Bill Clinton: ‘Let’s shoot every third person on Wall Street’

Bill Clinton: ‘Let’s shoot every third person on Wall Street’

The headline of this post is a gross oversimplification, if not an out-and-out distortion.

The problem is not that Bubba didn’t say those words. He did, verbatim. There is even a video below of him saying them.

What is missing here is the context. Clinton wasn’t actually suggesting that anyone go out with a firearm and mow down executives from New York’s financial sector. Rather, he was colorfully paraphrasing the views of his wife’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, who considers Wall Street and the richest 1% the greatest evils that currently plague America.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

So why is this quote newsworthy? It’s not — or wouldn’t be if the mainstream media hadn’t so been strenuous in their avoidance of the anecdote. Wherein lies its news value.

When Donald Trump made a similarly outrageous suggestion involving gunfire back in January, the MSM were all over it. To demonstrate his popularity, the egotistical GOP front-runner crassly observed, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

NPR went with the story. So did ReutersCBS News, NBC News, the Washington Post, and even the New York Times, which offered this analysis (in the person of Richard Cohen):

The really scary part — without getting into what this line of thinking might presage in terms of Trump’s actions if he ever got to the Oval Office — is he could be right.

All the news that’s fit to print? Don’t make me laugh.

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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