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Since stepping down as Secretary of State, fifteen months ago, Hillary Clinton has kept a calculated distance from the press and the public. She has been working on a memoir about her years at the State Department, Hard Choices, to be published in early June; making occasional speeches, often for a fee said to exceed two hundred thousand dollars; and talking with close advisers about a possible second Presidential run. Despite the absence of a story, the media cant stop discussing her. The mainstream press recycles talking points concerning her hypothetical campaign while casting about desperately for something new: Will Chelseas pregnancy and the prospect of becoming a grandmother mean that Clinton will be less likely to run? Would she support Marjorie Margolies, the Democrat vying to represent Pennsylvanias Thirteenth Congressional District, who also happens to be Chelseas mother-in-law? (She did, but Margolies lost.) When the Washington Post asked eleven Democratic activists in Iowa which of four prominent Democrats they would invite to a dinner party, why did only one choose her?

Meanwhile, Clintons old nemesis the vast right-wing conspiracy has begun declaring her not only politically but also clinically moribund. Whispers are persisting, whispers, Rush Limbaugh said, in anything but a whisper, several months ago on his radio program. Theres a whisper campaign, folks, that Mrs. Clinton is sick, that she will not run for the Presidency because she is sick. The Drudge Report contributed a picture of a wan-looking Clinton above the caption Is she sick? The Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, added, Whispers persist that Hillary wont run: Health may be worse than disclosed. A hard-right blogger, Robert Morrow, wrote that he was ninety-five per cent sure that Hillary Clinton probably has brain cancer and would not run in 2016. In mid-May, Karl Rove, who learned his trade under Donald Segretti, a dirty-tricks master in the Nixon camp, mentioned a fall Clinton took in December, 2012, which eventually led to a blood clot. He asked why she had emerged from the hospital after thirty daysit was actually just threewearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury.

Then Monica Lewinsky reappeared. After ten years of silence, she described in Vanity Fair the indignities she has suffered since her sexual encounters with Bill Clinton, and her belief that Hillary Clinton unfairly maligned her at the time, calling her a narcissistic loony-toon. Lynne Cheney, the wife of the former Vice-President, promptly appeared on Bill OReillys program to speculate whether this isnt an effort on the Clintons part to get that story out of the way. She wondered if Hillary had somehow persuaded Lewinsky to tell her side of the escapade for the first time. Fox News commentators relished the thought. Eric Bolling said, Now, the theory that Im hearing is to provide sympathy for Hillary, just remind everyone that Bill Clinton was a jerk....

Excerpt from:
Ken Auletta: Can Hillary Clinton and the media learn to get along?