working days.

      This is a very high standard. By this standard, most of the possible candidates in both parties have not demonstrated competence. In particular, Hillary had no great achievements as Senator or Secretary of State.

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  5. Bob's slow slide into senility is remarkably well self documented.

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    Replies
    1. So what brings you here if you really think that - surely there are better ways for to spend your leisure time.

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    2. I take it you agree with me then.

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    3. No! Far from it! Bob is SPOT on, as almost always!

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  6. Just a minor correction for those new to the Lincoln family. "Tad" Lincoln died in Chicago at the age of 18. He never owned a house.

    Robert Todd Lincoln grew up to be a lawyer, Secretary of War, Ambassador to England, and head of the Pullman Company. He was never known as Tad.

    The USS Lincoln is named after Abe. There is no USS Dowd.

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  7. If we are going to take Clinton's book tour as an early stage in her highly probable campaign for the Presidency (fair enough), then you have to try and distill what is really a meet and greet with a highly popular American into hard news. So a lot of very rich pop journalists will speculate over how much dough She has. Well, what are they supposed to do, talk about her terrible record in helping to continue W's disastrous campaign in Afghanistan? Can't help noticing "The Daily Howler" isn't too interested in that sort of thing.
    This post could be shortened to the following: "There are still some of The Clinton's enemies from the bad old days and they will haul out there (often strikingly dumb) grudges soon enough. A tough minded review of Mrs. Clinton's actual record? Not so much."
    We might as well wait until it really starts happening.

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    Replies
    1. It became Obama's war in 2008.

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    2. Before he was even inaugurated?

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    3. He did run on criticism of Bush for neglecting it.

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    4. He was also stuck with a quagmire W created. But my point is, the two of them (Obama and Hillary) went with the Pentagon and tried to "win." And they are answerable to that.

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