THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY HILLARY CLINTON CAN GET GOOD PRESS NOW

Oliver Willis has a point about Hillary Clinton's recent run of bad press:

The media message to Clinton was clear last week: You can't lose your cool when dealing with the press. You can't try to intimidate reporters. And you certainly can't try to bluster them off tough questions. Those are the guidelines established for Clinton if she plans to run to become the country's first woman president.

Who is allowed to do all those things? Chris Christie, for one.

Prior to the eruption of his lane-closing controversy in January, the Republican governor of New Jersey and presidential hopeful had spent four years basking in the Beltway media glow specifically because of his eagerness to unleash combative, insulting bromides, including some against the press. It showed he was authentic!

Here's Christie deriding a reporter who dared to ask an "off topic" question at a press conference for being "stupid" and an "idot." And here's Christie belittling a media questioner as "the thinnest-skinned guy in America."

Let's face it, if Hillary Clinton had opted either of those maneuvers last week, there would have been massive seizures inside newsrooms up and down the Acela corridor.

Well, Christie was a Republican bashing the press (and unionized government workers, and liberal critics), so that was cool. Democrats are never cool when they're angry at the press (or, say, at big business or conservative critics) -- most of the time, the only way you can be cool as a Democrat is to be seen as the antagonist of a fellow Democrat. That's a big part of why Obama got good press in 2008 -- he was Hillary's opponent. And just about the only positive story I've seen about Hillary this week is this one:

CNN/ORC Poll: Clinton tops Obama on every issue

... the CNN/ORC International survey released Monday ... indicates that the former secretary of state scores much higher than President Barack Obama on every issue tested....

Clinton served as America's top diplomat during Obama's first four years in office, so it may not be surprising that some of her best marks in the poll come on overseas issues: 63% say she would do a good job on foreign policy and 61% say the same on terrorism.

But it is notable that 63% say she'd do a good job handling the economy, and 57% believe she'd handle health care well.

Now compare those to Obama's latest job approval ratings on those same issues.

Just 38% questioned in the CNN poll say that they approve of how the President's handling the economy. That's 25 percentage points lower than the number who think Clinton would do a good job on the economy. Only 40% approve of Obama's foreign policy, 23 points lower than Clinton.

The same is true on other issues that have made headlines recently, including gun policy, the environment, and immigration....

She's going to get a lot of bad press between now and November 2016, assuming she runs. But she'll get good press to the extent that she's seen as the anti-Obama. The press isn't reluctant to make her look good in that role.