Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton does not tolerate bad press:
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.
Despite internal protests, GQ editor Jim Nelson met the Clinton campaign’s demands, which had been delivered by Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, several sources familiar with the conversations said.
Those Clintons sure do know how to bust balls.
WWH
typical….
Dawster
this wasn’t the first time…. certainly won’t be the last.
Paul Raposo
Isn’t there something in America about the government not interfering with the freedom of the press?
Matt
Well, neither Hillary (in this capacity) nor Bill are “the government” squashing free speech, they’re private citizens in a commercial transaction, and folks do have the right to cooperate or not with the press. I got all fussy a couple years ago about radio stations refusing to play the Dixie Chicks because they didn’t like how they’d exercised their free speech rights, and the argument was always that free speech has consequences, and there’s no right to a private forum (I didn’t like that, but it’s true nonetheless). Same message here: Print nasty stuff about Hillary, and Bill won’t grace your cover and move boatloads of your magazine off the shelves. It’s not pretty, but it’s not really Evil either.
hisurfer
This is pretty standard fare for any politician or celebrity. They all want to promote good press and stifle bad press. No scandal here that I can see.
The GQ editor should be ashamed, now, even if GQ is mostly a picture magazine.
Bryan
The Hill is FIERCE
Mr. B
Ever notice how all the men’s lifestyle mags (Gay included) love Hillary-bashing and Obama-bootlicking?
My guess is that Hillary wouldn’t be as good a model for the $3000 suits they all pedal. And Bill? Well, young bucks don’t want to be like him anymore (and he’s too husky to be a clotheshorse).
Jason74
When she’s president I wonder how many media outlets will cave and not print bad stuff about her for fear of losing their access. The GQ editor should have had the courage to print the story AND print an account of the threat.
Bill Perdue
Jason74, if you have the time and inclination, check out the difference between the European press (except the Brits press who by and large are American toadies) coverage of the Iraq war and the developing situation in Iraq.
RTE in Ireland, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, to say nothing of the left and trade union press are proof that there’s precious little journalism or press freedom here. The news media here are awe stuck corporatist worshipers of the Administration. They’ll do the same for Clinton.
Eminent Victorian
She’s just awful. And she’ll be president whether we like it or not.
ProfessorVP
Not necessarily, Eminent. Hillary is like sushi. No, I don’t just mean the smell. I mean there are a lot of people who just won’t try it, even once. They say they hate just the thought of it. For all the people who love it, it’s got a very high negative rating that won’t budge. That’s Our Hill- happy marriage defender.