Jill Abramson: This may shock you - Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest

[RavenSky]

I would be “dead rich”, to adapt an infamous Clinton phrase, if I could bill for all the hours I’ve spent covering just about every “scandal” that has enveloped the Clintons. As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising.

Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.

As for her statements on issues, Politifact, a Pulitzer prize-winning fact-checking organization, gives Clinton the best truth-telling record of any of the 2016 presidential candidates. She beats Sanders and Kasich and crushes Cruz and Trump, who has the biggest “pants on fire” rating and has told whoppers about basic economics that are embarrassing for anyone aiming to be president. (He falsely claimed GDP has dropped the last two quarters and claimed the national unemployment rate was as high as 35%).

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ary-clinton-honest-transparency-jill-abramson

Interesting article

 

[SimpleDon]

As for her statements on issues, Politifact, a Pulitzer prize-winning fact-checking organization, gives Clinton the best truth-telling record of any of the 2016 presidential candidates. She beats Sanders and Kasich and crushes Cruz and Trump, who has the biggest “pants on fire” rating and has told whoppers about basic economics that are embarrassing for anyone aiming to be president. (He falsely claimed GDP has dropped the last two quarters and claimed the national unemployment rate was as high as 35%).

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ary-clinton-honest-transparency-jill-abramson

Interesting article

Yes, it is. I was for a long time a daily reader of what must be one of the first and still probably one of the most dedicated and diligently maintained single person political blogs, the Daily Howler. He is and has been a Clinton supporter for twenty five years. His main target isn't Clinton's many haters it is the media that gleefully reports all of the hate and lies directed at her as if it might be credible. His favorite target is the New York Times and Maureen Dowd, now that the Times dumped Bill Kristol.

He also has a special interest in education and bullsh*t claims that the education system in the US is unraveling, that students aren't achieving what students in the past achieved, that test scores are dropping, they aren't, or that the tests are "dumbed down" to make teachers look better, they haven't been. All because the teachers are, gasp, in unions.

Today's post is

Part 3—The guild must be disappeared: Why do so many people hate Hillary Clinton so much?

 

[RavenSky]

Thanks for the link!

 

[GenesisNemesis]

There's just as much hate for Hillary as there is for Obama, except for the racist people obviously. I think it comes down to "conservatives hate liberals" for the most part.

 

[RavenSky]

except it isn't just conservatives saying it

 

[Ford]

except it isn't just conservatives saying it

And that's the neat trick that's been pulled off.

Twenty-plus years of messaging has turned "Hillary is dishonest" from a right wing political talking point to something that is taken as established fact by not just the right, but the "mainstream media" and a significant portion of the left.

News outlets across the spectrum dutifully report that Clinton is untrustworthy. Pundits begin with "given that Hillary has a trustworthiness problem" and lo and behold polls find that people (who have been informed of Clinton's dishonesty as if it were fact for the last couple decades) express the opinion that she can't be trusted.

Does she dissemble when asked direct questions? No more than any other politician. Does she shift or even outright flip on policy? No more than any other politician. Has she done irresponsible or even underhanded things? No more than any other politician.

Yet the phrases "career criminal" and "crooked Hillary" are thrown about on a regular basis with everyone nodding their heads in agreement despite the fact that Clinton hasn't had so much as a parking ticket or overdue library book.


Is she "fundamentally honest" as the OP link says? I wouldn't go that far, but the image of her as fundamentally dishonest is something entirely artificial. The result of a long and diligent marketing campaign that has been so successful that even Democrats have begun to believe and even spread the message.

 

[blastula]

Yes, it is. I was for a long time a daily reader of what must be one of the first and still probably one of the most dedicated and diligently maintained single person political blogs, the Daily Howler. He is and has been a Clinton supporter for twenty five years. His main target isn't Clinton's many haters it is the media that gleefully reports all of the hate and lies directed at her as if it might be credible. His favorite target is the New York Times and Maureen Dowd, now that the Times dumped Bill Kristol.

He also has a special interest in education and bullsh*t claims that the education system in the US is unraveling, that students aren't achieving what students in the past achieved, that test scores are dropping, they aren't, or that the tests are "dumbed down" to make teachers look better, they haven't been. All because the teachers are, gasp, in unions.

Today's post is

Part 3—The guild must be disappeared: Why do so many people hate Hillary Clinton so much?

Somerby is a force of nature.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We are seeing the Republican strategy at work--tell a lie often enough and many will believe it.

 

[Selsaral]

AM radio and other right-wing media have twisted every single issue into a "OMG EXECUTE HER" reaction. All the while they whine about left-wing media.

 

[Shadowy Man]

We are seeing the Republican strategy at work--tell a lie often enough and many will believe it.

Didn't someone in the Trump campaign say the following?

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Or maybe it was a different campaign... I don't recall.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I find myself objecting to the thread title.

It's not that she's fundamentally honest, it's that she's not a pans-on-fire liar like His Flatulence.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I find myself objecting to the thread title.

It's not that she's fundamentally honest, it's that she's not a pans-on-fire liar like His Flatulence.

But the title is rather close to Jill Abramson's actual message. If you do not concur, your problem is with Jill, not the thread title.

 

[Will Wiley]

There's just as much hate for Hillary as there is for Obama, except for the racist people obviously. I think it comes down to "conservatives hate liberals" for the most part.

Hilary is conservative isn't she? She may once once had the apprearance of being liberal but she is very conservative I'd have thought