UPI Makes Hillary Clinton Into a Victim of ‘Hillary Haters’

August 29, 2007 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Uncategorized, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

Today the UPI news service published a story aimed at making Hillary Clinton out to be a victim of “swift boating” and “haters” by focusing on those who are gearing up to oppose her candidacy for president on the Internet. UPI dismisses all opposition to Hillary as “old news,” and “rumors,” calls anti-Clinton forces “snide” and “haters,” but what do they say of the target? All they say is she is “ready to fight back” as if she is a stalwart hero waiting to defend her honor. And not once does this short and rather pointless report deal with a single substantive argument against her candidacy presenting opposition as if it is just crazy extremism gone wild. In the end, this report is little else but UPI shilling for their favored candidate; Hillary Clinton.

‘Hillary Haters’ have claws out

CHICAGO, Aug. 26 (UPI) — The Internet is helping so-called “Hillary Haters” prepare for battle should Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton become the Democratic presidential nominee.

Now that isn’t even logical writing. “So-called ‘Hillary Haters’”? Either they hate her or they don’t. But, what group of people organize themselves under such a rubric specifically named, anyway? Do gun control advocates call themselves “Gun haters”? Do environmentalists call themselves “capitalism haters”? No, they don’t — even though they are those things. But, have you ever seen a gun control group called a “so-called ‘gun haters’” group in the media?

The UPI goes on to dismiss all opposition as “old news” and “rumors” after that absurd opening.

A vast army of the self-proclaimed “haters” is repackaging old news and rumors for use on the blog-loaded Internet, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Ah, so there isn’t a single charge against her worth considering, eh UPI? It’s all just far out, right-wing extremism, eh?

Next they focus on one of those “haters” the UPI so hates:

Among them is Richard Collins, a wealthy Texas philanthropist, businessman and political aficionado who openly aims to destroy the presidential ambitions of the New York senator.

Collins, 60, is behind StopHerNow.com, a snide Web site with a cartoon called “The Hillary Show,” a satire portraying Clinton as a mean and unforgiving talk show host, the Tribune reported.

“Snide,” UPI? In some circles — those that value truth — “snide” would be more properly thought of with the old saying “the truth hurts.”

But, apparently UPI hasn’t read a page of the DailyKoz, the Democraticunderground or the Huffpost. Any amount of time spent perusing StopHerNow.com, will reveal no “hate.” Unlike Koz, and other far, far left sites, you will not find cursing, foul language, or wishes for Hillary to die in baneful language like you do for conservatives and other GOP candidates on those other sites. You just won’t find the kind of REAL hate you see on those leftwing nutroots sites if you go to StopHerNow.com . On StopHerNow.com, what you find is logical and reasoned resistance to the candidacy of Hillary Clinton by revealing her history and exposing her lies. Not pure vitriol with little underlying integrity and truth as UPI would have you believe, and as it appears so baldly on the leftwing sites.

Next UPI tries to cast the stop Hillary movement as evidenced by Stophernow.com, as just another swift boating, like the one that so damaged John “ready for duty” Kerry in 2004, one of the weakest Democratic candidates for president since Dukakis.

Collins and others aim to crystallize voters against Clinton, much the same way as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 election denigrated John Kerry’s military service in Vietnam.

UPI forgets one little thing in their partisan dismissal of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Kerry. What they Swift Boaters had to sell was truth. That is why it hurt Kerry so bad. The truth came out and it hurt him. They weren’t selling hate, they were revealing truth and that is why it worked so well against him.

And, during their campaign, the Swift Boaters never devolved into pure vitriol and hatred of John Kerry. They carried on an adult, serious campaign to reveal the truth. They never devolved into name-calling, yelling, or outlandish behavior. On the contrary, it was the news media and the left that became the foaming at the mouth haters attempting to character assassinate the vets involved against Kerry, not the vets who were trying to reveal the truth about Kerry’s Vietnam career.

So, in retrospect, even the UPI’s assumptions that the swift boat campaign was some sort of extremist attempt to “destroy” a candidate does not ring true and proves that the UPI has no clue about what really happened and are basing their opinion on their own partisan assumptions.

But, with all this Hillary attacking going on, what does UPI say of the target candidate?

Clinton said she knows the attacks will come and she’s ready to fight back, the Tribune reported.

Ah, yes, Hillary the hard charging, hero. Hillary the put upon victim. Yes, UPI does a great job trying to make their candidate seem the victim who is merely standing up for herself against the extremists in the blogosphere, don’t they?

After reading this UPI “report,” how could anyone come to any other conclusion than that this is a Hillary prop, a direct support of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency? After all, don’t we take it for granted that every candidate has his anti-candidacy site out there? And is it really news that there are millions of people who hate this woman? Who didn’t know that, after all? So, what does this report really do? Does it really “inform” us of anything, or is it better seen as an attempt to prop up the Clinton campaign?

Yes, it is obvious that Hillary Clinton is definitely the UPI’s hero.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, men’snewsdaily.com and americandaily.com among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a guest on several radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston