This is pretty funny (and pathetic). The possibilities are endless. I did not know that Bill Clinton could move that many magazines. I guess we'll just have to start calling the Senator "She who MUST be obeyed.

I would much rather see a Democratic candidate who plays hardball on these things than see a repeat of the Kerry campaign's completely pathetic response to the Swiftboat allegations.

Granted, GQ's piece was, I would imagine, nothing like the Swiftboat attacks. Heck, it might have even be factually correct. But fighting bad press is an important survival skill in presidential politics, and one that has been missing from Democratic campaigns at the expense of the candidates, the party and the country.

Do TPM Election Central and others who report this story run this of being similarly cut-off? I wonder how many MSM reporters are going to ask her about this . . . repeatedly until she actually admits that the story was killed at her campaign's request (or substantiates that it had nothing to do with it)?

TPM EC: You should start the clock now....

I don't see how anyone who reads the Vanity Fair story about the trashing of Al Gore - which led to the imposition of fascism on this country for 8 years (at this count) - can object to a Democratic candidate playing hardball with the media. The whole Repub-Fascist propaganda machine is successful because they show up at the rumble with switchblades and bats, and the dems want Marquis of Queensbuty fisticuffs. I honor tolerant, open political discourse, but I don't want to live under the Reich any longer.

This story strikes me as very odd. Reading it, it's almost as if two people, including the anti-Clinton author are the sole first hand sources for this story. Given Politico's track record, I have grave reservations about this story. Not so much that Clinton tried to cut the story, but the reasons for wanting to cut it.

Seriously, does anyone think a story that's only about campaign infighting would evoke such a response from Clinton who has received much worse coverage? Really, now. The Clintons would have known a leak of this sort of thing would be bad for the campaign. Certainly much worse than if an article solely addressing infighting was published. There had to have been some misinformation or something really damaging.

Ben Smith was also the guy who alerted us to the lurking menace of John Edwards' haircuts. That one pretty much did it for me and Politico. They seem to aspire to filling the void left by Mark Halperin and The Note. I can't be bothered.

A couple of commenters have suggested that they don't see what the big deal is; that they want to see Democrats get tough with the press. I agree with the concept, but not the method. If the piece is factually inaccurate, challenge it on the facts. Killing the story before it gets out by blackmail (i.e., cutting off access) is EXACTLY what the current administration does. I don't know if this story is true (only time will tell), but if it is, then this Exhibit A as to why she's not going to get elected. America doesn't need this kind of toughness....

Rather than discussing the Machevilli of media manipulation I would really like to hear about the the teams of advisors the major candidates rely on. These people in the shadows are the Dukes that will shape the choices the new (King) Chief executive will see to choose from. The Principal advisors, the dozen or so confidants should be exposed and vetted as hard as we think we vet the candidates. If the MSM had done its job with Bush and showed us his team of bozos and explained clearly their idology biases and what the choice ment, we might not have had a Bush Presidency. Not that Kerry's team was swift about tactics. An expose by TPM of who these people are, their experiences, mentors and what their point of view is, could be a real service to creating an informed electorate rather than a bamboozolled electorate come Jan 2009. Such an analysis would be much more interesting than a suspect story as qpmartinez rightly points out.

Didn't something similar to this happen back when Billy was President? I'm talking about John Travolta's role in the movie Primary Colors in which a character, believed to have been loosely based on Bill, was portrayed more positively by Travolta AFTER Bill met with Travolta and would seem to have traded his presidential intervention in European afairs (re Germany's "mistreatment" of Scientology) with a more favorqable portrayal of Bill.

Man, these Hillary people take perception-management SERIOUSLY.

I am sicked tired of the editorial bias of this site. Why the heck you just not declares for Obama?

There is no editorial bias on this site and this post is certainly not proof of it. They are simply reporting a story that is out about a particular campaign. If it turns out to be true, then it will be a serious story that will garner substantial attention in the coming days and weeks. If it's false, me-thinks Ben Smith, the Politico and Drudge will have some 'splaining to do.

"Too many in Washington see politics as a game. And that is why I believe this election cannot be about who can play this game better. It has to be about who can put an end to the game-playing. The times are too serious; the stakes are too high."

Barack Obama

If you just changed the attribution of that line to John Kerry, it would pretty accurately tell you why he lost an election that he should have won easily. While he being smeared as a flip-flopper (remember the very effective "windsurfing" ad), swift-boated, and ridiculed, Kerry played nice... unilaterally! We know the outcome...

I knew Obama was politically "green" but if his strategy for winning the general election is to declare unilateral truce on "game-playing" against his Repub opponent then we would be headed for sure 3rd straight defeat if this guy gets the nomination! Is he so naïf as to really believe that the Repubs would start playing nice if he just showed them how? Scary stuff...

I say: More power to HRC to be the only Dem candidate in a long time to show real cojones and play hardball against the press and the wingnuts!

Is a Hillarista like a femanazi?

Mmm hmmm. Hillary's tough. Why she's so tough that she was willing to engage in a little extortion to get the story spiked rather than endure a little (more) unflattering press.

This is a huge non sequitur: Which politician in America has endured more "little" unflattering press then HRC in recent memory? At some point, the line between civility and masochism becomes blurred and people do not know the difference anymore. Case in point: Bush was the draft-dodger and yet, because of Kerry's willingness to repeatedly endure a 'little' unflattering press, this decorated Vietnam vet was successfully painted as a coward and unpatriotic and it stuck! For a draft-dodger to successfully make a decorated vet look like a wimp and unpatriotic is quite a trick, don't you think? While the GOP would almost certainly succeed in doing this sort of things to Obama or even to Edwards, they won't succeed with HRC because she shown that she has bigger cojones than the boys. In '08, the Dem nominee must be tough and prepared to take down any unflattering press as quickly as possible to ensure victory, and HRC will be that nominee...

And really, people, whatever else you might say about him, anyone who thinks Obama doesn't know how to manage the press needs to take a pass on the next round or two of Hill-Aid.

Obama has no clue whatsoever on how to "manage" the press. Why do you think that he's been trailing HRC by double digits in every poll for so long, despite raking in more campaign contributions and out-raising her in the second quarter? Well, I tell you why: Because he has not been able to manage the press depiction of him as inexperienced and politically "green". That perception of him has stuck and it has all but killed his chances to be the nominee. Should he, by some miracle, beat HRC or Edwards for the nomination, I hope that he would quickly learn that the Repubs are not nice guys at all, and they they won't play nice just because he preaches some "new" politics of civility. Despite our wishes to see a "gentler and kinder" Washington, the reality is that politics, by definition, is a very nasty business, and there is nothing that Obama can do to change that. He'll just lose yet again for the Dem and things would go on unchanged until the next loss...Got it?

Unflattering stories by journalists with agendas is nothing new. Candidates who stand up to that are okay by me. There is simply too much tendentious garbage that passes for journalism today. In this case the Clinton camp is not going to do a Kerry. Bodes well for the bad times in the campaign when the Republicans, whose track record is awful will put out dirt.

I am inclined to give the candidates the benefit of the doubt. All this stuff about infighting - which is real and part of the hot house and competitive atmosphere of a campaign - is a diversion. For too long journalists have got away with trash. Critique policies, analyse speeches and do the real meaty and boring job. If you want to do hit jobs go to the glossies at the supermarket.

Both Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi faced the same bullshit time and time again.

It seems to me that quite a few people learned the wrong lesson from Kerry's failed campaign. Yes, the small picture point is that when you get smeared, you need to react quickly. But the big picture point is that if the Democrats nominate someone like Kerry--a candidate with very little personal appeal running mostly on a message of competence--the Republicans will find it very easy to make the campaign about small picture issues like the candidate's verbal missteps, faux scandals, and so on. The logical answer to this problem is not just to assume that the Republicans will get to set the agenda and then pick someone who will fight the small stuff tooth and nail--that is a losing strategy. Rather, the logical answer is to pick a candidate who has the power to actually shape the agenda, to get people thinking and talking about the big issues (on the issues, the Democrats tend to win). To be able to set the agenda in this fashion, the Democrats need to nominate someone with personal appeal, someone the people find inspiring and to whom they want to listen. And when they do that, the Republicans end up looking petty and out of touch with the concerns of America as they attempt to focus on the small stuff. All that is the obvious lesson to be learned by looking back at Gore and Kerry in contrast with Bill Clinton: the Republicans used the same personal-attack gamebook against all of them, and it worked with Gore and Kerry because the people found them uninspiring and unappealing, and so Gore and Kerry failed to set the agenda. But the American people liked Bill, and they believed he really cared about the things he talked about, and so they blamed the Republicans when the Republicans tried to make his campaigns about the personal stuff instead. So, that is the real lesson to be learned from recent history: the best way to counter the Republican's personal attack strategy is to not let them set the agenda, and the best way to do that is for the Democrats to nominate a candidate who the people like and want to listen to.

this article makes me like Clinton even more. its nice to finally have a democrat will balls to destroy their enemies.

we saw how far playing nice got Jimmy Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore (who even won the election yet still managed to lose), and of course Kerry who opened his legs during the swift boat attacks.

"The means we choose will form us in the end."

I can see that that has already happened with Hillary and some of her backers. Above, 'hillary backer' wrote: "this article makes me like Clinton even more. its nice to finally have a democrat will balls to destroy their enemies."

Anyone else catch the twisted values in that statement? 1] having 'balls' means manipulating/hiding truths; 2] its ok to 'destroy' others; 3] its ok to call half of American citizens 'enemies' if they are republicans.

It is this 'ends justify the means' twisting of American values that brought us Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, no?

Hillary campers seem proud that she has become so Bush-lite, but are sadly ignorant of how her and their chosen means have already gone down the slippery slope toward the same ugliness we Americans must counter through a renewal of integrity.

I think it's great that Hillary is playing hardball. She didn't call anyone names, she just said, print that and this happens. Actions and consequences.

Perfect.

Jake

Hillary sounds a lot like Nixon and Bush in their methods of secrecy and threatening the press if they reported anything bad about them. Is this what America is looking for in the next president? You would think that americans would be tired of this type of crap.

anns, since I wrote about Thatcher and Indira Gandhi let me give you my understanding in historical terms. I personally knew Srimavo Bandaranaike - PM of Sri Lanka and the first woman PM and head of government, have met and spent lots of time with Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhuttoand in addition to a dozen short meeetings had two half days visits with Margaret Thatcher. (76 years old and worked in a PM's office in 5 countries in the Commonwealth). Not sounding the trumpet. What I know is that whether conservative or liberals these women had a tough time both with their own party members and the opposition and the press. They faced scurrilous attacks. They were not angels: everyone had a strong authoritarian streak- basing their toughness, surprisingly on Golda Meir whom they all mentioned at one time or another.

My point is that Hillary has to cope with attacks because she is a woman first and then whatever: liberal, centrist, Republican light.

Will be happy to provide credential privately if you have any doubts.

If Hillaristas are not femanzis, are Hillogynists environmentalist wackos? Or did I get on the Rush Limbaugh web site by mistake?

In a schizophrenic post,

keith wrote on September 25, 2007 8:31 AM:
The funny thing here is that none of the HRC supporters have any idea whether the unflattering article had any substance to it. Seems to me if it was just a hit piece, then HRC showed toughness. If it was substantively correct, then she overstepped the line. But the reality is, we are deprived of knowing because of her (alleged) actions. In essence, any criticism of Dear Leader II is deemed unacceptable (seems eerily similar to Dear Leader I's handling of the media). This type of action just feeds into the meme that she is a polarizing figure, who can win the nomination, but one can almost guarantee little if anything constructive will get done during her administration (because of the constant damage control/in fighting with republicans).

First he deplores HRC's attempt at controlling the agenda and blunting bad press. (BTW: Nor do you know what the purportedly 'spiked' piece would have been about, so that most of what you say in here is tenuous. Conjectures cannot be passed for logical, factual reasoning...)

and then he bitches...

And as to the issue of other candidates handling of the media, the larger issue isn't just with a particular candidate, but with DEMOCRATS in general. The Democrats, unfortunately, lack a coherent media approach and generally have no understand of the words "talking point". That may be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. But at the end of the day, they (Democrats) will only be successful with their handling of the media once they stop presuming that the media will do their job (namely debunking the bullsh*t spewing from the mouths of Republicans).

...when there is, finally, a Democrat who has a "coherent media approach and generally has an understand of the words "talking point." Something that drives HRC's opponents and detractors berzerk is how "on message" and disciplined she is. It is the secret to her successful run for the Senate seat in NY, and so far in this campaign: Discipline and on-message for an error-free campaign. She appeared on all 5 Sunday talk shows, was so on message and did not stumble once, that every commentator was gushing! David Brooks: "She came across very presidential!" The press and the wingnuts' attacks won't be a problem for HRC and her gang: They've been there, and done that for over a decade. They'll control the message and the agenda, just like they have been so far.

I cannot believe that the many supporters of Senator Clinton whom I know and like actually support the ilk of authoritarian suspenders of the Indian constitution and Margaret Thatcher. (I voted for Clinton twice, BTW.) Is this site becoming infiltrated by Bushies in democratic clothing? Read your history.

Cher DcShunga,

Naivete! Francais!! Quelle horreur!!! Bashing true heroines like Aung Sun. Mais oui vous etes un republicain! Sacre bleu! Frites de liberte! Denigrating as naive a true heroine like Aung Sun. What's next! You are really funny. You have to be a Republican.... Enough said. I got to get to work.