The Hillary Obsession

The press is clearly rooting for another Clinton campaign.

Three years and eight months before the next presidential election, the Hillary buzz is growing louder.

There she is on the cover of New York magazine, taking the oath of office, with the headline: "President and Mr. Clinton." Journalists scrutinize her every utterance for 2008 implications. An absurdly early CNN/USA Today poll question has the New York senator crushing the Democratic field. Every reporter assumes she's feverishly plotting her return to the White House.

"It is a painful and ludicrous conceit of political reporting that you examine everything far too early," says Jennifer Senior, who wrote the New York story. "On the other hand, presidential races are painful and ludicrous things that require vast amounts of money and preparation." If Clinton is the Democratic nominee, says Senior, "she's going to need a lot of time to reformulate her image."

Clinton strategists are mostly bemused. "The next election seems an awfully long time away to begin speculating about who the next president is going to be," says Democratic consultant Howard Wolfson, who represents Clinton. "We're going to have this president for four years. But there is an online/cable chattering class that would rather speculate about the race in '08 than deal with policy today."

Now that is shocking.

The Hillary obsession reflects a broader journalistic impulse to debate and sometimes predict the future. The illness of Chief Justice William Rehnquist has triggered a surge of stories about who might be named to replace him, whether President Bush would elevate another justice to the chief's spot, how liberal groups are gearing up to oppose the nominee -- all before Rehnquist has said he would step down. As with long-range presidential politics, who will remember months or years from now if these stories turn out to be off the mark?

If you write about the actuarial calculations of Social Security or the degree to which the Iraqi army is ready to battle the terrorists, you can be wrong. But if you war-game a hypothetical matchup down the road, the worst that can happen is you're overtaken by events.

The Hillary Rodham Clinton saga contains an obvious degree of built-in drama. A former first lady seeking her husband's old job. A woman who would restore her family dynasty by succeeding the son who restored his father's dynasty. A polarizing figure whose candidacy would enable Republicans to recycle Whitewater, billing records, Monica and other 1990s controversies.

"She is one of the true superstars in American politics," says Roger Simon, the U.S. News & World Report columnist, who believes Clinton will make a White House bid. "Hillary running will be a great continuing story. The other Democrats will complain, to use the famous phrase, that she is sucking all the oxygen out of the room."

Presidential campaigning has become a nonstop endeavor, journalists say, and Clinton has fueled speculation about her moving toward the center with recent comments about finding common ground on abortion. She figures in the ongoing debate over whether the Democrats will nominate another Northeast liberal after John Kerry's defeat. And could she be burnishing her foreign policy credentials by meeting last week (along with John McCain, another '08 possibility) with Afghan President Hamid Karzai?

Although the 2008 question pops up in every interview, Clinton sticks to her standard line about focusing on her Senate reelection next year. "She's a building with no door," Senior says. "The fact that she speaks in bromides would be boring with anyone else, but with her you know there's a lot more going on."

Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist who has written a book on Clinton, says journalists are giving her "an easy ride. . . . The press is interested in -- maybe fascinated by -- her attempts to move herself, and her party, closer to the at least rhetorical center on issues like abortion." That is typical of "canny politicians," says Noonan, and "the press is reporting what she does without commentary. The commentary comes later, in 2006."

Smart conservatives should "not misunderestimate her potential strength and popularity," says the veteran Republican speechwriter, who has no doubt that Clinton is running. "The presidency is for her what it was for Bill: the self-actualizing fact that assuages all."

In the CNN/USA Today poll, 40 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners favored Clinton, compared with 25 percent for Kerry and 17 percent for John Edwards. (A more recent Zogby poll had a similar spread.) Among Republicans, the winner was Rudy Giuliani with 34 percent, McCain at 29 percent and Jeb Bush with 12 percent. (Does anyone believe a pro-choice, gay-friendly former New York mayor is really the front-runner? The Florida governor, for his part, says he won't try to be the third Bush in the White House.)

But consider this Roper Center poll in early 2001. Democrats favored Al Gore with 25 percent, Hillary Clinton (14 percent), Bill Bradley (8 percent), Joe Lieberman (5 percent), Dick Gephardt (4 percent) and Gray Davis (3 percent). Gore and Bradley didn't run, and Davis couldn't run because he'd already been recalled as California governor. The landscape can shift dramatically in four years.

If Clinton runs, there is the clearly newsworthy reality that no woman has ever been in as strong a position to win a major-party presidential nomination. But she isn't the only female sparking speculation. There's already a Condoleezza Rice for President Web site, peddling buttons and bumper stickers.

Update, from the AP: "Sen. Joseph Biden says any Democrat who wants to run for president in 2008 should keep in mind these three words: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

'I think she'd be incredibly difficult to beat,' the Delaware Democrat said Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'I think she is the most difficult obstacle for anyone being the nominee.'"

Why hasn't Dan Rather had much to say about the botched story on President Bush that, according to the New Yorker's Ken Auletta, hastened his retirement by a year? Loyalty to his colleagues.

"I worked with all of these people for a long while, and neither in my mind nor in my heart am I going to give them up," Rather tells the magazine. He was upset about the choice of former attorney general Dick Thornburgh, a Republican, to co-chair the outside probe of the story but said nothing.

In other interviews with the New Yorker, Walter Cronkite praised CBS President Les Moonves's handling of the situation but says he should have been more critical of Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward in his statement on the investigation.

As Rather prepares to step down next week, CBS research chief David Poltrack tells Auletta that the network has lost viewers to NBC because "the conservative part of this country . . . tends to speak more of Dan Rather" as representing "liberal bias." Veteran Mike Wallace says Rather is a superb reporter but hard to watch: "He's uptight and occasionally contrived."

Moonves, meanwhile, told Heyward, then-"60 Minutes" producer Don Hewitt and other executives that CBS magazine shows should be going after Jennifer Lopez and other celebrities who kept sitting down with Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer. "Are you dead?" he wondered. When Moonves mentioned other celebrity names, including Justin Timberlake, Hewitt said: "Who's Justin Timberlake?"

Talon News, the conservative Web site that had employed White House reporter Jeff Gannon, has temporarily shut down, blaming the negative publicity, "much of it malicious." Gannon, on his Web site, is vowing to "battle the Left," which he says wants him to "go over to the 'dark side' and expose the 'corrupt Bush administration.' " While declining to discuss his postings on gay escort sites, he says: "If I had been a liberal reporter with the salacious past now attributed to me, I would be the Grand Marshall of the next Gay Pride Parade as well as a media darling."

If you've been following my chronicling of the back-and-forth between New York Times editor Bill Keller and BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis, you may want to check out Jack Shafertake in Slate:

"While Keller has yet to park his desk next to the tkts booth in Times Square, he's become the most accessible executive editor in the newspaper's history...

"I know this piece sounds like a 10-days-late Valentine, but I find Keller's openness (by traditional Times standards) so . . . adorable. Obviously, he hopes the rest of the newsroom will follow his example and accept a little criticism without sobbing or throwing things, the reflex of all reporters.

"In e-mail to me, Keller explains calls his methods 'right and necessary.'

"'The credibility of the serious press is under assault on several flanks. There is a debate underway, sometimes silly but sometimes profound, about whether it is possible or even desirable to have an impartial press based on robust, empirical reporting and fair-minded analysis. There is some confusion out there about how what we do differs in kind from Fox or Instapundit or Rush Limbaugh. We should be in that conversation. At least we should try to engage those who seem to share a genuine interest in a well-informed citizenry -- those who are not driven by sheer ideological (or commercial) malice.

"'Some journalists get into this work to be players, to right wrongs, to change the world. The best investigative reporters have at least a streak of that. Most journalists, I think, like being on the sidelines, witnessing, analyzing, but a little detached, neither on the field nor sitting with the fans of either team. I've always been in the second category. I like the sidelines just fine. But when the fight is over the role and future of journalism itself, the sidelines are a pretty untenable position. So I give the occasional speech, I try to respond to press critics whose minds are at least ajar, I answer as much mail as I can, I make myself available to the Public Editor.'

"Keller acknowledges the downsides of Timesian glasnost, explaining that 'you could spend your entire life explaining and defending what you do, to the point where there's no time to do it.' If he corresponds with one blogger but not another, he appears unresponsive. If he sticks up for his reporters, he appears defensive or dismissive. And he's annoyed by the way his comments 'get picked up in pieces, turned sideways, twisted and mis-analyzed until people have roused themselves to a high pitch of indignation over something they think I believe when I may not believe it at all.' (Yes, he recognizes the irony of his gripe.)

"One could argue that Keller has no choice but to engage his critics, that the Times, while still a colossus, isn't the imperial force that it was 10 years ago thanks to the competition and criticism it faces on the Web. Had Howell Raines understood this he might still be executive editor. Give Keller an attaboy for opening the drapes and allowing a little light to fall inside W. 43rd Street and give him credit for taking his lumps in public and for returning them in a professional fashion. But openness doesn't automatically produce great journalism. As the man said, you can only explain yourself so much. You've still got to put out a newspaper."

Andrew Sullivan belatedly weighs in on Gannon/Guckert:

"The substantive case against Gannon is trivial; the irrelevant case against him (the one that's fueled this story) is that he's gay, has allegedly been (or still may be) a prostitute, and may not agree with everything the gay left believes (although I agree with David Corn that the evidence that Gannon has written anything even remotely 'anti-gay' is laughable). The real scandal is the blatant use of homophobic rhetoric by the self-appointed Savonarolas of homo-left-wingery.

"It's an Animal Farm moment: the difference between a fanatic on the gay left and a fanatic on the religious right is harder and harder to discern. Just ask yourself: if a Catholic conservative blogger had found out that a liberal-leaning pseudo-pundit/reporter was a gay sex worker, had outed the guy as gay and a 'hooker,' published pictures of the guy naked, and demanded a response from a Democratic administration, do you think gay rights groups would be silent? They'd rightly be outraged. But the left can get away with anything, can't they? Especially homophobia."

When exactly did going to jail become a good career move? Newsweek's cover story celebrates the woman who engaged in insider trading:

"What a difference a prison stay makes. When Martha Stewart, 63, walks out of jail, most likely this Friday, America will be ready to embrace a reformed woman. No longer is she the poster CEO for bad behavior who's getting her just deserts. After all, the shroud of scandal fell away as soon as she wistfully wished her cats and canaries goodbye last fall and voluntarily went to jail, rather than remaining free on appeal. And quicker than you can flip her Dutch Baby Pancakes, Stewart's act of contrition transformed her comeuppance into a comeback.

"Since her sentencing last July, stock in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has quadrupled, making her a billionaire once again. She has not one, but two new TV shows on the launching pad. A fourth line of her hot-selling Bernhardt furniture will be unveiled this summer. The Kmart-Sears merger due to close in March could double the shelf space for her pastel housewares. And Martha's name and face could soon be stamped on everything from DVDs to women's clothing. Got all that? Well, don't worry, you'll get generous servings of the new and improved Martha Stewart in the coming months. The rollout of Martha's Third Act is being carefully stage-managed by a new team of New York and Hollywood A-listers like reality-TV guru Mark Burnett, Donald Trump and Stewart's new CEO Susan Lyne, the ex-ABC exec who, appropriately enough, greenlighted 'Desperate Housewives' (which even includes a character modeled on Martha). 'The fact is, the American public loves a great comeback,' says NBC TV chief Jeff Zucker, who is airing both her new daytime and prime-time shows. 'And her story is even more compelling now.'"

I haven't blogged on the Larry Summers fracas, but now it's a Time cover story. But I must say the New Republic's Michelle Cottle nails the continuing spasms of coverage (including a front-page NYT story after she filed her piece):

"It's been well over a month now since Harvard's Larry Summers offered some, shall we say, controversial, theories as to the disparity in gender achievement within the upper echelons of math and science. And still the Cambridge contretemps rages, covered in excruciating detail by a salivating media. It's getting so a gal can't enjoy her morning muffin without another breathless installment in the Summers saga leaping out from the A section of The New York Times or The Washington Post: Summers apologizes for eleventh time! Harvard faculty remains offended! Remarks said to be indicative of Summers's total boorishness! Cornel West claims vindication!

"Sweet Jesus, some days it's hard to believe what a pack of pathetic, self-involved losers we the media have become. Honestly. For anyone remotely interested in why much of America disdains the national media as a bunch of liberal, pointy-headed elitists out of touch with the concerns of regular folk, look no further than the bizarre media obsession with L'Affaire Larry.

"Yeah, yeah. The guy is president of the most prestigious university in the country. And whatever your thoughts on 'nature v. nurture,' you've got to wonder what in the hell possessed Summers to plunge into this minefield, period, much less in the presence of a gaggle of academics--a famously touchy, politically correct, self-important lot. Even so, why couldn't we have simply chewed over the juicier points of this issue for, say, two or maybe even three weeks and then moved on?

"I'll tell you why. Because members of the elite media hail from East Coast Ivy League bastions like Harvard and thus remain endlessly fascinated by every burp and hiccup to emanate from such hallowed halls. If the president of Duke or UCLA or Rice or even Stanford had made such a gaffe, The New York Times would have yawned twice and gone back to reporting on Christo's plans to wrap Zabar's in orange cellophane. . . .

"The Washington Post should be even more ashamed of itself. It claims to be a local paper, addressing the concerns of all Washingtonians--not just the happy, privileged few who have a rooting interest in the Harvard-Yale game."

Don't blame me--I went to a state university.