Hillary Cleared of Tempest in a Tipcup

NPR is reporting that Hillary Clinton stiffed a waitress, Anita Esterday, on a recent campaign stop in Iowa. However, MSNBC's First Read is reporting the following updates:

*** UPDATE *** The Clinton campaign says, "The campaign spent $157 and left a $100 tip at the Maid-Rite Restaurant."

*** UPDATE 2 *** The manager of the of the restaurant tells First Read the Clinton campaign did, in fact, tip.

"They paid their bill, and they left a tip," said Brad Crawford, manager of the Maid Rite restaurant in Toledo, Iowa. "Everybody was satisfied. No question about it."

The Washington Post has the story, with quotes from Clinton's campaign and the restaurant's manager. Although the article would seem to clear Ms. Clinton of wrongdoing, the headline still slams her:

Iowa Waitress's Tip For Clinton: Next Time Leave One (And Make Sure She Gets It)

This is not Hillary's first brush with alleged "Gratuity Dysfunction." During her 2000 Senate campaign, a similar story surfaced. It's easy to see the appeal of these stories to Hillary's opponents, but why does the supposedly objective mainstream media eat them up?

The upshot of these stories, vis a vis the tip, is that a staffer must have paid the bill, and the tip, at the register on the way out, and the tip never made it into the waitress's pocket. A $100 tip on a $157.00 check is pretty decent. The standard these days is 20%, according to my wife.

I look forward to seeing how this story is spun in the days ahead. Will it be reported as a "He said, she said...", or will the whole story be reported? I predict that even if Hillary is given a fair shake factually, the punditocracy will frame the believability of the initial story as evidence of Hillary's unlikability. The media have a talent for making any story fit into their prearranged narrative. The headline will never be: "Generous Hillary's Gratuity Lost By Restaurant".

What will surely be lost is the part of the NPR story that I found really disturbing:

The visit hurt Esterday in another way. The local paper ran photos of her with Clinton. She said her supervisor at the nursing home isn't a big Hillary Clinton fan and she thinks that may be related to why her hours were almost totally cut.

If this is true, it is further evidence of a growing chill on dissenting speech in this country. Political expression has become so charged and polarized, and the President has set the example time after time that dissent is not to be tolerated.

This "Tipgate" story is meaningless, like so much political coverage is these days. See yesterday's post for more on that. If she leaves the tip, that doesn't mean she's qualified to be president, or that all criticisms of Hillary are nullified. Similarly, if there had been no tip, it doesn't make her Satan. As the initial story reported, the meal was arranged for by staffers, so it wouldn't have landed at her feet anyway.

Please stop paying attention to this junk. How about the fact that Anita has to work 2 jobs? Does she have health insurance? How about her kids? Is her other job really penalizing her for meeting Clinton? All we get is sizzle, no steak, and the sizzle is pretty weak, too.

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