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Clinton Drawing Harsher Scrutiny Than Obama, Some In Press Say
His Campaign Denies Assertion

By HOWARD KURTZ | Washington Post
December 21, 2007

DES MOINES — - After weeks of bad news, Hillary Clinton and her strategists hoped that winning the endorsement of Iowa's largest newspaper last weekend might produce a modest bump in their press coverage.
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"She's just held to a different standard in every respect," said Mark Halperin, Time's editor at large. "The press rooted for Obama to go negative, and when he did, he was applauded. When she does it, it's treated as this huge violation of propriety." Newsweek's Howard Fineman said Obama's coverage is the buzz of the presidential campaign. "While they don't say so publicly because it's risky to complain, a lot of operatives from other campaigns say he's getting a free ride, that people aren't tough enough on Obama," Fineman said.
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"Slipping Away?" said a headline on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"Hillary Clinton's campaign is teetering on the brink," Fineman wrote in Newsweek.
CBS's Jim Axelrod said her operation is "reeling."
The Los Angeles Times said she is facing her "most serious crisis."
And a banner headline on the Drudge Report asked, "Is It the End?"


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The Illinois senator's fundraising receives far less press attention than Clinton's. When The Washington Post reported last month that Obama used a political action committee to hand more than $180,000 to Democratic groups and candidates in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the suggestion that he might be buying support received no attention on the network newscasts.

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Obama did undergo something of a press audit earlier this year, with stories focusing on his record in the Illinois Senate and his ties to indicted fundraiser Tony Rezko. But his recent rise in the polls has not brought the kind of full-time frisking being visited on the hottest Republican, Mike Huckabee.

In an online posting Monday, ABC reported that an Obama volunteer wearing a press pass asked the candidate a friendly question about tax policy at an Iowa event. But several of the assembled reporters huddled and concluded that it was not a story, one of them said.

Clinton faced a storm of press criticism over a similar planted question.