As one who used to make his living trying to hold politicians accountable for their words and deeds, I am perplexed by Hillary Clinton’s aversion to answer questions from the media.
Politico Magazine calls it her “phobia” of press conferences.
Count me as someone who believes the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee should stand firm in front of microphones and answer the tough questions she knows would come at her during a formal press conference.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/hillary-clintons-press-conference-phobia-214026
As Politico reports, Clinton hasn’t done so since December 2015. When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her about that, according to Politico, Clinton “blithely” told him that she’d get around to it eventually.
Mme. Secretary, a lot has transpired since the end of this past year.
We’ve had the House Select Benghazi Committee complete its work. FBI Director James Comey announced just the other day that he won’t recommend bringing criminal charges against her in the e-mail controversy, which effectively ends that tumult. Republicans in Congress, though, plan to look some more into whether the FBI did its due diligence in examining the e-mail matter.
And oh yes, she’s got this presidential campaign and she ought to answer some of the weird insults that GOP candidate Donald J. Trump keeps tossing her way.
I get that politicians of all stripes are skittish when the press starts poking around. But hey, it’s their job to ask difficult questions when they need answers.
It’s also the politicians’ job to answer those questions when the media start asking them.
It’s not as if Hillary Clinton is a stranger to this exercise. She served as Arkansas first lady, then the nation’s first lady, then a U.S. senator from New York (which has a notoriously ferocious media climate) and then secretary of state.
She’s now campaigning for the most important office in the nation — if not the world!
It’s not going to get any easier for her from this moment on.
Inquiring minds, Mme. Secretary, are asking for answers to many serious questions.