Iowa waitress to media, on coverage of Clinton tipping story: "You people are really nuts"

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711090011?f=h_latest

In a November 9 New York Times article, Iowa waitress Anita Esterday criticized the media's response to her recent comment to National Public Radio that "nobody got left a tip" when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and her campaign staff ate at the restaurant where she works. According to the article, Esterday told a Times reporter: "You people are really nuts. ... There's kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now -- there's better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn't get a tip."

From the Times article:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign on Thursday introduced a Web site dedicated exclusively to the instantaneous rebuttal of charges or news reports it deems offensive or wrong.

And the day offered a perfect opportunity for the campaign, with a potentially embarrassing mini-scandal: a waitress's report that Mrs. Clinton had failed to tip after eating at a Maid-Rite diner in central Iowa, an assertion that ricocheted around the Internet on Thursday.

After NPR broadcast the report, Mrs. Clinton's campaign responded by saying the candidate and her aides had in fact left a tip: $100 on a $157 check at the diner. The restaurant manager, Brad Crawford, confirmed in interviews, including with The New York Times, that Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and her retinue had indeed left a tip, though he did not say how much.

NPR later included Mr. Crawford's and the campaign's versions of events in an editor's note attached to the online version of its report.

But by then the story had been picked up and expanded upon on by, among others, the Drudge Report, which included a link to a report about a tip that Mrs. Clinton neglected to give in 2000. The Web sites of NBC News and ABC News also carried the story.

gets to the point of being an "objective" observer by again affirming this nonsense is a "potentially embarrassing mini-scandal". No, it's a potential GOP talking point to be inserted into the Noise machine without regard to merits or fairness or anything except partisan conspiratorial need. The web sites that picked it up are noted but condemned. How noble of the NYT, perennial Clinton haters from the earliest 1992 primary days. So what does the waitress get for her say in the NYT? Probably a dead end while the idiocy rages among the false media.

By noting the waitress' incredibly sane riposte the truth telling job of the media is done. By increasing the harm of no still noting the faux pas as political damage and at least somewhat true they can leave both the Talking Point and the rest of the spin machine unscathed. Also throws a critical shot at Hillary's immediate response website.

Believe me, it is her critical rapid response that is being tested sorely- now- now waiting for 2008. The tip story is small and is meant to be. It is like watching those swine ballet dancers warming up before their big show. The NYT will not be dancing for Hillary even in their best, allowable, objective moments, even without Howard Raines to kill the waitress' comments.

This is what she will face in the general election if she is the nominee.

In fact, any Democratic nominee will be smeared.

Edwards: How big is his house?

Obama: Is he "black" enough?

Kucinich: Sees UFOs.

And on and on.

I hate the corporate U.S. media.

And Amen.

and so on even though each and every one is as big of an asshole as Junior himself

I will never forget how some DUers were just about creaming their jeans over the thought it might be true. Even though it wasn't.

Don

simply jaw dropping to hear "grown up reporters" discussing this drivel on valuable air time. ATC has demonstrated again and again, through their willingness to air this kind of inanity that they are indeed a conservative and biased news outlet.

The producer of that program should be reamed out by the board of directors, and those who contribute faithfully in the desperate hope of preserving a once proud liberal radio news program should stop funding these fools.

so even DUers get caught up in this bull shit! :puke:

On edit: I am not a Hillary supporter but this is not an important topic. That waitress sounds like the only sane person in the whole story.