Hey Media, It’s Not About You

6:58 pm EST November 26th, 2007 | News | Comments Off

The New York Times’ Patrick Healy (who has a perverse obsession with the private life of Sen. Clinton) writes the following in his campaign coverage blog that is so telling:

My colleague Jason Horowitz, of the New York Observer, wrote a very funny blog item about the inanity of their conversation, as they swapped questions and answers about carbon dioxide and biofuels.

This is no knock on Mrs. Clinton; all campaigns and candidates do photo ops like this. And reporters would rather see her than not. But it would’ve been nice if it had been a less guarded moment, if there had some recognition that the whole thing was a little over-produced, if there had been more chatty asides. Mrs. Clinton is very funny, including about the absurdities of politics. Not that she needs a better relationship with the media, necessarily, but she is good company when that side of her comes out.

He might as well have said “Jump through this hoop, Hillary, we like that.” Why does the media keep thinking its all about them? Political campaigns – on either side – are not about the elitist cabal in the mainstream press. It isn’t, frankly, about bending to the whims of Patrick Healy and the New York Times. It is about going to the people of America, Iowa in this instance, and asking them for their vote. The media can go fly a kite.