Eric Zuesse<\/p>\n
On Sunday May 3rd, Britain\u2019s Guardian<\/i>, which has major influence upon Democratic Party opinion-leaders, headlined\u00a0“Clinton campaign keeps progressives guessing:\u00a0how far left will she go?\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Tom McCarthy \u2018reported\u2019 that:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “In three weeks of multi-format politicking \u2014 roundtables, speeches,\u00a0fundraisers, mile markers \u2014 Clinton has seized\u00a0the Democratic banner and\u00a0run with it, pitching voters on progressive priorities from\u00a0reproductive rights to income\u00a0inequality to climate change.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n The underlying assumption is that the record of Hillary Clinton indicates that her campaign rhetoric reflects accurately both her real beliefs and the policies that she has instituted in her political career. This is a false assumption.<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. McCarthy selectively interviewed \u2018experts\u2019 who espouse the same false assumption that he\u2019s selling:<\/span><\/p>\n “Amy Walter, national editor of the Cook Political Report, said that\u00a0while Clinton may currently be emphasizing\u00a0issues that resonate with\u00a0Democratic primary voters, there was no reason to think the words were\u00a0not honestly\u00a0come by, and the candidate did not seem to be straying\u00a0outside her central political identity.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Ms. Walter, in turn, supported her opinion by saying that Ms. Clinton\u2019s \u201cactual core set of values\u201d such as supporting \u201cgay marriage,\u201d were \u201chonestly come by\u201d and constituted \u201cher central political identity.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to Clinton\u2019s supporters, her verbal endorsement of liberal social positions makes her a progressive regardless of whether she has an actual record of supporting Wall Street and the billionaire class, who, as I documented in a previous report<\/span><\/a>, constitute and have constituted the top financial contributors to her political career. In fact, the assumption of these supposedly liberal pundits is that corruption (back-door political payoffs to financial backers) isn\u2019t a far more important issue in American politics and policymaking than is mere verbal adherence (such as Hillary is now giving) to social issues such as feminism and gay rights.<\/span><\/p>\n However, those \u2018journalists\u2019 aren\u2019t even accurately representing Hillary Clinton\u2019s merely verbal record, much less her actual policy record.<\/span><\/p>\n On 12 June 2014, Ms. Clinton on NPR said<\/a><\/span>, \u201cFor me, marriage had always been a problem left for the states.\u201d In other words: it wasn\u2019t a human right, available to people in a manner without prejudice; it was like slavery before President Lincoln: a state\u2019s-rights matter instead of a human-rights matter.<\/span><\/p>\n Her interviewer, Terry Gross, however, pointed out, and asked:<\/span><\/p>\n “DOMA [the anti-gay-rights federal law] was actually signed by your husband when he was president. In spite of\u00a0the fact that he signed it, were you glad at this point that the Supreme Court\u00a0struck some of it down?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Hillary answered:<\/span><\/p>\n “Of course. And, you know, again, let’s \u2013 we are living at a time when\u00a0this extraordinary change is occurring and I’m proud of our country.\u201d In other words: She follows, instead of leads, the country, on even that issue.<\/span><\/p>\n Gross then said:<\/span><\/p>\n “I understand, but a lot of people already believed in it back [in] the ’90s. A lot of\u00a0people already supported gay marriage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ms. Clinton replied:<\/span><\/p>\n “But not \u2013 to be fair, Terry, not that many.\u201d In other words: She follows instead of leads the country \u2013 even in her mere rhetoric<\/i>, not to even deal with what her actual policies<\/i> are and have been.<\/span><\/p>\n However, her policies have been consistently to serve the rich and powerful (her financial backers) at the expense of the poor and powerless. This fact was\u00a0amply documented in the links to my most recent article on her actual record<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0She ardently supported NAFTA but then criticized it when she was running in 2008 for the Presidency. And on Fracking, GMOs and other issues where large international corporations have profit-interests that go in the opposite direction to the public interest, she has\u00a0reliably been with the mega-corporations.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n When Ms. Gross then meekly said, \u201dI\u2019m pretty sure you didn\u2019t answer my question,\u201d Ms. Clinton responded angrily, “You know, I really \u2013 I have to say, I think you\u00a0are very persistent, but you are playing with my\u00a0words and playing with what is such an important issue.”<\/span><\/p>\n Gross replied to that: “I am just trying to clarify so I can\u00a0understand.”<\/span><\/p>\n Clinton said in reply: “No, I don’t think you are trying to\u00a0clarify.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n To this allegation, that Ms. Gross was the one who was dissembling or misrepresenting, Gross simply caved: “You know, I’m just saying \u2013 I’m sorry.\u201d (Perhaps she then bowed down to the queen, but, since this was radio instead of television, no record exists on that.)<\/span><\/p>\n In American journalism, standing up against a serial liar who has support from much of the Establishment can get one fired, or one\u2019s show cancelled.<\/span><\/p>\n Clinton now gave sign that the offense of having probed ever so slightly would be treated by the queen with forgivenness:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was ready to say what I said, I said it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Gross responded: \u201cOK, thank you for clarifying that. [Now addressing her listeners:] If you\u2019re just joining us, my guest is Hillary Clinton. Her new memoir \u2018Hard Choices\u2019 is about her four years as secretary of state.\u201d The \u2018journalist\u2019 thus got back to what she\u2019s paid for: selling what the Establishment is offering \u2013 in this case: selling another Republican \u2018Democrat\u2019 like Obama has been. This way, for example, the Wall Street bailouts and resultant soaring federal debt that will have to be repaid by higher taxes and\/or less government services to all future U.S. taxpayers and that were started by George W. Bush and were continued by Barack Obama, will be continued without doubt if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic Party\u2019s Presidential nominee: she\u2019ll adhere to Republican policies as much as Obama has adhered to Romney\u2019s policies on most things.<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s really what \u2018journalists\u2019 such as at Guardian<\/i> and NPR are really selling. Their real audience isn\u2019t the public who think they are receiving journalism instead of mere propaganda; it\u2019s instead the aristocracy who control the \u2018news\u2019 media.<\/span><\/p>\n ———-<\/span><\/p>\n Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of\u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0of\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eric Zuesse On Sunday May 3rd, Britain\u2019s Guardian, which has major influence upon Democratic Party opinion-leaders, headlined\u00a0“Clinton campaign keeps progressives guessing:\u00a0how far left will she go?\u201d\u00a0Tom McCarthy \u2018reported\u2019 that:\u00a0 “In three weeks of multi-format politicking \u2014 roundtables, speeches,\u00a0fundraisers, mile markers \u2014 Clinton has seized\u00a0the Democratic banner and\u00a0run with it, pitching voters on progressive priorities from\u00a0reproductive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":148712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[30,951,551,96,29,954,526,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-148711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-clinton","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-democrats","14":"tag-hillary","15":"tag-propaganda","16":"tag-usa-news","17":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}