Clinton Unfazed By Anderson Cooper Wrong Facts Charge

Nobody in the Press appears to have caught on to the fallacies in Hillary Clinton's premise that the campaigns of 1992 and 1968 continued uncharacteristically into June in those campaign years.

Anderson cooper noted Clinton's mistake about her husband's campaign during his introductory remarks.

Net the Truth Online

May 24, 2008, 4:14 pm
How Clinton’s Comments Didn’t — Then Did — Catch Fire
Matt Phillips reports on the presidential race from Brandon, S.D.

...Clinton concluded her meeting at the Argus Leader and arrived at the supermarket, where a few hundred onlookers assembled in the produce section, when the RFK comments began to reverberate around the Internet.

As the New York senator was delivering her stump speech in the grocery store, reporters began receiving messages on their BlackBerrys from editors wondering about a New York Post story posted prominently on the Drudge Report that referenced the senator’s mention of the assassination.

The bulk of the press corps soon gathered around a Clinton spokesman asking for comments and clarification on the Kennedy quotes. Seemingly taken aback by the direction the questions were going, the spokesman explained that Clinton had merely been trying to emphasize the point that Democratic primary fights had stretched into June in the past.

Later Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee offered an official statement, saying “any reading into it beyond that is inaccurate.” After a few more minutes he came back, suggesting that his quote should be amended to add “and outrageous.”

After finishing her appearance, Clinton herself returned to offer her own brief apology for the remarks.

Clinton aides pointed to the fact that she had made previous references to both her husband’s 1992 campaign and Kennedy’s 1968 campaign before to stress that these primary fights have pushed into June in the past. The Associated Press cited a March interview with Time magazine, in which she said, “Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.”

And while a couple reporters — who had managed to stick with the streaming press conference — mentioned that they found her assassination reference slightly strange, few on the trail thought it would be the lead on any of their stories that day.

The fact that it did become big news is illustrative of journalistic competition in the Internet age. The entire pack of reporters sent to watch Clinton’s every move had somehow gotten beat, and forced into following a New York Post reporter who was nowhere near the campaign, but who, apparently, had a much-better Internet connection.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/05/24/how-clintons-comments-didnt-then-did-catch-fire/