Still, she had one important power quietly working its magic for her and bringing out her voters. She had that army of pundits and journalists condescending to her, sniping, harrying her — particularly in the past week — to drop out, to give up, to let Mr. Obama concentrate on the battle. Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and MSNBC merits top laurels for his passionate dedication to this cause, which he advanced with infinitely detailed mathematical proofs that she could never prevail.
It helped, as well, for the public to have witnessed spectacles like the night of the Wisconsin primary, when every one of the cable news networks covered Mr. Obama’s 40-minute-long stem-winder in full. An executive at one of the channels explained that these were individual producers’ judgments, while admitting, along the way, that there was something to the proposition that none of the networks had the temerity to cut away from an Obama speech however long it went on. The night of this contest, only CNN saw fit to return to Hillary Clinton, after the Obama speech ended, and broadcast chunks of her post-primary address, delivered earlier. Finally, it helped for the viewing public to have heard comments like Chris Matthews’s heartfelt, if slightly delirious, reference — by now forever enshrined in cultural memory — to the thrill that ran up his leg when he heard an Obama speech. There’s a lot to be said for a confessional mode that captures the spirit of the times so acutely.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120486057223218799.html
Tags: adroit skewering, adulation run amok, hillary, jonathan alter, lee cowan, whining
