No jokes here. What happened last night in New Hampshire was quite extraordinary. Hillary Clinton didn’t only beat Barack Obama. Hillary beat the American Press, the other candidate she’s been running against in this campaign. 

Mrs. Clinton has been pummeled, humiliated, thwarted, disdained, held to an unfair standard, even bitched at by members of the American press. Yesterday, at the same time the smart and thankfully not easily influenced people of New Hampshire were casting their votes, Brian Williams was admitting that  NBC’s  correspondent Lee Cowan covering Barack Obama had told him that “it’s almost hard to remain objective,” when covering the near-messianic candidate. Surely this was no great revelation. The press lost its objectivity a long time ago.

Watching Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball used to be amusing. But Mr. Matthew's vitriolic hatred of anything Clinton now appalls me. As  Matthews eyed the tote board last night, and watched Mrs. Clinton holding onto her early lead, his face seemed to turn redder with every recorded vote in her favor. “I’ll never underestimate Hillary Clinton again,” Mr. Matthews said when she was declared the winner. I got the feeling Mr. Matthews was already calculating how he was going to retool HIS campaign against Mrs. Clinton.

On the web, Hillary Clinton’s biggest foe is Arianna Huffington who shamelessly attacks Mrs. Clinton every chance she gets. Mrs. Huffington seems to be in a one way bitch-fight with Mrs. Clinton. Wouldn't you think that a woman who loves and respects the process of politics as much as Arianna Huffington does would at least have her powerful website fight Mrs. Clinton on the issues?

No, she and her team get down in the trenches like too many other  members of the press, “This was a great night for Hillary and her running mate, Bill,” Mrs. Huffington wrote in today's column, an unnecessary and unbecoming pot shot at the Clintons from the doyenne of a most prestigious political website.

It is my opinion that over the next year  as we access our candidates that this country also engage in a thorough discussion of the press and its role in our elections. We might also have a conversation about that unscientific nature of polling and its over-the-top influence.

We must insist that the mainstream media behave responsibly and remain neutral in its coverage of the  election process. Opinion pages are for opinion, reportage is for reporting FACTS. Isn't that the number one lesson taught in Journalism 101?

In the same vein  I argue that we need to get this “star” phenomenon out of our race for the presidency. Mrs. Clinton is quite correct when she says we need to look past the glitz and glitter of the candidates and properly access them based on  our agreement with their policy, capability, their track records.

That veteran journalist Tom Brokaw in a discussion with of all people, Chris Matthew, last night said it best. "We don't have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process."

America is very fortunate that we have a free press. But  having a free press isn't worth a buffalo nickel without fair and balanced reporting.

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