It is about time someone in the mainstream media apply some objectivity to the faux email scandal.
Is this the end of the faux email scandal?
A couple of days after Matt Laur committed journalistic malpractice at the Commander-in-Chief Forum, the Washington Post changed its tune on Clinton’s email. The Washington Post (WaPo) printed the following.
JUDGING BY the amount of time NBC’s Matt Lauer spent pressing Hillary Clinton on her emails during Wednesday’s national security presidential forum, one would think that her homebrew server was one of the most important issues facing the country this election. It is not. There are a thousand other substantive issues — from China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea to National Security Agency intelligence-gathering to military spending — that would have revealed more about what the candidates know and how they would govern. Instead, these did not even get mentioned in the first of 5½ precious prime-time hours the two candidates will share before Election Day, while emails took up a third of Ms. Clinton’s time.
The post justifiably slammed Matt Lauer for a lousy interview, something the Washington Post themselves were guilty of. Of course, one major outlet slamming another isn’t cool. Like the thin blue line with cops, there is some line with journalists as well. Lauer was criticized by a guest on Morning Joe the day after the interview, and the entire panel ran to his defense. The Washington Post seem to do something similar with their eventual Lauer defense as well.
Sadly, Mr. Lauer’s widely panned handling of the candidate forum was not an aberration. Judging by polls showing that voters trust Donald Trump more than Ms. Clinton, as well as other evidence, it reflects a common shorthand for this election articulated by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick last week: “You have Donald Trump, who’s openly racist,” he said. Then, of Ms. Clinton: “I mean, we have a presidential candidate who’s deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be in prison.”
At least the WaPo editorial came to the correct conclusion.
The story has vastly exceeded the boundaries of the facts. Imagine how history would judge today’s Americans if, looking back at this election, the record showed that voters empowered a dangerous man because of . . . a minor email scandal. There is no equivalence between Ms. Clinton’s wrongs and Mr. Trump’s manifest unfitness for office.
Ya think?
