Hillary Clinton – Unaccountable

1/24/14
 
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By Brent Bozell,

from The Media Research Center,
1/23/14:

CNN anchor Jake Tapper blandly admitted the obvious in a radio interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt. The same reporters that insist their former GOP favorite Chris Christie is ruined for 2016 by traffic jams on a bridge are letting Hillary Clinton skate for embassy-security neglect that led to four dead government employees at Benghazi.

Why would so-called watchdogs of government suggest Hillary is a shoo-in in ‘16 as if Benghazi never happened? Tapper strangely suggested that Benghazi always seemed like more of a White House scandal than a State Department scandal, and don’t blame him, because Hillary didn’t grant him an interview.

“Hillary Clinton was on her way out, and you know, I can’t tackle her,” he said in self-defense. “I haven’t had a chance to interview her since Benghazi happened. I don’t even know, has she done interviews? I think she did some interviews on her way out.”

That’s awfully coy. In fact, after Hillary’s ridiculous “what difference does it make” defense a year ago, lapped up by media lapdogs as some kind of “riveting” triumph, she quickly granted interviews to ABC, CBS, and NBC. All three networks now pounding away at Christie were, and continue to be AWOL on Hillary. They have punted the chance to be watchdogs.

The most infamous one we remember is Steve Kroft’s joint Barack-and-Hillary interview for “60 Minutes,” when Kroft asked two questions on her Benghazi testimony. First, “You had a very long day. Also, how is your health?” And second, “Do you feel guilty in any way, at a personal level? Do you blame yourself that you didn`t know or that you should have known?”

This allowed Hillary to express regret for her “personal loss,” and insist against all the evidence that she was tremendously interested in embassy security.

[ABC’s Cynthia] McFadden softly nudged: Does she regret the “what difference” comment? Hillary repeated herself about the Sunday-show questions and added: “I believe in transparency. I said, you know, let the chips fall where they may. Put it all out there. And I don’t want that to be politicized.”

Please laugh at the “transparency” part, but always pay attention when a Clinton says you can’t proceed with a “politicized” line of questioning. It means you’re getting dangerously close to asking them a tough question. On these occasions, none of the interviewers wondered what some reporters have: if Hillary believed in transparency, why didn’t she do the Sunday morning shows after Benghazi instead of Susan Rice? For that, we can turn to Bill Clinton’s draft-dodging language: she was “maintaining [her] viability within the system.”

In fact, most journalists really don’t feel Hillary Clinton should be held accountable. Time magazine had a cover story titled “Can Anyone Stop Hillary?” Nancy Gibbs, now the managing editor of Time magazine, was asked on MSNBC by Andrea Mitchell how long Hillary can delay making the official declaration for the White House. Gibbs responded, “I think she can postpone it almost longer than anyone we have seen. It allows her to not have to answer every controversy that comes up, the latest obviously being the Benghazi report today.”

Gibbs told Mitchell that only Hillary can stop Hillary. That must be because her liberal-media bootlickers can’t muster one tough question about how she mismanaged embassy security in Libya. They, too, always seem to be interested only in maintaining her viability within the system.

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