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Sep25
Hillary Clinton Cans Negative GQ Story: Healthcare Companies, Don’t Try This At Home

Today I came across this shocking article published on Politico.com: “Clintonbillhill.jpeg Campaign Kills Negative Story.” What?!  I know some may think I’m naive, but I’m no expert in celebrity or entertainment PR where this publicity move is practiced on a regular basis.  According to Politico:

“Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.

So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.”

 

Guess what, GQ caved in to Clinton’s demands and spiked the piece.  

While this tactic may work for celebrities (and celebrity politicians like Bill and Hillary Clinton), healthcare companies: don’t try this at home.  

I’ve been in numerous situations where a media outlet is working on a negative story about a company I’ve been representing.  Guess what, executives would have loved to bury the story, but they couldn’t.  They didn’t have the clout.  In fact, if they refused to cooperate or tried to pressure the paper into killing the piece, they would have received a tremendous amount of negative press.

Frankly I’m surprised that the Clinton campaign was even able to get away with it.  With the proliferation of political blogs with lots of clout, there are plenty of other ways to get the story out.  However, here’s the question: a blogger would have written about it, but would mainstream media sit on it for fear of getting on Clinton’s bad side?

I don’t know the answer to that question.  However, as of today, there are numerous bloggers writing about this story.  So, it’s spreading.  Will it cause the campaign long-term damage?  What do you think?

3 Comments/Trackbacks




I have been watching for decades now the attempts of various people in your country who attempt to promote a form of Universal Health Care based upon the Canadian Model. In support of Universal Health Care I will simply state that on a personal level of care here in Canada, if I/we had to pay for Health Care received on behalf of our sons we would have owed a Factual Total of Twenty Million Dollars. If this same level of care had been provided in the United States, we would have had to stop payments after the first Million and both sons would have died due to our inability to no longer pay for prohibitive Health Care Costs. The fact that you have fourty million people in your country who simply receive no health care at all should tell you something very bad is wrong with the American Dreams system. Good Luck in your endeavours to achieve true Health Care Affordalble to All Americans, regardless of Station, Income, Status or level of pecking order placement.

After everything is said and done in this election, a few insightful folks may soon recognize the Iraq War as the most serious thing threatening the future of the USA. I hope your readers have read New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's op/ed piece from the Washington Post on how and why we must get out of Iraq, from two weeks ago. If not, here it is, in full, after one introductory remark by me:

There is a much larger scale confrontation with Bush from the candidates regarding the Iraq War and the problems it is continuing to cause, after six years of Halliburton and Brown and Root and Blackwater corporate kleptocracy. Only one candidate, it is abundantly clear to me, is really slamming the truth and providing the logistics and rationale for ending this disastrous war: Bill Richardson. This article was printed in the Washington Post and please take the time to read it:

_______________________

Why We Should Exit Iraq Now

By Bill Richardson
Saturday, September 8, 2007; A15

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have suggested that there is little difference among us on Iraq. This is not true: I am the only leading Democratic candidate committed to getting all our troops out and doing so quickly.

In the most recent debate, I asked the other candidates how many troops they would leave in Iraq and for what purposes. I got no answers. The American people need answers. If we elect a president who thinks that troops should stay in Iraq for years, they will stay for years — a tragic mistake.

Clinton, Obama and Edwards reflect the inside-the-Beltway thinking that a complete withdrawal of all American forces somehow would be “irresponsible.” On the contrary, the facts suggest that a rapid, complete withdrawal — not a drawn-out, Vietnam-like process —would be the most responsible and effective course of action.

Those who think we need to keep troops in Iraq misunderstand the Middle East. I have met and negotiated successfully with many regional leaders, including Saddam Hussein. I am convinced that only a complete withdrawal can sufficiently shift the politics of Iraq and its neighbors to break the deadlock that has been killing so many people for so long.

Our troops have done everything they were asked to do with courage & professionalism, but they cannot win someone else’s civil war. So long as American troops are in Iraq, reconciliation among Iraqi factions is postponed. Leaving forces there enables the Iraqis to delay taking the steps to end the violence. And it prevents us from using diplomacy to bring in other nations to help stabilize and rebuild the country.

The presence of American forces in Iraq weakens us in the war against al- Qaeda. It endows the anti-American propaganda of those who portray us as occupiers plundering Iraq’s oil and repressing Muslims. The day we leave, this myth collapses, and the Iraqis will drive foreign jihadists out of their country. Our departure would also enable us to focus on defeating the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, those headquartered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border — not in Iraq.

Logistically, it would be possible to withdraw in six to eight months. We moved as many as 240,000 troops into and out of Iraq through Kuwait in as little as a three-month period during major troop rotations. After the Persian Gulf War, we redeployed nearly a half-million troops in a few months. We could redeploy even faster if we negotiated with the Turks to open a route out through Turkey.

As our withdrawal begins, we will gain diplomatic leverage. Iraqis will start seeing us as brokers, not occupiers. Iraq’s neighbors will face the reality that if they don’t help with stabilization, they will face the consequences of Iraq’s collapse — including even greater refugee flows over their borders and possible war.

The United States can facilitate Iraqi reconciliation and regional cooperation by holding a conference similar to that which brought peace to Bosnia. We will need regional security negotiations among all of Iraq’s neighbors and discussions of donations from wealthy nations — including oil-rich Muslim countries—to help rebuild Iraq. None of this can happen until we remove the biggest obstacle to diplomacy: the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq.

My plan is realistic because:

It is less risky. Leaving forces behind leaves them vulnerable. Would we need another surge to protect them?

It gets our troops out of the quagmire and strengthens us for our real challenges. It is foolish to think that 20,000 to 75,000 troops could bring peace to Iraq when 160,000 have not. We need to get our troops out of the crossfire in Iraq so that we can defeat the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11.

By hastening the peace process, the likelihood of prolonged bloodshed is reduced. President Richard Nixon withdrew U.S. forces slowly from Vietnam—with disastrous consequences. Over the seven years it took to get our troops out, 21,000 more Americans and perhaps a million Vietnamese, most of them civilians, died. All this death and destruction accomplished nothing — the communists took over as soon as we left.

My position has been clear since I entered this race: Remove all the troops and launch energetic diplomatic efforts in Iraq and internationally to bring stability. If Congress fails to end this war, I will remove all troops without delay, and without hesitation, beginning on my first day in office.

Let’s stop pretending that all Democratic plans are similar. The American people deserve precise answers from anyone who would be commander in chief. How many troops would you leave in Iraq? For how long? To do what, exactly? And the media should be asking these questions of candidates, rather than allowing them to continue saying, “We are against the war . . . but please don’t read the small print.”

The writer is governor of New Mexico and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Now Hillary Rodham Clinton has her campaign for president. It is hard to judge her campaign. I found a book online named “Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton” written by Jeff Gerth. It leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions, without bias. This book describes Hillary Clinton's life and possible future accomplishments. I came away quite impressed with all of the struggles she has overcome and her steadfast determination to do what she believes is the right thing to do. Here is it:
http://www.dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=65674

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