-By Warner Todd Huston
On Thursday, April 17, Chelsea Clinton said that she and husband of four years, investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, have a blessed event to announce as the couple is now expecting their first child. But the Old Media may be more excited than Chelsea that the Clinton dynasty is growing.
One of the earliest to bubble over with excitement seemed to be a screaming, all caps Tweet pushed out by CNN’s Candy Crowley.
Oddly, Crowley coupled Chelsea’s announcement with Obama’s wonderful Obamacare news, saying, “AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME-TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS: POTUS SAYS 8 MILLION ENROLLED IN ACA, AND CHELSEA CLINTON SAYS SHE’S PREGNANT.”
Even some of Crowley’s fans wondered why she was yelling at them with the all caps post that breaks netiquette standards.
Politico thought so much of the announcement that it thought it was news that people on Twitter would want to congratulate the happy couple. But Politico wasn’t interested in the congratulatory Tweets from the hoi polli. No, the Washington newser was more interested in the congrats from media figures Savannah Guthrie, Ellen DeGeneres, ABC’s Bianna Golodryga, and Think Progress’ Judd Legum.
Slate’s Jamelle Bouie was so excited that he was already planning Chelsea’s baby to be a future president!
But Slate wasn’t the only one. The Wire website was also excited for a Chelsea baby presidency.
“America, we are here with the answer to the question which you wanted to have answered: The first day Chelsea Clinton’s just-announced baby will be eligible to be president is January 20, 2053,” Philip Bump lovingly wrote.
Vogue editor Anna Wintour was practically bubbling over. “Wintour said it was ‘so exciting’ that a Clinton baby is on the way,” The Washington Post reported.
On the Big Three Networks, ABC and NBC devoted full-sized evening news time blocks of over two minutes to the announcement. For its part, CBS gave it 32 seconds.
During the NBC report, Washington Post writer Dana Milbank somewhat inappropriately noted that this pregnancy thing was somehow a brilliant political move.
“Nobody assumes this was done for political reasons, of course,” Milbank said just before suggesting it was done for political reasons. “But if it had been done for political reasons it could not have come at a better time. Hillary Clinton will have this bouncing toddler in her arms to campaign with in 2016.,” he continued. Because, you know, bouncing toddlers are really just political props.
ABC News used the announcement to put in a bid for a Hillary presidency. ABC started its story saying, “Former–and potentially future–First Daughter Chelsea Clinton made the big reveal on Thursday: She’s pregnant.”
By comparison, when Jenna Bush announced her pregnancy in 2012, only ABC gave it any time at all while CBS and NBC totally ignored the story of a Bush baby to come.
Some newspapers were also overjoyed.
The New York Daily News somehow felt that Chelseas pregnancy was an addition to Bill and Hillary’s resumes. “Bill and Hillary Clinton are about to add a new title to their impressive resumes: grandparents,” the paper wrote upon the announcement.
The Associated Press gushed that we should call 2014 “the year of the baby” just because Clinton is now having one. Apparently no one else’s pregnancy is important enough to have a whole year dedicated to it.
The Wall Street Journal thought the announcement was so important that it posted a transcript and video of just the baby announcement of Chelsea’s appearance at the No Ceilings event despite that she was there for far more than just a pregnancy announcement. The rest of her appearance was ignored in the report.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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