Last Time for Tipping

Here's a quick coda to the Hillary Clinton tipping story. In addition to the follow-up story NPR had on their Website, David Greene followed up his story on Morning Edition the next day. He admitted that he should have approached the Clinton campaign for a comment about the alleged forgotten tip for his original story because he never wanted the tip to be the focus of the story. That's either disingenuous, or he hasn't been paying attention. He or his editors should have been aware that neglected tips have been an issue for Hillary Clinton before. He (or his editors) can't have believed that if they just barely mentioned the charge that Hillary stiffed a waitress (and a single working mom, at that) that no one was going to pick up the ball and run with it. If he truly didn't want the focus to be on the neglected tip, he shouldn't have mentioned it. (Of course, I can't imagine a working reporter these days making that decision.) In discussing his handling of the story, though, Greene never mentioned the fact that he got the free meal wrong, as well. In my mind, that's the set up that allows the no-tip angle to make sense. Had he checked to see whether the food was actually free, he might've got a better sense of the situation with the tip.

The final soundbite on this issue (that's been repeated by everybody, so I may as well join the crowd) belongs to Anita Esterday, the waitress in question who stands by her memory that neither she nor the other waitress who waited on Hillary received anything that day. When contacted by The New York Times at her home to follow up on the story, she reportedly said:

You people are really nuts. 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.