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When the Press Stops Buying What Hillary is Selling: A Parrot Tale
Hillary Clinton's advisers continue to insist that the candidate's prospects are very much alive, but the press isn't buying it. Exhibit A: There are two press buses waiting at the hotel here for Clinton's trip to her victory rally in West Virginia, but the entire press contingent doesn't quite fill one. It isn't until the entourage arrives at Dulles Airport that Clinton aides learn that the second bus is still idling, empty, at the hotel.
Dana Milbank's Washington Sketch column "This is and Ex-Candidate" takes a cold hard look at the state of the HRC campaign by, among other things, comparing it to the dead parrot sketch from Monty Python. But it is his observation of the loss of interest by the press, and the lack of cheering supporters at the airport that really drive the point home:
2:57 p.m., Yeager Airport, Charleston, W.Va.: A steep descent brings Clinton's plane to Charleston's hilltop airport. After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters; in fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing. She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.
Empty buses and photo-ops of the candidate waving and pointing at a crowd that isn't there. Not only is there no one behind the curtain, the curtain itself has been removed and has been sent off to a storage unit in Foggy Bottom.
Parrots seem to be the theme of the day. Anyone seen the Obama Parrot clip?
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Comments (24)
You sound angry.
May 14, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
How very observant, Otto. Red means angry, so whenever you see red, that means angry. Good boy! Gold star for you today! And now it's time to get out your cot and take a nap. Your brain must be very tired after all of that hard thinking.
May 14, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, I have no idea why the text of the first quote ended up being all red. Must be some code carryover from the cut-n-paste.
May 14, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You made the whole paragraph a link. That's why it's red.
May 14, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah. He sounds gleeful, perhaps gloating, but definitely not angry.
May 14, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
It appears that the "Dana Milbank" highlighting somehow got swallowed up by the "quote" code. Bad formatting makes me angry! There's a bone tossed out for you Otto, happy now?
May 14, 2008 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't expect anything else from her.
May 14, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave; in fact, she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier.
F'ing hilarious!
May 14, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, this is just S-A-D. In this case, I'm glad the media isn't showing us the whole picture. How embarrassing!
May 14, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing but close-ups with the soft-focus lens from now on.
May 14, 2008 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You got it. "Oh Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up now."
May 14, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Milbank's report makes me nervous. I think I remember a similar dead-pan report about HIllary boring everyone at a New Hampshire rally/townhall meeting. She ended up winning. Please just end this.
More importantly, Tery McAuliffe likes to say that in 1980 and in 1984 the Dems had a second-place candidate still hanging on during the convention, but he doesn't seem to notice that this didn't help the nominee and the Democrats lost both of those elections.
May 14, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
End this, indeed. I'm willing to write off Hillary waving to the non-existant crowd as another example of "steep descent" syndrome. Must be the g-forces or "sump-in".
May 14, 2008 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't think Dana Milbank is recycling columns, do you? Or pulling a Maureen Dowd and filing from another country while stamping it from the primary state?
Anyway, if you want to see how historically bad Dana Milbank is, just Google "Dana Milbank Daily Howler". He's been misreporting and letting his inner fantasies drive his realities for well over a decade.
May 15, 2008 6:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of this:
Why doesn't anyone in the press just turn the camera around and show what's really going on? Do they sign agreements that restrict them to covering events in certain ways?
In any case, I'll never see Hillary's point-and-wave again the same way. It reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRbBJi0jfdU
May 14, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they do that, Hillary won't let them fly back to DC on the plane?
May 14, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clap-clap-point-point and everything will be ok.
May 14, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
She uses the false recognition point and wave in every single appearance she makes at least once. It's hard to believe that she sees someone she knows at every single stop. This is simply for the cameras. No other politician does this every time! I friend of mine remarked about this months ago and since then I have watched. Everytime she in on TV in front of a crowd, she does this.
May 14, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steep descent, no one waiting on the tarmac... SNIPERS! I'm sure that once she hustled across the killing field, she was warmly welcomed by thousands in a secured hangar.
May 14, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
She does that "spot a friend in the crowd" gesture/face just a bit too much on schedule at her appearances. There is usually two of them, just as she is walking up to the podium.
May 14, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's such a shame people keep voting for her, otherwise she could pack it in.
May 15, 2008 4:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is a shame for you that not enough of them did so to keep her in contention for the nomination. The current situation is the best of all posible worlds. She has enough to go on till the end, generating news and turn out in each successive state, but we are in no danger of her actualy winning.
May 15, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's such a shame that she can't do simple math, and figure out that not enough people are voting for her, nor figure out what honor requires of her, in not dissembling to drag Obama's name through the mud. There are a lot of shameful things going on, unfortunately for her, most people can figure out that she's at the center of a lot of them.
May 15, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
This really is a shame. A shame on our nation. Lets be clear, at one point she was the front runner. And it is clear now that the race is over. doesn't this woman have any true friends in her life that are coming up to her and telling her,
"listen, you fought a good fight, but it is over. Save what dignity you have left and lose honorably."
For the past couple of months, I have been happy to see her lose, but now, it's not just beating a dead horse, it has become the dead horse beating itself. Here is the real bend to the story though. She is still a senator, and given the levels of A)self delusion or B)atempts to delude her stalwart supporters, Is it inconcievable to think that we could be looking at another lieberman? That is the only reason I can see for her collegues allowing her to self destruct in this manner.
May 15, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
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