NY Times Versus The Rest Of The Press On Bill Clinton's Campaign Appearances

For the second time in 10 months, New York Times reporter Patrick Healy has issued a breathless piece describing former President Bill Clinton as old and out of touch on the stump. This one is based largely on Clinton's purported performance in two speeches, only one of which Healy actually attended.

After observing Clinton on the campaign trail, Healy has decided that “the old magic seems missing.” That might be news to the rest of the press corps, who have been highlighting the “forceful” speeches he has given in “classic Clinton fashion.”

Healy builds an entire 1,400-word January 28 trend piece about Clinton's “subdued” style and the former president's supposed inability to rally his audience around a speech Healy attended in Iowa the previous night, a speech his colleague attended in Las Vegas last week, and the opinions of a handful of observers. The reporter concludes that “the Clinton of lore, the once-in-a generation political natural who fought back to win his party's nomination in 1992 and came through in clutch moments with great speeches over the years, has yet to appear.”

But other reporters covering the same events appear to have come away with a dramatically different view of Clinton's presence on campaign trail.

Healy claims that during a January 21 speech in Las Vegas, Clinton “looked smaller and his voice seemed weaker than in past campaigns” and left his audience “seeming more politely attentive than inspired.” (Healy was in Iowa at the time of that speech; according to the piece, his colleague Adam Nagourney “contributed reporting from Las Vegas.”) But other reporters covering that speech described him as "composed," rallying a crowd of "cheering supporters." Journalists have also described the Iowa event Healy referenced as one in which Clinton “made a forceful pitch” then “lingered on the rope line” to meet supporters.

Healy previously authored a similar Times piece from March 2015 that described Clinton's “frail frame” that “looks older than his 68 years” and buttresses GOP claims that “the Clintons are America's baby boomer past.” That piece had to be corrected; it had claimed that Clinton was “chauffeured,” when Clinton is actually driven by a United States Secret Service agent.