Patterico's Pontifications

8/8/2005

L.A. Times Determined to Beat Into Its Readers’ Heads the Idea that Hillary Is a Centrist

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Politics — Patterico @ 7:18 am



The L.A. Times reports on its front page this morning: Clinton Is Cultivating an Image as a Centrist.

Anyone else getting that feeling of déjà vu? There’s a reason for that: it hasn’t even been two weeks since the paper’s last front-page story on Hillary-as-centrist: Clinton’s New Job: Defining the Center.

Are we going to have one of these articles on the front page every two weeks until the 2008 election?

My comments on the earlier story apply today. You can read through the almost 1700 words of today’s story and find precious little evidence that Hillary has had a true conversion to genuine centrism. This is about as close as the article comes:

She has taken up causes such as economic development and military overhaul that are nonpartisan or more centrist than her work in championing a national healthcare plan while her husband was president. She is teaming with local Republican officials and with some of the Senate’s most conservative members.

This is The Times‘s definition of centrism — anything “more centrist” than nationalized health care?

That’s pretty much it for policy in the story, with one exception we’ll discuss later. The rest is image: how her newfound “centrism” is playing. The Times finds someone willing to give them a good quote: John Perri of Long Island:

“I hated her with a passion,” said John Perri, a Long Island businessman who heard Clinton speak last week at a country club in Woodbury, N.Y. “But I’ve come to respect her. She’s a lot more moderate now.”

That may be, but apparently he didn’t hate her enough to donate anything to the opposition. No John Perri from New York made a donation to Rudy Giuliani or Rick Lazio in the 2000 election. (A John Perri from the Long Island town of Huntington, N.Y. did make a donation of $250 to John McCain.)

Today’s article treats us to by-now-familiar images of Hillary as martyr:

Conservatives demonized her for her role in promoting her husband’s failed healthcare plan. . . . Clinton denies she has changed her views, but she seems resigned to being a punching bag for conservatives. “You have no control over that,” she said. “I know I still have the same beliefs and values I always had.”

One belief she apparently always had: health care should be reserved to the private sector — as we learn in a later passage (in which the former Hillary-hater Mr. Perri makes a second appearance):

She received ovations from senior citizens in Rockville Centre, where she conducted a spirited attack on President Bush’s plans to overhaul Social Security.

Speaking to businesspeople in Woodbury, Clinton took a more measured tack. She told the audience that her father had supported Richard Nixon for president in 1960. She let drop that she had cosponsored a healthcare initiative with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the conservative firebrand who led the 1998-99 effort to impeach her husband. And her views on healthcare were hardly the socialism her critics claimed she espoused.

“We need a consensus, and it needs to be led by the private sector,” she said.

Yup, she’s always had those same beliefs and values. Mr. Perri is buying it:

That tone appeals to independents such as Perri, who said he used to view Clinton as an “aggressive, ambitious woman who would do anything to get into power.” After the program, he delighted Clinton by introducing himself as a “reformed Hillary hater” who now is a supporter.

Watch your front page for more boosterism in a couple of weeks.

UPDATE: The guys at Independent Sources do something crazy that apparently never occurred to L.A. Times editors — they look at Hillary’s voting record. Guess what? It’s leftist.

9 Responses to “L.A. Times Determined to Beat Into Its Readers’ Heads the Idea that Hillary Is a Centrist”

  1. Maybe they’re getting their talking points from this article today in Slate.

    Ben (50bee0)

  2. Los Angeles Times: Hillary a Moderate? Independent Sources: Not So Fast!

    The Los Angeles Times has a page one story today on Hillary Clinton’s efforts to be seen as a centrist:
    In New York, where she is running for reelection in 2006, and in the Senate, where she is shaping her national persona, Clinton is moving to…

    Independent Sources (4f7430)

  3. Her actual voting record would have been a nice story element — since she ranks as one of the most liberal senators whether conservative or liberal groups are scoring her votes. We have a summary at Independent Sourceshere. If this had been included in the story, readers would have concluded “it’s all marketing.” But without the voting record, the reader has to rely on the way the reporter shapes the story, and no small number will decide “hey, she’s a moderate — I could vote for her!”

    A Senior Administration Official (f8c2ea)

  4. Hillary’s voting record leftist??? No, that’s centrist to the Times. Leftist would be here.

    Kevin Murphy (9982dd)

  5. Senatrix Clinton is the 9th most liberal member of the Senate? Throwing out the 55 Republicans, that puts her 9th among 45, to the left, certainly, but not the furthest left.

    Even with that, I look at those voting anaylses, taking snapshots of a few votes, with more than a grain of salt. The fact that the three left-wing groups all came up with a different score for her demonstrates that the scoring system is different, based on who is making up the scorecard.

    I know that this won’t please all of the readers here, and some will question whether the website I run really is conservative: What if she really isn’t a flaming liberal? But I believe that to fight our political enemies, we need to know our political enemies, and it concerns me that conservatives may be making a mistake in simply assuming that she is a far-left liberal trying to deceive people.

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  6. Senatrix Clinton is the 9th most liberal member of the Senate? Throwing out the 55 Republicans, that puts her 9th among 45, to the left, certainly, but not the furthest left.

    9th of 45? That’s the most liberal quintile. Dana R. Pico, that means she is in the most liberal 20%. That’s the furthest left.

    Highly Placed Source (8491eb)

  7. Enjoy this one, Patterico. Come election time, talk will be discounted, and her voting record will be what they really measure her by.

    In the meantime, the Dems are putting all their energy into a strategy that won’t work, and a candidate that the R’s can easily to define as overly liberal.

    Dems will later blame her loss on a failure to articulate their message clearly.

    ras (f9de13)

  8. […] Patterico slams the LA Times once again for its now bi-weekly front pagers declaring “Hillary is a Centerist”. Only problem? She isn’t. Oh, and the other problem? The LA Times articles are fact free puff pieces. […]

    PrestoPundit » Blog Archive » More pretend news from the LA Times (d881ce)

  9. We don’t yet trust you with the advanced options

    NIF – yet another stunning edition of everything you don’t realize you need to know.

    NIF (59ce3a)


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