Steve Sailer writes: From CBS News:
Commentary: The curious case of Alicia Machado
By WILL RAHN CBS NEWS September 29, 2016, 12:54 PM
As a rule, reporters like to keep their stories interesting, which is why the coverage we’ve seen of Alicia Machado is so curious.
This has been the week of Machado, who became famous literally overnight when Hillary Clinton brought her up at Monday’s debate. The next day saw numerous outlets writing pieces on Machado, boosted along by a conference call held by the Clinton campaign for journalists.
The former Miss Universe, who says that Donald Trump fat-shamed her and alleges that he called her “Ms. Piggy” and “Ms. Housekeeping,” and generally humiliated her after she put on weight, is now the star of a Clinton ad. An obscure figure in America less than a week ago, Machado is perhaps the biggest story in politics at the moment.
So it’s almost inexplicable that, despite all this coverage, the publications discussing the extraordinary stories of her life are mostly right-wing ones.
The most interesting thing about the mainstream articles is what they leave out. There is no discussion at CNN or The New York Times, for instance, about her post-pageant fame as the fiancée of Phillies outfielder Bobby Abreu, or how he reportedly called it off after a reality show she was on revealed video of her apparently having sex with a housemate.
Likewise, there is little mention of how a Venezuelan judge once alleged on live TV that Machado had threatened to kill him. Or how the Mexican attorney general’s office later said she was the girlfriend of a major narco trafficker, and that she he had a child with him, according to Univision and other outlets. Or how a government witness who reportedly testified about their affair was later shot to death.
A certain reticence is fair and appropriate when discussing the private lives of people alleging abuse at the hands of powerful men. The Clintons, of course, are no strangers to this, as they have been accused repeatedly of trying to smear women who’ve said President Clinton was sexually inappropriate with them.
But there’s something odd about news coverage that avoids easily available and fascinating stories about that person’s life. And it’s especially peculiar when that person is a campaign surrogate for a major party nominee, which is what Machado is now. …
But that doesn’t mean that her life, which has been reported on extensively in the Spanish language press, should be sanitized and whitewashed by the press. The political media is not in the beatification business; if it’s out there, readers deserve to know it.
And it is all out there. …
From an objective standpoint, this is all interesting stuff! Is it relevant to Machado’s current role in the Clinton campaign? Let’s take a look at what CNN and The New York Times reported about her life.
The CNN story, which includes a total of four bylines, limits its main Machado story to a discussion of how Trump treated her. After Clinton name-checked her in the debate, the story reports Machado saying that she began “crying because I never imagined that such an important person like her would care about my story, know about my story.”
As the CNN story notes, Machado made that statement on a conference call with reporters organized by the Clinton campaign. There is no mention in the story of the judge, the kingpin, or the baseball player.
The New York Times, however, went for more of a dive into who Machado is in a double-bylined story that ran Tuesday, “Shocked and Angry: Alicia Machado, a Miss Universe Mocked by Donald Trump.”
The Times reports that Machado was born in Venezuela and has endured 20 years of “agony” due to Trump’s behavior. “I was sick – anorexia and bulimia for five years,” Machado says.
It goes on to note that Machado has “done a series of interviews” with the Times this year. Towards the end, it notes that she is “a well-known actress” in Latin America.
And now she is a well-known political figure in America, a star surrogate for the leading contender for our presidency, which brings with it its own level of scrutiny and expectations.
Machado has lived a full life, and a uniquely fascinating one. So why would any journalist avoid talking about it?
The immigration / voting question is the big one. Machado is the Democrats’ self-selected epitome of their strategy of winning by importing dubious foreign ringers to vote for them.
COMMENTS:
* “Almost inexplicable?” Yeah, almost, except for the tiny, easily overlooked fact that they all want Hillary to win.
But aside from, what possible explanation could there be?
* There is all this talk about foreign actors trying to influence our elections. Forget the foreign actors. Our own press is trying to influence the election. And the Machado story is exhibit A in how they came together with one campaign to collude and prepare a pre-cooked story ready to be served to the American public at a specified time. Their continued ignoring of the unpleasant details only adds to the evidence of their treachery.
* I read this as the closest thing we’ll ever get to a public confession from the MSM that they screwed up by hitching on to this woman’s story without doing a quick Google search first.
Hell, single women these days are smart enough to Google the heck out of any potential suitors. Wouldn’t it be wise to to apply at least that level of scrutiny with somebody you’re about to make the poster child of your multimillion-dollar political campaign?
