Hillary Clinton's Private E-Mail Draws Scrutiny

This statement requires a lot more nuance than "Snopes caught lying". The right wing talking point talking point that, "Hillary Clinton succesfully defended a child rapist and later laughed about it" is technically correct, but there's a strong implication in that phrase that doesn't adequately capture what actually happened. That's what Snopes was pushing back against.

Implied in the statement "Hillary defended a child rapist and laughed about it" is this notion that Hillary is some sort of Snidely Whiplash villain who twirls her mustache at the thought of doing absolutely awful things.
The context of the situation that Snopes was (rightly) trying to present was that Hillary was a public defender reticent to take this case who, believing that everyone deserve faithful representation no matter who they are, defended this dude as best she could. And yes, in an interview she laughed about him later passing a polygraph, but as stated by Roy Reid, a magazine editor actually responsible for recording the interview, "She was laughing at the vagaries of the legal system that play out every day across America in one way or another."

Let me put a plausible hypothetical situation to you. One day you turn on your computer, navigate over to Facebook, and you see that the young dude from work with gauged ears and blue hair has just written a five hundred word rant IN ALL CAPS about a horrible injustice that has occurred earlier in the day. You haven't quite finished your first cup of coffee yet, so you wonder what the fuck is going on. He's included a Huffpost link that's emblazoned with the fiery headline, "FLORIDA COP CAUGHT ON TAPE SHOOTING BLACK MAN, LAUGHS ABOUT IT." Oh shit, that's bad. But when you actually click the link and navigate down to the audio itself, it becomes clear that the cop is laughing the kind of nervous laughter that happens to people who are in shock. Clearly the inflammatory headline is taking the facts of the case and twisting them so hard that they're nearly breaking. And they can get away with it because people don't read past the headline. They see the operative words, "Cop," "Shoot," "Black man," "laughs," and their mental picture is already formed. The statement of facts are true but they don't describe what happened at all. Now just replace those words with "Clinton," "Defend," "Child rapist," "laughs," and you can see exactly why Snopes was pushing back on this stupid idea.

I know that people don't like Clinton. I get it. But there are enough legitimate reasons to dislike her that you don't need to start believing that she laughed about child rape.
 
"Does it really matter" comes to mind. So does Benghazi. I hate her for that. All else is media drivel. Hillary cares about money. That's it. Anything else doesn't really matter...to her.
 
This statement requires a lot more nuance than "Snopes caught lying". The right wing talking point talking point that, "Hillary Clinton succesfully defended a child rapist and later laughed about it" is technically correct, but there's a strong implication in that phrase that doesn't adequately capture what actually happened. That's what Snopes was pushing back against.

Implied in the statement "Hillary defended a child rapist and laughed about it" is this notion that Hillary is some sort of Snidely Whiplash villain who twirls her mustache at the thought of doing absolutely awful things.
The context of the situation that Snopes was (rightly) trying to present was that Hillary was a public defender reticent to take this case who, believing that everyone deserve faithful representation no matter who they are, defended this dude as best she could. And yes, in an interview she laughed about him later passing a polygraph, but as stated by Roy Reid, a magazine editor actually responsible for recording the interview, "She was laughing at the vagaries of the legal system that play out every day across America in one way or another."

Let me put a plausible hypothetical situation to you. One day you turn on your computer, navigate over to Facebook, and you see that the young dude from work with gauged ears and blue hair has just written a five hundred word rant IN ALL CAPS about a horrible injustice that has occurred earlier in the day. You haven't quite finished your first cup of coffee yet, so you wonder what the fuck is going on. He's included a Huffpost link that's emblazoned with the fiery headline, "FLORIDA COP CAUGHT ON TAPE SHOOTING BLACK MAN, LAUGHS ABOUT IT." Oh shit, that's bad. But when you actually click the link and navigate down to the audio itself, it becomes clear that the cop is laughing the kind of nervous laughter that happens to people who are in shock. Clearly the inflammatory headline is taking the facts of the case and twisting them so hard that they're nearly breaking. And they can get away with it because people don't read past the headline. They see the operative words, "Cop," "Shoot," "Black man," "laughs," and their mental picture is already formed. The statement of facts are true but they don't describe what happened at all. Now just replace those words with "Clinton," "Defend," "Child rapist," "laughs," and you can see exactly why Snopes was pushing back on this stupid idea.

I know that people don't like Clinton. I get it. But there are enough legitimate reasons to dislike her that you don't need to start believing that she laughed about child rape.
Funny, that's what the article said. Did you read it? In the end the point they make is that Snopes went too far.
 
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