On Friday, the NYT did a piece about a podcast Secretary Clinton did with David Plouffe. They incorrectly quoted her saying that the “Russians” were “grooming” a candidate running in the Democratic primary. They rightfully fixed it to reflect that she was taking about the GOP. 
In yesterday’s paper, @superwuster wrote an opinion piece accusing Secretary Clinton of trading in conspiracy theories, based off of comments that she didn’t make.
I too am tired of talking about this, but let’s again set the record straight. HRC speculated that the only way the GOP is going to win in states where Trump can’t hit a 50% majority is to 1) Suppress the vote, as they do widely and routinely, & 2) Bank on the 3rd party spoiler.
And yes, she said that certain fringe members of the Democratic and Green parties are assets to the Russians. Well guess what folks? That’s true. She didn’t call anyone a spy, as some are wrongly asserting for their own political gain.
Here are a few of many, many articles that make clear what she said is simply a fact.
nbcnews.com/politics/2020-…
thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbards…
nbcnews.com/politics/2020-…
thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbards…
The NYT opinion piece likens “unorthodox” views like meeting with Assad to a debate about health care & financial policy.
Supporting a dictator who uses chemical weapons on his own people & refusing to say a bad word abt Russia is not the same as a debate about Medicare for All.
Supporting a dictator who uses chemical weapons on his own people & refusing to say a bad word abt Russia is not the same as a debate about Medicare for All.
Moreover, the great irony here is that this is a piece about not making unsubstantiated assertions that based of an unsubstantiated assertion because it misrepresents Secretary Clinton’s comments.
I have read Tim Wu’s work. He’s a smart guy. And in his defense, lots of people got the “grooming” comment wrong because we all read Twitter and forget to go to the primary source on things.
But on the same day that the NYT buries the end of the email saga on A16 after years of breathless coverage, & 2 days after they correct their own story about Secretary Clinton’s comments, this warrants some pushback.
Because it’s all indicative of bad habits that if we don’t start to get right, we’re going to find that 2020 looks more like 2016 than anyone would like.
