Why Are the Right Obsessed by Clinton?

There's an extraordinarily sleazy story in the New York Times speculating on the state of the Clinton's marriage.

It admits that the Clinton's did not take part in the article and urged their friends not to do so either.

Many of those interviewed were granted anonymity to discuss a relationship for which the Clintons have long sought a zone of privacy. The Clintons and, for the most part, their aides declined to cooperate for this article and urged others not to cooperate as well. Their spokesmen, Jay Carson (his) and Philippe Reines (hers), provided a statement about the relationship:

"She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in D.C. as often as possible — often going to great lengths to do so. When their work schedules require that they be apart they talk all the time."

At a time when Osama bin Laden has reportedly just released a new audio tape, or the current President is threatening to prosecute any journalist who publishes material that he might find embarrassing, one would think the good people of the New York Times would have more to trouble them than whether or not Hillary and Bill are hitting it off together.

But no, "when in trouble bash the Clintons", remains the only game in town. And the worst aspect of the entire thing is that he doesn't even have the balls to say that the marriage is in trouble, instead he just keeps hinting at it. It's quite the most disgusting thing I've read for a while.

To be fair the readers comments at the "Blog" are almost uniformly hostile:

Towards the beginning of Patrick Healy’s article entitled “Clintons Balance Married and Public Lives,” he mentions that the Clintons and most of those close to them declined to participate in the article. After reading the end product, it’s pretty clear that they made the right decision. I expect front page articles in The New York Times to be well-sourced, newsworthy, and related to important national and international issues. This article, though, was a gossipy, mean-spirited hit piece that seemed to serve no purpose except as a forum for idle speculation about the state of the Clintons’ marriage.

Your reporter cannot find anyone to give a quote that says that the Clintons have anything but a normal, loving, supportive marriage, but he consistently implies that this is not the case.

Sincerely,
Sean *****

Let’s see–with the Iraq war out of control, the Abramoff scandal, the Delay scandal, the Cunningham scandal, the Plame scandal, the wiretapping and spying scandal, secret prisons, torture, the economy tanking and the 2006 elections coming up, the New York Times, that august paper, devotes space on page one to the Clinton’s marriage?

Right–let’s discuss the greatest President, because the reporters at the New York Times are too intimidated to discuss the current pResident who is threatening to investigate them if they run stories that upset him. It must have taken great courage on the part of the New York Times editorial board to order such a story.

Comment by Rolling My Eyes.....

PS: Mr. Healy, I lined my cat’s litter box with today’s Times and he won’t use it now. Any suggestions?

Comment by Mia Culpa

At this point Mr Healy apparently simply started deleting articles that he considered "offensive", he made no attempt to blog back.

You know what the most amusing thing about this so-called “blog” is? The complete and total lack of any sort of response or interaction from anyone at the Times.

Nearly every commenter here has lambasted you mercilessly, and rightly so. Yet, despite the ease and speed with which this medium allows you to respond, you refuse to do so, instead wasting your time deleting comments that might have a nasty word in them, lest some impressionable children be stained for life.

To call the Times a joke is to belabor the obvious at this point…

Comment by dave

What an appalling story: trivial, mean-spirited, vague and coquettish in that it keeps hinting at hot goods and never delivers. Writers, editors all should go take a shower and start over again tomorrow.

Comment by Daniel Millstone

I suppose we can expect more of this if Hillary decides to run. But even this one article reminds us of how hard they went after Clinton and what an easy ride they are allowing to the present incumbent of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Clinton hasn't been in office for five years and the right simply can't give up baiting him.

If they had paid even a fraction of this kind of attention to the bogus arguments being put forward to justify the invasion of Iraq, they might still be worthy of the term journalist.

As things stand, they're not.

Click title to read the NYT's bilge.

Tags: New, York, Times, Clinton, marriage, speculation,