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17 January 2008 Edition

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Conspiracy theories, tears and democracy

AS SOMEOME who buys too many papers I never fully read, skims too many radio stations, TV news bulletins and has now the joys of Google News and You Tube I am prone to fall victim to conspiracy theories.
The derision of friends and comrades has led me to keep many of these thoughts under wraps, though yes I do believe that the Apollo moon landings never happened and think it is no accident that Celtic have never repeated their 1967 European Cup triumph. The truth will be revealed some day!
However in the mid summer of 2007, as Hilary Clinton nudged ahead of Barack Obama in national US polls for the first time, a new conspiracy theory began to germinate, the media in Europe and particularly Ireland and most particularly RTE and the Irish Times do not like the New York Senator, the same way they don’t really like Irish republicans. The Irish Independent often take up the Times’ themes and market themselves merely as being the ones who really dislike whoever this week’s punch bag is.
The converse being the Irish Times ongoing love affair, albeit from a distance, with the Green Party, who are now the noughties version of the past decade of the PDs in government. We get more or less the same policies, the EU constitution debate being exhibit A, just different ways of patronising us and everyone gets the offer of a carbon free hug at the end.
However much as I refused to reveal it, my belief in the Clinton bias became bigger and bigger, the way Cathal MacCoille pronounces her name on Morning Ireland, the way RTE’s Washington correspondent smugly reports on her US critics, but hard evidence was hard to find, until last week that was.
The papers in Ireland and Britain went to print last Tuesday, 8 January safe in the knowledge that the Clinton era was over, Hilary had been kicked off her pedestal, too pushy, too much flip flopping on Iraq, on the economy, too blonde, too much Bill on the campaign trail, too shrill and tetchy in the campaign debates, and not the right sort of woman, or was it just that she was a woman at all?
Many of the papers of Wednesday, 9 January devoted key front page space to the political death of Hilary and enter our new hero, Obama.
“Obama poised for second win in New Hampshire”, said the Irish Times. “Hilary to sack aides as she faces defeat”, predicted the Daily Telegraph. The English Times were reporting pixie dust with a front-page photo of a smiling Obama with a cute headline, telling us that, “Obama’s magic brings out the voters”.
In the Irish Examiner, they went full welly, giving it the main Page One headline which ran, “Obama deals Clinton second blow in crucial poll”, with a strap confidently telling us that “Hillary vows to continue fight until Super Tuesday”. The Irish Independent was more circumspect with a front page, “Poll surge leaves Obama poised for second victory”. It was a pity that their sister paper in Britain didn’t display such reserve.
The English Independent gave a full page to the story with a headline that read, “Iowa... New Hampshire... America? Barack Obama’s incredible journey”.
It was only the Financial Times who held back with the headline “Clinton pins hopes for turnaround on Tsunami Tuesday”.
We all know that Hilary won the New Hampshire primary, I refuse to call it a “comeback” as maybe she was never really behind.
But what was more maddening than the media pack pronouncing Hilary politically dead was the refusal afterwards to own up to it. It was the pesky pollsters fault and those nasty New Hampshire voters who lied to the pollsters and worst of all it was Hilary’s tears on TV that did it by winning over women voters, surely there must be an ethical breach here?
So enter the media equivalent of stealth bombers, the columnists and cartoonists were unleashed to wreak vengeance. Germaine Greer pops up in the Guardian writing on “The power of tears” while the English Times reported on, “the politics of crying”, while the Irish Time’s Denis Staunton wrote that, “A glimpse of warmth melts public image of Clinton”.
It left you feeling that the conclusion from our learned media community was that anyone could win if they cried, we just don’t do such underhand things. It fell to Newsweek’s Joe Klein to ‘fess’ up, writing that, “We in the press were wildly stupid in the days before the New Hampshire Primary, citing meltdowns that never really happened”, or the more concise headline of the New York Daily News, the tabloid Murdoch doesn’t own which ran with “Who’s cryin now?”.
Maybe Sinn Féin should key up some of their spokespersons to shed a tear about the forthcoming EU treaty as it seems that is the party’s only chance of getting covered on their opposition to the poll, especially on RTÉ radio, last weekend’s This Week being a case in point. It seems anyone can come on RTÉ to talk about the Constitution Version 2.0 once they are not the Shinners! But that’s a conspiracy theory for another day. Watch this space!


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