As Politico media reporter Dylan Byers reported on his blog this week, he’s “off-grid” until Monday. Which must mean he’s in the jungle someplace likely without water or access to anything resembling civilization. Which also helps explain why he didn’t get back to Washington Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo, who wrote about Byers taking his marching orders from Mike McCurry, former Clinton administration press secretary, who insists he “only vaguely” remembers talking to The Weekly Standard‘s Daniel Halper for his book, Clinton, Inc.
Washington Free Beacon has emails from Byers to Halper. And they’re good and absurd.
Since when does McCurry’s possible early onset dementia (if that’s what this is) mean that Halper didn’t talk to him? Halper, for his part, insists that he did speak with McCurry for Clinton, Inc., a NYT bestseller. He says McCurry, 59, is just facing the normal repercussions from the Clinton camp of talking to him for a book that isn’t flattering to possible presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.
McCurry, according to the story, reached out to Byers to express anger about the book. Byers, in turn, wrote Halper with questions. Byers separated McCurry’s complaints into A, B, C, and D) but left the D) blank. The best one? Besides the obvious D), my personal favorite is “B) That you did not write the book he advised you to write, but instead wrote an attack on Clinton.”
A few things. 1) So McCurry admits he spoke to Halper. What the hell? And 2) Why is Byers jarred by the fact that a longtime Clinton operative instructed an author to not write the book he wanted to about Hillary Clinton? And 3) Since when do authors writing books on Hillary Clinton take their orders from friends of the Clintons?
Not all of Politico follows McCurry’s orders. Politico Magazine published a lengthy story by Halper, detailing the backlash he faced from Clintonland as he wrote the book. See “My Battle With the Clintons” here.
I sought comment from Byers, but considering he’s “off-grid” I’m not hopeful he’ll be able to reach a tin can to respond by Mirror press time.
Lastly, Byers has told Halper he’s not sure he’ll run with a story. What’s he waiting for? McCurry to OK the copy?