Memo to media: Statement attributed to Clinton in Game Change is not a direct quote

[babylonsister]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201001110043

Memo to media: Statement attributed to Clinton in Game Change is not a direct quote

January 11, 2010 6:07 pm ET by Terry Krepel


On page 218 of their book Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin write:

But Bill {Clinton} then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

Note the lack of quote marks around the statement attributed to Clinton. That means it's a paraphrase, not a direct quote. That means that Heilemann and Halperin did not or could not verify that Clinton said those exact words -- their source is not Kennedy or Clinton, but someone else who was supposedly aware of a later, alleged conversation between Kennedy and a "friend." As The Plum Line's Greg Sargent points out, the authors do indeed admit in their book: "Where dialog is not in quotes, it is paraphrased, reflecting only a lack of certainly on the part of our sources about precise wording, not about the nature of the statements."

As Sargent notes, Clinton may have said something along those lines, but: "In cases like these, when people are hinting at racism, the precise wording is everything. And in this case, the whole claim is based on an anonymous source's recollection that someone who has now passed away told him or her that Clinton said something like this."

So why are news organizations treating this as an exact, direct quote?

snip//

You'd expect right-wing websites to ignore the fact that Clinton's statement is a paraphrase and not a quote -- Fox Nation, for example, was quick to oblige. Shouldn't the "mainstream media" have higher journalistic standards than Fox Nation?

[Bitwit1234]

1. Yep African Americans would probably be getting people coffee

and white people would be getting people coffee, and Hispanics and on and on. Looks like every race going has worked for a service agency and is a coffee getter....Reminds me do republicans require all the workers in their coffee houses to be lily white.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Considering Bill's racist comments during the primaries

I find the assertion rather credible.

[shopgreen]

5. Bill said nothing racist during the primaries. It was all bull and you know or should

it.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Bill Clinton used coded language during the primaries, or have you forgotten that?

I sure as hell haven't.

[shopgreen]

8. Your mind is coded only to believe that. Sad.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Remember Bill's 'fairy tale' comment in South Carolina?

I remember all of the shit Bill dished at Obama, which coincidental did more harm to Hillary's campaign than anything else.

Racial tensions roil Democratic race

A series of comments from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband and her supporters are spurring a racial backlash and adding a divisive edge to the presidential primary as the candidates head south to heavily African-American South Carolina.

The comments, which ranged from the New York senator appearing to diminish the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement — an aide later said she misspoke — to Bill Clinton dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a “fairy tale” — generated outrage on black radio, black blogs and cable television. And now they've drawn the attention of prominent African-American politicians.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7845.html

There is a lot of revisionism going on nowadays, but we still have our memories.

[shopgreen]

14. your memory bank has been permantly flawed if you believe

either of the Clinton's are racist.

edit to fix a typo.

[IndianaGreen]

17. The underlying issue here is the use of racist or coded words

and in that respect, Bill Clinton is guilty as hell.

[seeinfweggos]

22. you'll drag up anything to try to divide democrats

amazingly transparent

[IndianaGreen]

23. Oh, please, shove that theory up where the sun doesn't shine

HCR is dividing Democrats!

[seeinfweggos]

25. thanks for that update on the Democratic party, IndianaGreen

i will compare it with my notes from NewHampshireRepublican and AmericanSamoaLibertarian

[leftynyc]

38. No he's not

But do continue to believe anything that trashes the Clintons - I'm sure it wont surprise anyone here.

[seeinfweggos]

43. the greens trash virtually any and all dems

they are after all, an oposition party like the republicans

[karynnj]

19. I agree that neither is racist, but BILL clearly opted to "use" race

to try to beat Obama. (I honestly do not remember a time when Hillary did.)

[Vattel]

16. I'm glad Clinton still stands by his "fairytale" remark.

Clinton was correct to suggest that Obama's claim that he was always against the Irag war was a fairytale. But correct or not, the idea that there was any racism in that suggestion is, as anyone who doesn't have blinders on realizes, ludicrous.

[karynnj]

21. The comments after the SC primary were playing the race card

and an attempt to diminish Obama.

[Vattel]

29. do you disagree with my post?

[karynnj]

34. Yes and no

I never thought the "fairytale" comment was racist, but it I did think it was inaccurate on Iraq. There was a difference between Clinton's and Obama's positions in 2002 and 2003. It was not just Clinton's vote, but her few comments in 2003 which were in support of invading. Bill Clinton used a response in 2004, the week before the convention, that was essentially "I don't know" on a theoretical question on how he would have voted. This question would likely have opened to other questions and created a negative story as the 2004 convention started. The response was both honest and a response that protected the nominee.

In addition, Clinton took another 2004 comment on what to do going forward in Iraq. Obama's answer was similar to Kerry's - and the steps he described were NOT what Bush was doing. Like the Republicans in 2004, what Clinton did was to simply take the first part that the goal was to stabilize Iraq (and leave) and said that Obama agreed with Bush's plan. This was a complete mischaracterization whether said by Rove in 2004 or Clinton in 2008. (The fact is that the Democrat in 2004 who fully backed Bush's efforts and criticized those on the left who were criticizing the war effort (including our nominee - ahem) on his book tour was Bill Clinton.)

The Clintons had the biggest megaphones in the Democratic party. Neither used their position - as Gore did and as Kerry did in late fall and early 2003 to argue that the inspections were working and that diplomacy was still an option. In 2004, I did not think it unfair that Dean used Kerry's vote - even though Dean's 2002 comments were not like Obama's, but favored Biden/Lugar (the resolution Kerry preferred as well) and Kerry did speak against rushing to war as he said he would making the difference less between Dean and Kerry less than the difference between Obama and Clinton. The fact is you have to run on your record - and Bill Clinton tried to revise his own history on Iraq and was called on it even by people who typically liked him.

I know that many here were of the belief that to be against the war, you had to be against it before it started, voted against ANY resolution, and then against it continuing. I do see the difference between the two pieces - and there are people like Ted Kennedy who was strongly against the war and who voted for the funding. I would have been happier with Obama's record had he voted for Kerry/Feingold, especially as 6 months later his plan was a variation of K/F with a slightly longer timeline, but that was a decision of how we should be fighting the war - not whether to start it in the first place.

Clinton was trying to paper over the differences because the differences favored Obama. The funny thing is if Obama would have made the politically difficult decision to support K/F, Clinton would not have been able to do this.

[Beacool]

33. Hear, hear!!!

The cries of racism were used to try to bring down both Clintons. Remember the memo that Russert waved at Obama during one of the debates?

The Obama campaign had the candidate pretend to be above the fray, at the same time that his staffers were eagerly contacting the media to promulgate this meme.

x(

[burning rain]

45. "Fairytale" is racist?

What kind of brainfart is that?

[AspenRose]

9. Me either. A lot of people here still remember.

We've got your back.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/27/clinton/index.html

Apparently some people think you have to out-and-out use racial epithets in order to race bait.

Someone owes you an apology.

[janx]

3. " So why are news organizations treating this as an exact, direct quote?"

Because news organizations are becoming the National Enquirer $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Presumably a paraphrase derived from a comment about youth and inexperience

To believe the comment (whatever it was) was racist one has to make a series of assumptions:

1) Bill Clinton is a fairly coarse racist, and

2) Bill Clinton considered Ted Kennedy to be appreciative of fairly coarse racism


Bill Clinton has a temper and a mean streak and doubtless said all sorts of hardball things about Obama during the primaries, but it's not real plausible that he would seek Kennedy's endorsement for Hillary by celebrating America's history of apartheid or suggesting that black people shouldn't hold responsible positions... which seems to be the desired take-away of the book's presentation.


In the Senate or White House serving coffee is indicative of being a junior staffer, not of being black. (The comment would be more loaded spoken about a woman of any race, actually.)

The fact that the paraphrase is offered in a form that could be read as some Storm-front white supremacist bullshit speaks volumes about the authors, not Clinton. For instance, "a few years ago" can be read by the suspicious-minded as meaning during Jim Crow, though it's an insane reading.

Fake controversy for its own sake.

The question of whether one could be dismissive of Obama's age or experience without being racist was covered ad nauseum during the primaries. If one believes that diminishing Obama in any context must be racially inspired then that's what it is, but whatever is being paraphrased cannot credibly have the coarsely racist meaning the authors seem to have labored to create.

[jbnow]

24. The Clintons seem so far from being racists. Still Bill

said some dumb things during the campaign, including some that used race.

I never saw Bill as off kilter as during that campaign. He usually was so much smoother in public. I worried about effect of recent heart surgery and all that campaigning... and he just REALLY wanted Hillary to win. Seemed harder on him to see her not winning than when it was his own campaign. He could have said any stupid thing caught up in adrenaline and anger and frustration and fatigue. He was just so intense then.

I don't know what he said and really I don't care. The campaign is over now, Hillary has been stellar in her role and Bill hasn't been any problem at all, letting her shine.

[karynnj]

36. I'm not sure that Bill didn't want that win too much

and was willing to do things that he really knew were wrong. One anonymous Clinton friend was quoted on CNN as saying shortly before the SC primary that Bill knew that the attack dog things he was doing then hurt his own standing, but that he looked at it as a "double down" bet. He felt that they needed a second Presidency to seal a record with major accomplishments on things that were not finished in his terms - partially because of Monica.

People forget that 1992 was not smooth either because it was prettied up in the WAR ROOM. 1992, like 2008, was a year the Democrats would have to work very hard to lose even though in early 1991 it looked the opposite. Bush 1 was in free fall, ending up at 33%. Clinton at one point was three out of three with Perot ahead of him. The media was then better for liberals/Democrats than it would be a decade later and there were many in the media enthralled by Clinton. Coverage always is cut and paste - and in 1992, that favored Clinton as none of the temper showed - just the sunny smile.

I don't think Hillary has been "stellar", but neither she or Bill have been a problem. (Hillary has had her share of gaffes as SOS and it was clear that Obama did not want her out front on the Christmas bomber issue - even though the State Department was where the warning was received and the place where VISAs were issued. It was a week before HRC was in public. On DKOS, a diarist was calling out Democratic Senators for not protecting Obama - without mentioning that his SoS was not there. Now, I think that no matter who was SoS, the same lower level screw up would have likely occurred, but I seriously doubt that they would have not been forced to be out there speaking of how they were changing the policy that let this slip through the cracks. The point is she was likely seen as being vulnerable if she were sent out after Napolitano.)

[stray cat]

6. And what is the direct quote?

[Metric System]

11. I thought I had read something about Hillary serving coffee in the Senate in Carl Bernstein's book

A Woman in Charge." From what I gathered it was a way of showing respect to those in the Senate with more seniority. I did some googling and found this quote from Bernstein back in 2007:

"They expected her to be the bull in the china shop," Bernstein said. "Instead, she even went so far as to get the male senators their coffee and asked whether they wanted cream or sugar -- literally. She first made friends with the men and women who had voted against her husband and for conviction (on impeachment)."

[shopgreen]

30. Obama said she served tea or set up tea parties as her foreign experience.

[Jennicut]

12. Bill Clinton is not my favorite person BUT this book is very gossipy

and Heilemann and Halperin totally set out to slime everyone they can in it. Take it with a grain of salt.

[shopgreen]

31. the worst kind of gossip at that!!

[spiritual_gunfighter]

44. Just knowing the type of high school gossip reporters

Halperin and Heilemann have been in the past, I am surprised so many here on DU are taking this stuff seriously.

[Canuckistanian]

13. I suspect the whole book a scam

Seeing that there are no sourced references ANYHWERE in the book.

There may be some "kernels" of truth in the book, but to use it as a definitive reference would be a mistake.

[bigwillq]

15. Obviously they have something on Reid

or else why apologize? :shrug: I think the book is trash (at least from what I heard about it).

[Canuckistanian]

27. They probably got it right on Reid

But that doesn't mean it's ALL correct. Great scams always have a bit of truth to them for veracity.

[Patsy Stone]

18. I think

they just put all this stuff out there as a sort of buffet or a la carte menu of accusations to choose from when you need to bash a Democrat. Who in their right mind would print all that stuff about Elizabeth Edwards? For the life of me, I don't see what the point of going after her was. Also, if your husband really *is* having affair, doesn't that negate any accusations of paranoia?

I'm not naive enough to think the book can't be true, but the whole thing doesn't sit right with me for some reason.

[Canuckistanian]

26. Exactly

It may all be perfectly true. But then again, we'll never know for sure. And because it's unsourced, it gives the subjects a perfect excuse to deny it all.

[Patsy Stone]

28. Someone on another thread

called it the new Arkansas Project. I think that's just about right.

[Canuckistanian]

32. Very perceptive

I like it.

[Beacool]

35. I agree.

I think that the stuff written about the Edwards was cringe worthy. It was embarrassing to read. I bought NY Magazine last night and I regretted it. It was painful to read about the marriage falling apart in front of everyone's eyes. Frankly, we didn't need to know all these things. the public doesn't have a right to every nuance of a public figure's life. It's as if the monster has to be fed and to hell with the lives that it destroys.

This book is intellectual pap for the people who feel scorn for rags like the National Enquirer, but can't wait to get their hands on this garbage. They can still feel morally superior while they read un-sourced crap about public people who have done more in their lifetimes than they will ever accomplish themselves. They all make me sick.

:puke:

[Jennicut]

37. I totally agree. There might be some truth to it but do we really need to know all the

details, like of Edwards and their marriage problems or even the McCains issues? I feel dirty reading this stuff.

[Beacool]

39. Even if every word was the gospel truth, why would we have the right to know it?

It is obviously a sad episode in two people's lives. I was no big fan of Edwards, but exposing the details of their collapsing marriage is no one's business. I also find it sickening how staffers in every campaign were so quick to bad mouth the people who they worked for; what bunch of weasels.

x(

Hi, Jenni!!

:hi:

[garagedoor]

40. The "Recounting" of the Edwards Saga

Was very, very sad.

Beacool, I usually find myself silently (because I normally lurk) screaming in disagreement (all's fair in DU) but today I wholeheartedly agree with your postings about the Edwards items in this book.

I felt slimy simply reading the recount. It is the worst of gossip and today serves no purpose. The authors seem to have this agenda of "settling the score" with Elizabeth Edwards. Yesterday I heard the word "shrew" twice on separate networks while describing her. The media has sunk to new lows.

[Beacool]

42. Hi, thanks for responding.

The authors are hacks. They are political reporters who were in the tank for one specific candidate (notice which campaign does not get the same vitriolic treatment).

But, the things written about the Edwards I found particularly slimy and nasty. There was no need to know that in a moment of utter despair Elizabeth ripped open her blouse. That physically made me wince. I was no great fan of Liz during the early primaries because in my opinion she said some things about Hillary that crossed the line (like stating that her life choices had made her more joyous than Hillary's, for example), but having said that, she certainly didn't deserve to have her private pain exposed in this trashy book.

As for the Clintons, there were far worse things said about them in the past and they have managed to slough it all off. So I'm not worried about them. IMO, they shouldn't even bother responding and ignore this pap.

Come out of the shadows and contribute more often.

:hi:

[Jennicut]

41. We really don't need to know EVERY detail.

Hey, Beacool! :)

[IndianaGreen]

20. Reid admitted he was the source for his quotations

and the Clintons are all alone, no longer defended by the entourage that followed them everywhere.

The only thing I get out of all the revelations in the book, which also includes Sarah Palin's messianic beliefs, is that this shows our country is in the hands of a crazy and self-serving political elites.