Ken Berwitz
I paid my dues lastnight. I spent a few minutes of time that could have been spent productively – watchingthe Yankees play the Orioles – instead tuned in to “All In”, far leftistChris Hayes\’ show on (where else?) MSNBC.
During those few minutesI was “treated” I\’m not sure that\’s the correct verb to a commentaryby Charles Pierce, who currently writes for Esquire Magazine (no, I didn\’t knowthat still existed either).
The commentary was basedon the “fact”, as Pierce yelled (he seems incapable of speaking at aconversational volume level) that Hillary should stop worrying about the email”scandal\’ because no one cares about it – with Chris Hays, all the while,smirking and laughing along, like a trained puppy dog.
I don\’t often talk outloud to a TV screen, but I “asked” Pierce why he thought Hillary Clinton\’spoll numbers dropped through a trap door during the past two months, when thepreponderance of negative news reports about her were specifically about theemail scandal.
I figured I would do the asking, since this question, which seemed eminently obvious to me, was not asked by Chris Hayes. He was too busy smirking and laughing along.
So, for the benefit of Pierce and Hayes, I would like to post this link to an article in the New York Times….which even these two will acknowledge is not what you\’d call anti-Hillary Clinton. And specifically to this excerpt:
In an Aug. 26 news conference, Mrs. Clinton said sheunderstood why people had questions about the email arrangement, which she saidcame about as a matter of convenience so she could carry a single mobiledevice. She said she took responsibility for the decision to use the privateserver and said it would have been better to have used a private email only forpersonal matters and an official one for work.
Last week, Mrs.Clinton\’s aides showed a video of that news conference to a New Hampshire focusgroup of independents and Democrats, according to a Democrat briefed on thefocus group whose account was confirmed by a person in her campaign.Participants said they wanted to hear more from Mrs. Clinton about the issue.
The focus group alsoshowed that the email issue was drowning out nearly everything else that Mrs.Clinton was hoping to communicate to voters – something Mrs. Clinton and herhusband have complained about to friends.
Got that, guys? She did a FOCUS GROUP. And the focus group TOLD HER the email “issue”, as the Times calls it, was drowning out everything else. And the comments in that focus group were so compelling that they told Hillary to change her story again (for, roughly speaking, the 38.537th time so far) and apologize.
Why? Because it\’s nothing and they don\’t care about it?
Think about that, guys. And think about the fact that you didn\’t think about it last night — which might have something to do with why “All In” has lousy ratings and Pierce is writing for a magazine that is a ghost of what it used to be (corculation-wise Esquire is not even in the top 100 anymore).
