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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/opinion/hillary-clinton-gets-gored.html?_r=0
What alarmed liberals last week is that, amid a feeding frenzy over newly released Clinton emails, the political press didn’t bother to apply any kind of analogous judgment. The same week that the Times and Post were “raising questions” about Clinton—questions with simple answers like “no evidence of corruption”—Trump, among other things, gave one of his most extreme immigration speeches yet, in which he detailed his plan for an “ideological certification” for immigrants.
[...]
For instance: Only this week has the media rediscovered the fact that Trump donated $25,000 to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi days before she dropped her office’s investigation into Trump’s fraudulent real estate “university.” The Clinton Foundation story is ripe with quids, but the quos, such as they are, generally amount to the continuation of some status quo ante. Clinton met with the Crown Prince of Bahrain, a foundation donor—as had previous secretaries of state. Clinton oversaw arms sales to Gulf states, which have donated to the Clinton Foundation—consistent with U.S. policy that preceded her and continues to this day. In the case of Trump and Bondi, the appearance wasn’t of pay-to-play, but of bribery—the quid—and the quo is right there—Bondi dropped the investigation. The only thing we can’t prove without telepathy is the “pro.”
The contrast underlines the proportionality problem exquisitely. Last week’s liberal outcry was less about circling wagons around Clinton per se than about preventing the disparity in coverage that prevailed last week from becoming a trend.
True, there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn’t round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he’s moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention.
Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.
https://newrepublic.com/article/136592/media-coverage-hillary-clinton-whackMeanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.
What alarmed liberals last week is that, amid a feeding frenzy over newly released Clinton emails, the political press didn’t bother to apply any kind of analogous judgment. The same week that the Times and Post were “raising questions” about Clinton—questions with simple answers like “no evidence of corruption”—Trump, among other things, gave one of his most extreme immigration speeches yet, in which he detailed his plan for an “ideological certification” for immigrants.
[...]
For instance: Only this week has the media rediscovered the fact that Trump donated $25,000 to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi days before she dropped her office’s investigation into Trump’s fraudulent real estate “university.” The Clinton Foundation story is ripe with quids, but the quos, such as they are, generally amount to the continuation of some status quo ante. Clinton met with the Crown Prince of Bahrain, a foundation donor—as had previous secretaries of state. Clinton oversaw arms sales to Gulf states, which have donated to the Clinton Foundation—consistent with U.S. policy that preceded her and continues to this day. In the case of Trump and Bondi, the appearance wasn’t of pay-to-play, but of bribery—the quid—and the quo is right there—Bondi dropped the investigation. The only thing we can’t prove without telepathy is the “pro.”
The contrast underlines the proportionality problem exquisitely. Last week’s liberal outcry was less about circling wagons around Clinton per se than about preventing the disparity in coverage that prevailed last week from becoming a trend.