Stephanopoulos: Not Dumb, but Plays Dumb on TV

[Memekiller]

(From The Mercenary's Cookbook)

There is a central question those of us who follow the media closely tend to ask: Are the DC elites with the magaphone getting duped, or just playing dumb? Well, we may have finally found our answer.

Consider this interesting part of an exchange between Hillary Clinton and George Stephanopoulos on This Week :

The interview took another unpleasant turn when Stephanopoulos tried to pin down Clinton over her position on NAFTA, a trade program introduced by her husband during his presidency. Clinton has come out against the plan saying it was not good for American workers. Stephanopoulos said, “The Clinton administration didn’t do enough to address the downside of globalization and therefore failed the workers in Indiana and the workers of the West?”

Clinton clearly took offense to the tone of the question and while answering, decided to take a jab at the host.

“Well I believe, George, in the 1990s we had a booming economy that created nearly 23 million new jobs, more people were lifted out of poverty in any time in our near history. It was an economy that worked for everyone, not just the rich, the wealthy and the well connected, but there were underlying issues that we didn’t understan fully. Now, you remember this, because George did work in that ‘92 campaign - George and I actually were against NAFTA - I’m talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist,” Clinton said to a visibly annoyed Stephanopoulos.

Now, David Gergen, who is about as earnest a commentator there is (a Republican who worked for the Clinton Administration), said this to Jake Tapper of ABC, who is less reliable, but gets it right in this case:

“The was considerable division within the White House about whether NAFTA was right on the merits,” says Gergen, “and I always associate her with those who had questions about it on the merits.”

This is where it gets interesting. “Arguments about policy are always before a decision is made. Once the president makes a decision everybody falls in line. I feel like she was among those who leaned against it on the merits. I do not remember her at a meeting arguing it out, I just felt she always had reservations.”

Then the decision was made and the first lady fell in line, along with the rest of the administration, Gergen says, to help get NAFTA passed.

About the Nov. 10, 1993 meeting, Gergen says, “she was not suddenly a convert to NAFTA. It’s just that when the president decides something, people around him are going to support that decision. I thought she was a good soldier on that.”

I saw Gergen answer this question in another interview where he said pretty much the same thing: Hillary didn’t think NAFTA was worth spending a lot of political capital on. Now here’s the thing: George Stephanopoulos was there. George knows what Hillary’s position on NAFTA was because George saw it with his own eyes. And according Hillary, he was her ally in leading the charge against it.

Like Hillary, once the decision was made, he fell in line. Yet, Stephanopoulos tries to pin her down, suggesting to the audience that, as someone who was there behind the scenes, in his journalistic judgement there is some doubt about where Hillary stood on this issue.

So no, when George spent a lot of time asking Obama about flagpins or questions raised during his stop on Sean Hannity’s radio program, he hasn’t been tricked, or played for a fool, he’s playing dumb. When they hand him these questions (or he comes up with them himself), it doesn’t matter that he was there when Hillary opposed pushing NAFTA.

Consider what this says about our chattering class: they feel absolutely no obligation to inform viewers, and what’s worse, do feel an obligation to pass on accusations they know are false. There is what he knows, and what he tells you, and the two don’t have to agree.

So, how is this different from lying, exactly?