# WHY report this? (CNN, Clinton, Monica, and when) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066 "2008-03-20T13:55:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/1 "2008-03-20T13:55:57Z")
Obviously I am no great fan of HRC but [this](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/) seems like scraping the bottom of the barrel for trying to manufacture controversy. Why should any of us care if she “in the house” while Bill was messing around? What I want to know is how those records support her claim of executive experience by virtue of being “in the house”, not whether or not she was checking up on Bill while he was with an intern. CNN embarrasses itself. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/2 "2008-03-20T14:04:40Z")
Other news outlets have been reporting the same thing. Hillary Clinton is running on experience, so it is interesting to know what she actually did as First Lady. Was she involved in policy meetings? Aside from the health care task force, which didn’t go well, she didn’t seem to be. Her visits abroad were largely ceremonial, which is typical of a First Lady. And as for these salacious little details, they’re important in a small way - they remind us that in the White House the President has an office that does not include his wife. Indeed, she has her own office and staff. To hear Hillary talk, you’d think she had the run of the place, which is laughable on the face of it. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/3 "2008-03-20T14:04:48Z")
I don’t get why people can’t understand that maybe, just maybe HRC is a raging dyke who is totally cool with her husband getting sex elsewhere because she has no interest in giving it to him? And maybe they have a good laugh together when they see these silly reports? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/4 "2008-03-20T14:06:43Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] I don’t get why people can’t understand that maybe, just maybe HRC is a raging dyke… [/QUOTE] Hmmm. That would explain the wardrobe. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/5 "2008-03-20T14:23:36Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Other news outlets have been reporting the same thing. [/QUOTE] Amusingly enough, one of them is your choice for oh-so-critical thinker Brian Ross of ABC News. Here’s a nice piece from Glenn Greenwald on that little piece of shit, and his ABC News coverage of this and other issues: [http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/19/ross/index.html](http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/19/ross/index.html) > [@](#): > > Brian Ross spent many days in October, 2001 screeching on every ABC News show he could get on that government tests showed that the anthrax sent to U.S. political and media figures was linked to Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program. That was a lie from the start; no tests ever revealed any such thing. His sources told him that because they wanted him to do just what he did – create the perception in the public’s mind that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks. When that turned out to be false, he never retracted it, and, to this day, refuses to reveal who his sources were who fed him that extremely consequential lie. > > Ross is, however, very much on top of sniffing out whether Hillary slept with Bill on the day he received oral sex from Monica Lewinksy. The minute he got his hands on Hillary’s schedule today, he apparently crawled right over to that most special media day ever – Stained Blue Dress Day – and excitedly connected the dots. The byline on the story is “BRIAN ROSS and the ABC NEWS INVESTIGATIVE UNIT.” It apparently took the entire ABC Investigative Journalist team to uncover this story. Given what an honest, law-abiding and open administration we have, it’s not as though investigative journalists have anything else to do. For an endorsement of Brian Ross as a critical thinker, see **Mr. Moto** , just yesterday, in this delightful little post, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9593219&postcount=280). Brian Ross, investigative journalist and critical thinker extraordinaire. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/6 "2008-03-20T14:39:04Z")
If Hillary is running on experience and it’s experience that is being called into question with the release of her white house first lady records, which appear to showshe was nothing more than a hood ornament, her experience table is starting to lose legs. Plain and simple. She may as well just stand up with a bull horn and say, " **I am running for president because I know what it smells like in the White House Pantry!.."** because anything else is purly unacademic. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/7 "2008-03-20T14:59:53Z")
Well, **Hentor** , here is the quoted text from the post to which you object - > [@](#): > > Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America’s racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons. > > Similarly, Obama also has only recently given a much fuller accounting of his relationship with indicted political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a longtime friend, who his campaign once described as just one of “thousands of donors.” > > Until yesterday, Obama said the only thing controversial he knew about Rev. Wright was his stand on issues relating to Africa, abortion and gay marriage. > > …His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright’s sermons denouncing the U.S. was that he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air. > > But yesterday, he told a different story. > > “Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes,” he said in his speech yesterday in Philadelphia. > > …In the case of his relationship with Rezko, Obama has also been slow to acknowledge the full extent of his relationship. > > It was only last week that he revealed Rezko had raised some $250,000 in campaign contributions for him. > > The campaign had initially claimed Rezko-connected contributions were no more than $60,000, an amount the campaign donated to charity. Then the figure grew to around $86,000, and there were additional revelations that put the amount at about $150,000. Obama’s $250,000 accounting was a substantial jump and clearly contradicted earlier campaign statements that Rezko was just one of “thousands of donors.” Which of these allegations do you feel are false, and why do you think so? Or are you simply throwing out an _ad hominem_, and hoping for success with the genetic fallacy? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/8 "2008-03-20T15:06:56Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Well, **Hentor** , here is the quoted text from the post to which you object -Which of these allegations do you feel are false, and why do you think so? Or are you simply throwing out an _ad hominem_, and hoping for success with the genetic fallacy? Regards, Shodan [/QUOTE] Pathetic. For one thing, Rezko has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Anyone of the faintest level of intellect should be able to discern that. Regards the rest, it was, as is noted in that thread, already soundly rebutted. ---
**Author:** ![Burton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Burton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burton)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/9 "2008-03-20T16:30:41Z")
Here’s a good example of her experience at the White House. "First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday firmly denied allegations that her husband had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Mrs. Clinton blamed the sex allegations on a “a vast right-wing conspiracy” …“I do believe that this is a battle,” the first lady said…The first lady called the sex and perjury allegations swirling around her husband part of an effort “to undo the results of two elections.” she added that, in light of this “political campaign” against her husband, the best thing to do was “to be patient, take a deep breath and the truth will come out.” ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/10 "2008-03-20T16:50:06Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Well, **Hentor** , here is the quoted text from the post to which you object -Which of these allegations do you feel are false, and why do you think so? [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > Until yesterday, Obama said the only thing controversial he knew about Rev. Wright was his stand on issues relating to Africa, abortion and gay marriage. > > …His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright’s sermons denouncing the U.S. was that **he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air**. > [@](#): > > “ **Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes** ,” he said in his speech yesterday in Philadelphia. The two bolded parts do NOT represent a contradiction. Unless you have a cite that he has indeed heard anti-US comments before the tape was played. You are out of gas. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/11 "2008-03-20T17:13:32Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Other news outlets have been reporting the same thing. Hillary Clinton is running on experience, so it is interesting to know what she actually did as First Lady. Was she involved in policy meetings? Aside from the health care task force, which didn’t go well, she didn’t seem to be. Her visits abroad were largely ceremonial, which is typical of a First Lady. And as for these salacious little details, they’re important in a small way - they remind us that in the White House the President has an office that does not include his wife. Indeed, she has her own office and staff. To hear Hillary talk, you’d think she had the run of the place, which is laughable on the face of it. [/QUOTE] [Leave it to the UK to explore this more thoroughly](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/hillaryclinton.uselections20081): > [@](#): > > The Clinton campaign claimed on Wednesday that the release of the papers would show Clinton to have been an influential advocate at home and around the world on behalf of the US. But the documents from her office in the White House threaten to undermine her claim to have played a major role in Clinton’s foreign policy decisions. > > For instance, Clinton has said she helped negotiate the April 1998 Good Friday agreement between warring factions in Northern Ireland. But while Catholic and Protestant figures hashed out last-minute details of a power-sharing agreement in Belfast, Clinton was at the National Press Club in Washington at a party honouring Bella Abzug, a congresswoman from New York City who had died recently. While President Clinton phoned major participants in the peace talks, she met with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and joined a farewell party for Democratic operative Karen Finney. On the day the agreement was actually signed, she met with Philippine first lady Amelita Ramos. > > When Nato launched air strikes against Serbia in an attempt to punish Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for the country’s onslaught against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, Clinton toured ancient Egyptian ruins, including King Tut’s tomb and the temple of Hatshepsut. She dined at the Temple of Luxor, and stayed overnight at the Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel there. > > On August 20, 1998, Bill Clinton ordered US missile strikes on suspected terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan. The president and Hillary Clinton were on holiday on Martha’s Vineyard, a posh island vacation spot off the coast of Massachusetts. After announcing the attack, Clinton cut short his break and returned to Washington to confer with his national security team; Hillary Clinton remained on the Vineyard until August 30, her records show. But the blue dress is what people _really_ want to hear about, right? :rolleyes: This is why I almost never watch TV news anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/12 "2008-03-20T17:19:34Z")
I did agree that this was only a small part of the narrative, and I don’t think it should be the first thing the news sources look for. However, it is certainly a legitimate thing to look at. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/13 "2008-03-20T17:22:51Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Hillary Clinton is running on experience, so it is interesting to know what she actually did as First Lady. Was she involved in policy meetings? Aside from the health care task force, which didn’t go well, she didn’t seem to be. [/quote] The release of the records themselves is noteworthy and could provide useful information. A day by day breakdown of where she was when her husband was getting busy with an intern? Not so much. As **ArchiveGuy** shows, there has to be other interesting stuff in there. Missed it by _that_ much. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/14 "2008-03-20T17:43:11Z")
[QUOTE=Burton] Here’s a good example of her experience at the White House. "First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday firmly denied allegations that her husband had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Mrs. Clinton blamed the sex allegations on a “a vast right-wing conspiracy” …“I do believe that this is a battle,” the first lady said…The first lady called the sex and perjury allegations swirling around her husband part of an effort “to undo the results of two elections.” she added that, in light of this “political campaign” against her husband, the best thing to do was “to be patient, take a deep breath and the truth will come out.” [/QUOTE] Okay **Burton** that’s fair enough. It is fair to point out the _pattern_ of playing every criticism as victim and every issue into a battle. That gets to a heart of the sort of politics she plays and why so many of us think she would be ineffective as a President, why we are so ready to “turn the page.” I am unsure if I feel that her poor judgment assessing matters as a spouse is fair game as part of the pattern of her poor judgment on how to actually achieve policy goals like universal healthcare and on giving the thumbs up for war in Iraq, but I can understand the point of those who do. But day by day, hour by hour, of where she was while her husband had fun with cigars? That is pandering. Will CNN and MSNBC follow the BBC in getting to the real issues? Or do they assume that America _only_ cares about the naughty bits? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/15 "2008-03-20T17:46:14Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Pathetic. For one thing, Rezko has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Anyone of the faintest level of intellect should be able to discern that. [/quote] And yet you brought it up. > [@](#): > > Regards the rest, it was, as is noted in that thread, already soundly rebutted. I assume you mean the sort of thing **brickbacon** is doing. If that’s all it is, I shouldn’t have bothered - it’s really not possible to talk someone out of denial. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/16 "2008-03-20T17:48:51Z")
I have no authority but please take the hijack back to the thread whence it came. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/17 "2008-03-20T17:50:13Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] I assume you mean the sort of thing **brickbacon** is doing. [/QUOTE] You mean, that thing where he points out your own cite says precisely the opposite of what you think it says? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/18 "2008-03-20T18:05:41Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] **WHY report this?** [/QUOTE] Because Britney Spears did nothing dramatically embarrassing this week. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/19 "2008-03-20T18:23:33Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] Leave it to the UK to explore this more thoroughly. [/QUOTE] Non-blue dress aspects [are being addressed](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4486484) in the U.S. as well: “The papers showed she spent most of her time in 1993 and 1994 overseeing the health care task force whose eventual failure would help cost Democrats control of the House and Senate. They indicate she held meetings to help her husband pass the North American Free Trade Agreement even as candidate Clinton tries to distance herself from the trade agreement now. And while she traveled to Northern Ireland and other countries to help promote peace and women’s rights, her schedules indicate that most of her time overseas was spent on the more traditional duties of a first lady.” The emphasis on the tired old titillation of the Monica affair is actually to Hillary’s benefit, as it obscures the evidence from her schedules that contradicts her current “experience” claims. It also creates sympathy for poor, downtrodden HRC. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066/20 "2008-03-20T18:50:39Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] I have no authority but please take the hijack back to the thread whence it came. [/QUOTE] I apologize, **DSeid**. My only point was to note that one of the sleazemongers doing exactly what you are complaining about in the OP was the same one that came up in a discussion yesterday. In both cases, this person engaged in really poor, dubious “journalism.” I think that point stands. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-report-this-cnn-clinton-monica-and-when/442066.md?page=2)