Former George W. Bush staffer Karl Rove highlights what he says are the weakening relationships President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have with the media in a new opinion piece.
In a Wall Street Journal piece, Rove argues that Clinton's decision to duck the media and take very few questions on her current Democratic presidential campaign and Obama's decision to repeatedly bash Fox News and also avoid the media whenever possible means they are trying to "avoid being held accountable."
"Both feel treated unfairly, though in reality most reporters generally give Democrats and liberals more patience and less hostility than they do Republicans and conservatives," Rove writes. "It is human nature to go easier on one's own kind. As a result, when Mr. Obama assaults Fox News, many elite journalists may be secretly cheering him on.
"Both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton want to avoid being held accountable, yet the press is supposed to do just that. With a few significant and courageous exceptions, reporters covering the president and the former Secretary of State appear to have convinced themselves they cannot do more. What we are witnessing reveals much that is disturbing about the president and his pretender and about the practices of those who cover them."
Rove talks about Obama's repeated criticisms of Fox News, including in 2010 when he questioned whether employees of the network were true patriots.
Obama has also held press conferences less frequently than past presidents.
"It is unseemly for any president to offer such personal criticism of a news outlet. No other chief executive in the past 40 years has done it," Rove writes. "This administration has also made extensive efforts to bypass the press altogether by holding news conferences less frequently than the last three presidents, announcing news via social media, restricting pool reporters' access to presidential events and appearances, and supplying video and photos shot by White House staff in lieu of giving access to news photographers. All of this to get Mr. Obama's message directly to voters without having to go through troublesome journalists."
Clinton, a former first lady, U.S. senator representing New York state, and secretary of state, announced her candidacy for president last month. She has answered few questions from the media thus far, although she stepped out of her cocoon on Tuesday and responded to six questions from reporters,
The Washington Post reports.
"Yet she dodged the first question, about the Clinton Foundation's receiving foreign donations while she was secretary of state; ignored the second, on whether we would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power; mentioned her granddaughter without answering the third, on whether everyday people could relate to someone like her in the top 1 percent; brushed off the fourth, an inquiry about memos that longtime Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal sent her on Libya; and replied to the fifth and sixth, about her use of a private server to handle official emails, by saying 'nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do.' It was a tour de force of misdirection and insolence in less than five minutes," Rove writes.
"Here, then, is a tale of two strategies. President Obama targets elements of the media; Hillary Clinton runs from all of it. He becomes indignant when questioned or challenged; she treats journalists as stalkers, even though their questions are about public matters."
Clinton's campaign is enveloped in a controversy stemming from her use of
private email addresses hosted on a private server during her time at the State Department. She's also
suspected of hiding information regarding the 2012 Benghazi attacks.
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