The NY Times publishes a blockbuster story about a criminal investigation about Hillary Clinton's email server that turns out to be mostly bullshit, if not entirely bullshit. They have to start walking it back before the pixels have dried.
Josh Marshall wonders what is up at the Times that they could do this. And he notes that they have done this before. There was the entire Whitewater saga and Judith Miller's work on WMD in Iraq (which he doesn't talk about but follows the same theme). In both cases, the Times has privileged certain sources that give them great stories that turn out to be - as mentioned - bullshit.
The Times has one thing going for it in the decaying world of print journalism: It is the "paper of record." But their record on the Clintons is atrocious, and this doesn't help.
Of course, if you're running against the Clintons, it only matters that you get the story out there. Retractions don't matter, only the original story. No one cares about the retractions, because people are pre-disposed to think the Clintons are corrupt because...of what exactly? Whitewater? Lewinsky?
Again, I have my reservations about Hillary Clinton - though I like what she has been saying so far - but the more she's subjected to this same baseless attack method that her husband was, the more I'm tempted to rally around her.
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