that s a problem for republicans. but the problem for democrats is howard dean is going after the new york times. so actually they re going to go after the messenger. the messenger is a conservative. he s about to go after jeb bush and he s gone after lawmakers on capitol hill for alleged insider trading. even though he is a conservative he does have credentials. the reaction would have been very different, joe, if it would have just been fox news and peter schweitzer opposed to these other big newspapers that are hardly part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. that s true and part of it is because this is self-inflicted stuff. the clintons should have conducted things or i would have advised them to. i actually think it was a lack of depth of coverage on this. one of the things that i don t see anybody reporting on is for any of this to be true you have to who fried the other eight departments in the u.s. government? who bribed the utah regulator? when you talk about the othe
and i m ready for that. joining us now, ann guerin who covers hillary clinton for the washington post, and john editor in chief the washington times. when you were at newsweek, you floored a project with author peter schweitzer didn t pan out, but do you have an impression of his work? he s brought to light important things. congress reacted to his last book in 2011 with a book that dealt with insider trading. and i ve been trained that you listen to everyone. i think he s pit on another line this that we ve all been very tlar with. access to cash that s been a clinton story line for 20 years. that s been a story line about a lot of politicians. is there a difference between the washington post teaming up with peter schweitzer or teaming up with groups like propublica or groups that have a partisan viewpoint? that s a tough one. what our editors have said is that schweitzer s background is a relevant point, but it isn t
he targeted this republican congressmen, one was ousted and one had to resign. so i think what he s what peter s trying to do is definitely make sure that he s able to have cover and the fact is is that the new york times has taken it to that next step. they ended up making more of a story of this than this is all, again, about appearances. so if there s sympathetic wrong with the appearance of what the clintons did, it s not, you know in this debate in a presidential campaign there s nothing wrong with them pushing back at what the appearance of why this person and who may have been funding him and how and why this book came out, with the timing that it came out. all of this is legitimate pushback. but in my view you have so many examples now of whether it s foreign governments or corporate types or shady characters giving lots of money to the clinton foundation not to be altruistic. the clinton foundation does good work around the world. also bill clinton s speech fees go
i know you disagree the only one in the room. you re here former republican strategist, it actually allows candidates to be more tolerant. i personally oppose same-sex marriage but if a loved one or close friend had a wedding or reception or it makes them seem like they re anti-gay. if someone says they don t attend a same-sex marriage or will not attend a same-sex marriage does it come across that they re anti-gay because they re not going to the same-sex wedding because of their religious beliefs? that s where there s that fine line between the question was being asked and how they answered it. and you saw governor scott walker who walked around it had a very difficult time answering that question. i will leave it up to the viewers to decide whether it s a gotcha question or not. thanks very much for joining us this sunday. ahead, ben affleck apologizes for covering up his roots on a pbs special. up next after months and months of tabloid teasing, diane sawyer
rocky transition to fox news. you say in the early day, weeks, months, you puddlelled your punches about the obama administration and someone that spelled out hel h-e-l-l. sometimes i didn t know what i thought. and then you re up against these really strong personalities. and you say that you liked civility but you work for a very aggressive cable news network and people you say, think you re too nice too reserved too vanilla and they want more spunk and outrage from you. so how you doing in the spunk and outrage department? every once in a while, i let someone get my goat but one of the things i write about in the book is the importance of grace and dignity. and the way i think about that when i was press secretary, i would always imagine when i was at the podium if president bush was watching the press briefing if i thought that he wasn t going to be proud of something that i was saying then i didn t