Waitress tells campaign reporters: ‘You people are really nuts’

It’s hard to say for sure when the “silly season” started in the media’s coverage of the presidential campaign. If there was a “serious season,” it was exceedingly short. I’m afraid I missed it.

But yesterday was unusually inane. A waitress at an Iowa diner noted that Hillary Clinton and her campaign aides had recently stopped by, but didn’t leave a tip. NPR picked up on the “story,” the New York Times called it a “potentially embarrassing mini-scandal,” and Drudge blared it above the fold. Soon after, NBC News and ABC News were trumpeting the story.

Clinton didn’t leave a tip? Does she hate working people? Is she out of touch? What does this say about her economic plan? What do her rivals think about this? Why won’t Barack Obama attack her over the issue? Is it too soon to put a poll in the field gauging the public’s reaction?

All of this breathless fascination was for naught. It turned out Clinton’s campaign did leave a tip with the manager for the entire serving staff. Clinton’s individual waitress didn’t know that, so there was a simple misunderstanding.

Reporters ended up contacting the waitress, Anita Esterday, at her home in Iowa yesterday.

Ms. Esterday said she did not understand what all the commotion was about. “You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

Thank you, Anita Esterday. “You people are really nuts” may actually be the most helpful and poignant media criticism I’ve seen this year. It has the added benefit of being true.



It’s also a reminder of just what it takes to get some political reporters excited. Last week, Rudy Giuliani unveiled a campaign ad in Iowa with an obvious, demonstrable lie. Many of us begged reporters to take it seriously, and give it the full-court press.

Some columnists noted the problem, but most outlets followed the AP’s lead: “No one argues that Rudy Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer, underwent treatment and survived. Yet there is a dispute about the statistics he quotes about his chances of survival.”

A “dispute,” as if there was some question about whether Giuliani had intentionally lied to voters in an ad.

Was there a media freak-out? Not even a little. A leading candidate deceiving the public about cancer just isn’t sexy enough.

And what is? In recent months, the most prominent media frenzies have dealt with John Edwards’ hair, Hillary Clinton’s laugh, Rudy Giuliani’s cell phone, and now Clinton’s approach to gratuities.

“You people are really nuts” sums the situation up nicely, doesn’t it?