Playing favorites?
It's hard to argue with Hillary Clinton's complaint that the press is "overly, and overtly" pro-Obama, said Mike Madden in Salon. But her awkward complaint in the last debate before next week's crucial primaries still made her seem like a "
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
What happened
Hillary Clinton complained that reporters were being harder on her than on Barack Obama as the rival Democrats clashed in their final debate before crucial primaries in Ohio and Texas next week. Clinton accused Obama of using “misleading and discredited information” to turn voters against her plan for universal health insurance coverage, and Obama pushed back just as aggressively, saying Clinton had bombarded him with “negative attacks” but he hadn’t “whined about it.” (The Washington Post, free registration)
What the commentators said
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It’s hard to argue with Clinton’s complaint that “everyone in the press” is being “overly, and overtly, pro-Obama,” said Mike Madden in Salon. But Clinton blew a chance to score some sympathy by complaining about the bias before the MSNBC moderators had the chance to lob softballs at Obama, which made her come across as a “whiny grouch” instead of a “beleaguered victim.”
Clinton’s “peevish” gripe was a weak way to open such an important debate, said Katharine Q. Seelye in The New York Times’ The Caucus blog. “Her campaign believes that the media has given her a tougher time while going easier on Obama,” fair enough. But her “specific complaint” -- that she always gets the first question in the debates -- was a clumsy way to make the point. And she really went off the rails when she illustrated the problem by referring to a “Saturday Night Live” skit, instead of saying how having to answer first puts her at a disadvantage.
“All in all, it was a rather ignominious, belittling way to almost certainly close out the Clinton Era,” said Marc Cooper in The Huffington Post. Clinton’s campaign is in freefall after, “if we are to believe her campaign rhetoric,” 35 years of “selfless public service,” and all she has to offer is “a torrent of peevish, petty, picayune, and intellectually dishonest bickering and parsing”?
The media have certainly been quick to write off Clinton’s chances, said Jim Geraghty in National Review Online’s The Campaign Spot blog. But Clinton has shown she’s “a fighter” by tearing into Obama, and anyone who saw the debate now knows that “Obama may break his word on public financing and spending limits, that he's ranked the most liberal senator, that he didn't have much to say about Putin's successor, and is supported by Louis Farrakhan.” Obama has been “floating on a cloud since Iowa,” and Clinton’s just trying to bring him down to earth.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.