So long as President Trump continues disgracing the Oval Office, thoughtful people will probe their own role in helping him get there.
Such appeared to be the motivation behind a mea culpa issued by CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on comedian Larry Wilmore’s “Black on the Air” podcast. In a discussion of presidential politics, Wilmore argued that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, was the victim of a “coordinated attack” coming from Republicans. “Benghazi was … the expression of that attack. In fact, what’s his name, was it [former Rep. Jason] Chaffetz who actually kind of agreed that that’s what they were doing, was weakening her as a candidate.” (Wilmore may have been referring to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who said in 2015, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”)
No question about the attack on Clinton, responded Toobin, citing “all that bogus stuff about the Clinton Foundation” — perhaps a reference to the Uranium One story or even to the pre-election reporting of Bret Baier — later withdrawn — that there would be an indictment relating to the foundation.
“And I hold myself somewhat responsible for that,” continued Toobin, a steady presence on CNN since 2002. “I think there was a lot of false equivalence in the 2016 campaign. That every time we said something, pointed out something about Donald Trump — whether it was his business interests, or grab ’em by the p–––y, we felt like, ‘Oh, we gotta, like, talk about — we gotta say something bad about Hillary.’ And I think it led to a sense of false equivalence that was misleading, and I regret my role in doing that.”
I would suggest that not only did reporters often suggest that the phony Clinton "scandals" were similar to the raging dumpster fire that represented the Trump campaign, but that they actually suggested that Hillary's "crimes" were potentially more egregious.
The coverage of Hillary's emails was insane.
So was the coverage of Benghazi, her fainting spell, and virtually everything she did which somebody could find reason to criticize.
In the meantime Trump was being accused of sexual assault, working with the Mafia, and colluding with the Russians to steal the election, and somehow those were seen as equivalent.
I hope that Jeffrey Toobin sets a precedent, and that soon we will hear apologies from a number of CNN, MSNBC, as well as network and print journalists for their part in attempting to even the playing field between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
There was nothing even about these two candidates, and the American people should have been informed of that fact.
