Once upon a time, David Brock was a rising Republican star, a journalist whose dogged pursuit of the truth about the left, and specifically the Clintons, made him the toast of the right. Then, for reasons unknown, the silver haired, fork tongued Spectator writer went Benedict Arnold, abandoning the conservative movement and becoming a Clinton cult member.
Today, Brock and his organization Media Matters for America serve as a sort of crisis communications arm of the Clinton campaign. For years the Clintons have enjoyed this arrangement, but it seems those days might be coming to an end:
The Hillary Clinton campaign is issuing stand-down orders to one of the Democratic presidential candidates most dogged supporters.
“Chill out,” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta wrote Saturday in a tweet to David Brock, a Clinton lapdog who heads the pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record. Podesta was responding to a report from Politico that Brock is planning to air ads demanding that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders release his medical records.
Clinton, 68, released her medical records in July. With his demands of Sanders, Brock — like others in the Clinton orbit — hope to take the wind out of the sails of a surging Sanders campaign heading into the Iowa caucuses. Sanders’ age — he is 74 — is seen as a liability for his White House prospects.
The Clinton campaign has a fine line to walk with Sanders, whose candidacy has energized the party’s radical base in a way former Walmart board member Clinton’s never could. If Hillary does beat Sanders, as is expected, she’ll need the crunchy senator from Vermont to attest to her liberal bona fides and assuage uninspired voters who might see a Clinton candidacy as a reason to make other plans on election day.