Ezra Klein - Frank Rich Unfair to Hillary

February 11, 2008

RICH V. CLINTON.

I have to say, I find it a bit strange that Paul Krugman's attacks on Barack Obama's health care plan and consensus-based theory of change have elicited so much more attention than Frank Rich's far less substantial, and far more unhinged, rants against Hillary Clinton. Hillary bashing has become so normalized that, save in the most extreme and offensive instances (like Shuster accusing her of "pimping out her daughter), it barely registers as more than background noise. On the one hand, this is a real advantage for the Obama campaign. On the other, it's tremendously unfair, and a prime example of the media using the power of pack narratives and group beliefs to influence elections, and it's a power that progressives hould call out and oppose. Whatever their respective merits as politicians, what's happening to Hillary is little different than what happened to Gore.