◼ Adversarial journalism has been replaced by secretarial journalism. - Matthew Continetti/Washington Free Beacon
Americans may be tiring of glimpsing Obama’s journey, but our secretarial media is not. Their fascination and support for modish liberalism is one of the reasons their industry is dying. When Steve Clemons provides content more or less indistinguishable from a reporter’s, why hire the reporter?
Recently, for example, Hillary Clinton has been allowing extremely wealthy people the privilege of paying her $200,000 to ask her questions. Her preferred interlocutor is Democratic heavy lifter David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group. On Wednesday evening he interviewed Clinton before an audience of VIPs—the full spectrum of American life, from Steve Rattner to Christiane Amanpour to Bill Daley—at a memorial event for the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke.
Maggie Haberman of Politico reports that Rubenstein grilled Clinton for 30 minutes on such pressing topics as “her law school days and why she chose Yale over Harvard … how her family reacted when she moved to Arkansas; her rival Rick Lazio walking to the podium to try to get her to sign a soft-money pledge during their 2000 Senate race debate; a moment when she said she knew she’d won the race; and Obama imploring her to become secretary of state after their hard-fought 2008 contest.” Rubenstein also asked Clinton if she’s ever thought about joining a private equity firm. “Is that an offer?” Clinton replied. Oh, how the audience laughed.
The accommodation with the Iranian regime did not come up during the conversation. Syria does not seem to have come up. Nor does Chinese saber rattling. The bin Laden raid came up, mainly as an opportunity for Clinton to say that she supported it. When Haberman asked Rubenstein why he had no questions on important diplomatic affairs for the woman who has as good a claim as any to be the next president, Rubenstein said Clinton wouldn’t have given him direct answers to such questions, so why ask them in the first place.
