Repeating False Claims Won't Help Clinton's Biggest Negative with Voters

This week, Hillary Clinton came to Florida and repeated an attack line on her opponent Bernie Sanders that had already been debunked in Michigan (where it may have contributed to her shocking upset defeat). She also stretched the truth on a couple of new ones. For a candidate who is already winning, yet suffering from stunningly-low voter perception of her "trustworthy" metric, this is a curious tactic, and not one likely to help her if she makes it to the general election.

Let me start by saying that I have heard from several readers over the past few months who support Clinton and are unhappy with my analysis. They don't cite specific instances in which I've commented in a dishonest way; instead, they merely cite the level of negative information I've presented as evidence of a bias against her. Some have cautioned me that in mentioning these negatives, I'm merely helping to ensure that someone like Donald Trump is elected in November, by weakening her or aiding her opponent, who they see as unelectable.

I'd like to respond by noting that it is not my job to consider the potential outcome of highlighting factual information, or whether it would help lead to a Republican or Democratic President. It's also not my job to ensure that the amount of negative or positive coverage is equal between candidates. In fact, as an independent publication that was founded primarily to provide an alternative voice to the mainstream media, part of TBT's ethos has always been to help put out fact-based news and analysis that is either unavailable or less available elsewhere.

Hillary Clinton has, without question, benefited tremendously from her favorable, and I would suggest highly-preferential treatment from the Mainstream Media, particularly left-leaning networks like MSNBC and CNN, as well as establishment-friendly outlets like NBC, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, Newsweek, etc. She regularly gets interviewed by fawning "journalists“ who have either worked for her and her husband or have a spouse running for Congress in the Democratic machine that the Clintons sit atop.

That’s right, ABC’s This Week host, George Stephanopoulos, came up through the Clinton machine before becoming one of the highest-paid network political pundits ever, despite woeful ratings and questionable skills. He’s also been at the center of several scandals concerning conflicts of interest in failing to disclose his relationship with the Clintons, including generous donations to their controversial foundation, when going after Clinton enemies on the show, as well as Sanders or Clinton's potential GOP opponents when hosting debates.

MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews’ wife Kathleen is running for Congress in Maryland and has been getting lots of campaign cash from the Clinton fundraising network. Matthews, who’s expressed his own interest in running for Senate, was criticized for showing bias toward President Obama in the 2008 primary but is suddenly boosting Clinton and attacking Sanders like it’s his full-time job now that he’s under the Clinton tent.

The Clinton relationship to the corporate media sector even extended to their daughter, Chelsea, who received a staggering $600,000 annual salary from NBC in 2012, merely to be an occasional "special correspondent,“ despite no experience and laughable skills. Her 14 appearances, including riveting interviews with figures like the Geico Gecko, earned her a whopping, $26,724 per every minute she was on air. But don't worry, Hillary can still relate to you and your family and the struggles of children coming out of college to mountains of student loan debt and underemployment.

It doesn’t stop there. Despite a close race in which a grassroots candidate who was not given a chance at winning a single delegate having won four of the last six states, the Clinton-friendly media regularly refer to the result as a foregone conclusion–even using misleading graphics that include (without disclosing) "committed“ super delegates, who are not bound to their commitment and can't even cast a vote until the convention, to give the impression that the race is not as close as it is (and possibly suppress turnout among her opponents' supporters as a result).

TBT readers will recall that when the Republican Party and its mainstream media friends gave Texas Congressman Ron Paul the same treatment in 2008 and 2012, our publication and my column both made a strong effort to lend a more honest perspective. I have admittedly made that same effort with regard to the campaign of Bernie Sanders, which I believe is being treated in an even less equitable manner, considering having achieved far greater success. Despite the example that’s often set, the job of the media is to disseminate factual information to help inform the citizenry–regardless of who it helps or which outcome it favors.

That being said, in last week's Flint, Michigan debate, Clinton claimed that she voted for the money that saved the auto industry, while her opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, voted against it. This was designed to help her in a city that has been devastated by the hollowing out of the American auto industry over several decades. The statement was patently dishonest because Senator Clinton must have known that when a bailout for the auto industry was proposed in legislation, both she and Sanders voted for it, and the legislation failed.

On a much larger bailout targeted at the banking industry, Senator Sanders voted nay, because he was staunchly against "using taxpayer money to rescue the banks from their own reckless and illegal behavior." Clinton voted for it. Claiming that the portion of that money that was given to the auto industry was her motivation for doing so, however, would be impossible–because it wasn't until after the 2008 bank bailout was passed that the decision to use some of the $700 billion to help rescue the auto companies was made. In fact, several Republicans complained that even when they voted to release the last $350 billion under President Obama, they were assured the monies would not be used to "prop up failing companies."

Considering the very generous support Sec. Clinton has received from big banks and Wall Street investment firms, it is understandable that it might be difficult for Clinton to come up with a reason to explain her vote for the bailout that voters would look favorably upon. However, to use one that is demonstrably false and then go one step further and try to undercut her opponent, smells of exactly the kind of dirty-trick-politics that have driven so many voters to Sanders in the first place.

In the days that followed, Clinton ran ads that more explicitly made the same false claims. Meanwhile, Sanders explained the particulars of those two votes and stood firm on his nay vote for the latter bill. He also pointed out that the domestic auto industry had had its knees cut out from under it long before 2008 by "disastrous trade deals" that allowed–and in many cases encouraged–auto manufacturers to take jobs from places like Michigan and Ohio and export them to Mexico and Canada–and that he'd been against them all from day one, while his opponent supported many of those same trade agreements, including NAFTA and the TPP, which Clinton also continues to be dishonest about. Clinton was also accused by the Detroit News of "exploiting" the Flint water crisis by grossly overstating her role in getting federal aid.

On Election Day, Sanders wound up pulling off what statistician Nate Silver called one of the great upsets in the history of modern politics, overcoming a 21-point deficit in just two days to win the state. How? One reason might be revealed in the exit polls, which showed that only 58 percent of Democratic voters found Clinton "honest and trustworthy," while Sanders' was at 80 percent. In the days that followed, several Democratic Senators came to Sanders' aid to set the record straight, including former Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, a longtime Clinton supporter who has been raising money for Clinton's 2016 campaign, but still couldn't stand by while she continued to raise the false claim. Nevertheless, Clinton repeated the thoroughly-debunked claim at Wednesday's debate in Miami, where she also levied attacks that were even less credible.

At one point, Clinton went so far as to say that Sanders was supported by the Koch brothers, right-wing industrialists who are pretty much to the left as financier George Soros (who’s donated $7 million to Clinton’s Super PAC) is to the right. "I just think it’s worth pointing out that the leaders of the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, have just paid to put up an ad praising Senator Sanders," said Clinton. Sanders, who hadn't been aware of the ad, didn't know what she was talking about. "They did just put up a little video praising you for being the only Democrat who stood with the Republicans to try to eliminate the Export/Import Bank," she explained, "which has helped hundreds and hundreds of companies here in Florida be able to export their goods and employ more Floridians. So from my perspective, you sided with the Koch brothers."

Clinton didn't explain that the ad simply said that the group agreed with Sanders' opposition to the import/export bank, aka the "Bank of Boeing," which subsidizes the sale of the company's aircraft to the foreign competitors of our airlines, as "corporate welfare" and had nothing to do with the brothers' interests in fossil fuels, for which Sanders has long been their single biggest detractor in Congress. She just sought to muddy him up with a misleading reference that tied him to liberals' most hated right-wingers. As the Washington Post noted, it worked. Google searches for "Koch brothers" shot up 700 percent over normal during the segment, while searches for "Koch brothers Bernie Sanders" were up 4,950 percent–not to mention how many people didn't take the time to do research. Clinton also did not mention the fact that, while in the Senate, like other Democrats (though not Sanders), she received money both from Koch Industries directly and from lobbyists in their employ.

Clinton has also stretched the truth and made outright fabrications regarding the comparison of the two candidates' environmental records. First, she claimed Sanders wants to delay President Obama's "Clean Power Plan." In fact, Sanders supported the plan from day one, though he did note in interviews that he would prefer to go further than the plan does in terms of using more renewables and less natural gas, along with tougher limits on methane levels. To equate these statements with an effort to delay the plan is disingenuous at best, and an outright fabrication at worst.

However, like the Koch Brothers mudslinging and her double talk on the Keystone XL, which Sanders opposed from the start and Clinton flipped on–and only after some very shady ties were exposed–Clinton can use the fogged up picture to present them as both having some pluses, some minuses, and then argue that the real difference is her ability to "get things done." But if it comes at the expense of voters finding it hard to trust what she says, it could be much worse than standing on her record, no matter how inconvenient that often proves.

Clinton has clearly chosen the former. Not only has she continued to make demonstrably false statements about her opponent, the former First Lady actually became the first candidate to find a legally-questionable loophole to circumvent the rule that prevents Super PACs from coordinating openly with campaigns, so that she could use unlimited donations of dark money to disseminate them. Again, this is a stark contrast to an opponent who doesn't have a Super PAC and has railed against the campaign finance system, while running a grassroots campaign that has shattered individual, small-donor records.

Clinton has also offered a lot of double talk about Wall Street and the big banks, often claiming that she doesn’t think Sanders’ plans to rein in "too big to fail" go far enough, before switching to a talking point about automotive parts manufacturer Johnson Controls and their corporate inversion after taking bailout money (which the company did not). The fact remains, Clinton is the preferred candidate of Wall Street, having received more than $40 million in direct contributions to her campaigns, not including much more in Super PACs funds. Clinton claims there was nothing inappropriate about taking a whopping $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs employees and says she used that time to "give them an earful."

When asked if she’d release the transcripts though, Clinton waffled and later said she would, but only if every other candidate, including all of the Republicans, released the transcripts to every paid speech they’d ever given. What’s she so afraid of, voters finding out that she is being dishonest regarding what she told her friends on Wall Street while they were stuffing her pockets? I doubt her supporters would have been so forgiving if it was George Bush and paid speeches from an oil company.

Hillary Clinton could make this primary race about the two candidates' respective records, the clear difference in many of their positions and trust Democratic voters to choose the candidate who best represents their interests. But she is instead turning it into an effort to blur the lines and muddy the issues. It looks like voters are beginning to punish her for it. Hillary Clinton may well still secure the Democratic nomination, but the way she is doing it all but guarantees that general election voters will continue to question her authenticity and wonder whether she means what she says or is just saying what she thinks they want to hear. For a candidate that so many American voters on both sides already find to have questionable honesty, that can't be a good thing.