(This is really long so, uh, sorry about that)
I think we in Blogland can sometimes get too excited about building press persecution sets. Witness, here, Digby on the press's hatred for Hart, and Mannion on its revulsion for Clinton. Happily, Hart and Clinton are the two politicians I know the most about. I got into politics because I wanted to work for Gary Hart, who I first got a wonk's crush on while reading Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes. When I began working for the nascent Hart campaign in 2003, I read just about every news story ever written on the guy. We're talking thousands of Nexis results between 1984 and 1988, in addition to books, journal articles, and memoirs. I'm rather confident I know about as much on Donna Rice as anyone.
Clinton was my next stop. I read Maraniss, and Primary Colors, of course. I read Michael Kelly on both family members, Hendrik Hertzberg, Chris Hitchens, James Carville, John Harris, the whole crew. I loved reading about the guy, I still find him the planet's most fascinating politician. And the two echo each other fairly well. Clinton is Hart with less vision, Hart Clinton with fewer social skills, and I think it's helpful to view them as a progression, particularly when trying to apprehend the press corps' apparent animus.
To go chronologically, did you know, in the early 1980's, Hart told a Washington Post reporter that he believed in "reform marriage"?
Like, heavy, man.
That'd pop up every so often in coverage of the guy, mainly in long-form magazine profiles, like Mickey Kaus's Hart cover story for The Washington Monthly. But the funny thing is, it was mostly forgotten by 1988. The press barely ever brought it up. Run a google search, the closest thing you'll find is an allusion in a CNN article. Even when Donna Rice broke, they didn't really go into it. And hell, Hart had enjoyed brilliant coverage in the years before: he was a Man of Ideas, a Politician who Thinks, a Leader who Reads. He predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and was the first to blabber about post-industrial societies. He wanted to reform the military and rewrite the tax code. Did you know Hart's issue pamphlet was 75 pages? 75 pages!!! Everyone who read the coverage on him did. I don't know if they read the pamphlet or not, but they sure heard about its length.
