Why we can’t have nice things
by digby
Today’s Meet the Press was a real doozy. The panel was especially bad. You can watch it here.
They talked about the new WSJ/NBC poll with the pollsters who offered up these word clouds which were put together from what the Clinton and Trump voters said when asked to name the first word that came to their minds when you mention their rival:
They went on to lament the fact that both sides think so negatively about their rival and they clutched their pears about what awful negative ratings both of them have.
Here’s the thing. Clinton is accused of being a liar and a criminal, but it’s not true. Indeed, FBI director Comey announced today that the emails they found on Anthony Weiner’s computer were either personal or duplicates of what they’d already seen and they found nothing of interest and that’s that. There was no criminal activity including lying to the FBI which she did not do.
So, people believe a lie about Clinton, largely because the news media has relentlessly flogged a fake scandal for a year and a half.
The words about Trump are well … obvious. He has openly demonstrated it on the trail, in debates and in interviews. And he has been disclosed as being all those things in the past.
They aren’t the same.
But the press portrays her as just as “bad” as he is, lamenting how ugly the race is and how awful it is that the parties can’t produce even one decent candidate.
It’s maddening. You don’t have to think Clinton is a wonderful leader to know that they are not even in the same galaxy in terms of honesty, fitness for the office, personal integrity, professional qualifications, intelligence, competence and decency. To pretend they are the same is just gaslighting half the country.
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