Thursday, March 20, 2008

Investigative Chutzpah

Last year the ABC News Blotter site often inspired my posts, including one Chutzpah of the Week award; so it is with both surprise and regret that I have to announce that this week's award (with full negative connotations) will go to Brian Ross and the ABC News Investigative Unit for yesterday's Blotter post. As we probably all know by now, there has been considerable interest in the official record of Hillary Clinton's activities while she served as First Lady. However, it has not occurred to me that Blotter investigations were primarily interested in these records for the mother of all bottom-feeding:

Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives.

An initial review by ABC News of the 17,481 pages of Sen. Hillary Clinton's schedule as first lady, released today by the National Archives, also finds significant gaps in time and many days containing only "private meetings" at the White House with unnamed individuals.

I can only see this as a full-court press by ABC News to avoid getting scooped by Fox on the sort of stuff that passes for news on their rival network. Yes, we know that we can no longer count on either print or broadcast journalism for any informative discourse leading up to the decision that will ultimately be made at the Democratic National Convention; but did ABC News really want to be so blatant about its trade in tabloid content? Of course, "blatant" is the sort of adjective that earns a Chutzpah of the Week award; and those who are interested in consequences may be happy to observe that I have removed my Blotter link from my What I Read list in the right-hand column of this blog!

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