An over-reliance on elite print-news sources can be disorienting

Jonathan Chait is an interesting writer. Definitely among the elite of the chattering class but usually more self-aware than most of his compatriots and more willingly honest. He has had a number of good articles this campaign season but that doesn't include this most recent, Matt Lauer’s Pathetic Interview of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Is the Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in This Campaign by Jonathan Chait.

He is quite honest about his commitment to the Democrats and therefore to the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is a shocking anathema to him. It is no great surprise that those who benefit from the status quo should wish for the status quo to continue, no matter how corrupt it might be.

This is an interesting admission though, relating to the recent interview conducted by Matt Lauer of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

I had not taken seriously the possibility that Donald Trump could win the presidency until I saw Matt Lauer host an hour-long interview with the two major-party candidates. Lauer’s performance was not merely a failure, it was horrifying and shocking. The shock, for me, was the realization that most Americans inhabit a very different news environment than professional journalists. I not only consume a lot of news, since it’s my job, I also tend to focus on elite print-news sources. Most voters, and all the more so undecided voters, subsist on a news diet supplied by the likes of Matt Lauer. And the reality transmitted to them from Lauer matches the reality of the polls, which is a world in which Clinton and Trump are equivalently flawed.

I have not watched the interview but from all accounts I have seen, Lauer did indeed question both Clinton and Trump about equally. Or rather more equally than is common.

Chait's beef is that he reads the elite rags of the privileged chattering class and that based on those sources, he knows that Trump is "an ignorant, bigoted, pathologically dishonest authoritarian" and that Clinton is "a normal politician with normal political failings." He worries Lauer is not conveying that superior knowledge to the "average undecided voter," i.e. to the masses.

Chait is most exercised that Lauer spent much of his time questioning Clinton about her choice to avoid FOIA law and Department of State requirements that she use secure government accounts for all her official correspondence. Chait claims

The impression an uninformed or even moderately informed viewer would receive from this interview is that the email issue represents a sinister crime, perhaps completely disqualifying from office, rather than an unjustifiable but routine act of government non-transparency.

Chait is a bright and informed man. How is it possible that he could claim that this was a "routine act of government non-transparency." One of the reason's (among many) that the e-mail controversy remains germane is that it was not routine. In fact, it was exceptional. No other Secretary of State relied solely on a private network of her own concoction for all her official correspondence. And no other Secretary of State has been caught so completely misrepresenting (whether through culpability or carelessness remains to be seen) all her actions related to the e-mail server. This is by no means routine. This is Nixonian 18 1/2 minutes missing from the tape terrain.

You get the feeling that perhaps Chait must be suffering a massive confirmation bias filtering event. He claims that

Her decision to follow Colin Powell’s advice is a legitimate blot on her record.

as if he is unaware that Powell has publicly disclaimed ever giving her such advice. From the UK Times

“Her people have been trying to pin it on me,” Mr Powell said of the email controversy. “The truth is she was using [her private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did”

Let's revisit Chait's other blind spot. His claim that Hillary Clinton is "a normal politician with normal political failings."

We have had female politicians reach virtually every height (other than the Presidency or Vice Presidency) in our democratic system in the past hundred years. We have had wives fill out their deceased husbands terms many times. It is uncommon but by no means unknown. However, it is relatively rare that we have had a female politician try and leverage her own political career, Eva Peron-like, from her husband's. I am sure there must be some parallel at the state level at some time but I can think of no comparable example at the national level in the past fifty years. Hillary Clinton's near complete dependency for her political career on her husband's career is certainly not normal.

And speaking of Eva Peron, Hillary Clinton and Foundations, I came across a startling consonance from the lyrics of Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. From the song And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out).

Eva's pretty hands reached out and they reached wide
Now you may feel it should have been a voluntary cause
But that's not the point my friends
When the money keeps rolling in you don't ask how
Think of all the people guaranteed a good time now
Eva's called the hungry to her--opened up the doors!
Never been a fund like the Foundation Eva Peron!

[snip]

Now cynics claim a little of the cash has gone astray
But that's not the point my friends
When the money keeps rolling out you don't keep books
You can tell you've done well by the happy grateful looks
Accountants only slow things down, figures get in
the way
Never been a lady loved as much as Eva Peron!

Hillary Clinton's career is also not normal in terms of the breadth and depth of her scandals. From way back at the beginning in 1978 you have the Hillary Rodham cattle futures controversy. 38 years of financial questions and scandals. Not to mention her role in suppressing rape claims against Bill Clinton, suppression of bimbo eruptions, tawdry favor trading with Travelgate, Rose Law Firm missing billing files, Whitewater, the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan collapse, the Clinton Foundation as a slush fund, trading State Department access for donations to the Clinton Foundation, and of course, most recently, the e-mail server and its attendant controversies (security, classified information, lying, etc.)

Controversies about money, sex, influence peddling, obstruction of justice, misconduct towards others, hiding evidence, lying under oath, access selling, fraud. That's a pretty broad set of controversies and over nearly four decades. There is nothing normal about that.

That profile of corruption is, very fortunately, rare. Sure, there are plenty of politicians that fall afoul of the law or accepted moral norms. That happens all the time. Money OR Sex OR Corruption OR Obstruction of Justice, etc. But that's OR not AND. Nobody has the whole package of venality as does Clinton.

The closest comparable politician I can think of in modern times for duration and variety of scandal is the former Governor of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards of "Laissez les bons temps rouler" fame. The only differences between Edwards and Clinton is that he was at a local level and she is at the national level and that he was brought to account for his crimes.

Contrary to Chait's claim, Hillary Clinton is not "a normal politician with normal political failings." In that regard she is indeed exceptional. That Chait might think otherwise seems a testament to industrial strength confirmation bias or to an over-reliance on "elite print-news sources" which are essentially Clinton campaign operatives with by-lines.

It is not Lauer or the American public that is alarming in this instance. It is the insulated world of the chattering classes.