If Donald Trump ever cleans up his act, Hillary Clinton could have a problem

This was a lousy media week for Hillary Clinton - or, at least, it could have been.

The Washington Post led Monday's newspaper with a tough look at her economic record as a U.S. senator from New York, finding that she failed to make good on a campaign promise to create 200,000 jobs upstate. The Post's Jerry Markon wrote that "despite Clinton's efforts, upstate job growth stagnated overall during her tenure, with manufacturing jobs plunging nearly 25 percent, according to jobs data."

A new batch of State Department emails indicated some Clinton Foundation donors received special access to the department while Clinton was secretary of state.

And as yet another week passed without a news conference, journalists continued to chide the Democratic presidential nominee for her lack of accessibility. Politico's Hadas Gold reported Friday on the Clinton campaign's unwillingness to allow what is known as a "protective press pool," which, as Gold explained, "would cover the candidate's every move and ride on the campaign plane in the same way the White House press pool does and which typically begins when the candidate becomes the party's official nominee." (The Trump campaign also has no such pool.)

But these Clinton stories were largely overshadowed by Donald Trump's latest antics - his assertion that President Obama is the "founder of ISIS" and his suggestion that if Clinton wins the election, "Second Amendment people" could "maybe" do something about her and her judicial appointments.

Trump boosters such as Rudy Giuliani see the media's heavy focus on the billionaire's rhetoric as evidence of bias. But even some Republicans seem to think the Trump is doing Clinton a favor - shielding her from scrutiny by making totally-bananas comments.

Politico reported Thursday that more than 70 Republicans signed a letter urging Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus to cut off funding for Trump and put those dollars behind down-ballot candidates. The signers were motivated partly by principle and partly by practical assessments of his self-inflicted damage.

"We believe that Donald Trump's divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck," they wrote. "This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump's chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day."

Trump's behavior has been so erratic lately that publications including the Hill, Esquire, Gawker, the Week, Salon and the Indianapolis Star have published articles taking semi-seriously the idea that the real estate mogul could be sabotaging his campaign on purpose. Joe Scarborough, the former GOP congressman and "Morning Joe" host who was once considered too cozy with Trump, recently remarked that "it's as if he's trying to blow himself up."

David Axelrod, a Democrat but an admirer of Trump's political savvy early in the campaign, said last week on CNN that "if Donald Trump were trying to lose this election - and I'm not saying he is - but if he were, I'm not sure he'd behave any differently than he has in the last few days."

Trump is all about #winning - that's kinda his brand - so it seems unlikely that he really wants to throw the race. But what all these media commentaries reflect is a sense that Trump couldn't do a better job of drawing journalists' fire away from Clinton if he tried.

It's an exaggeration to say, as some Trump backers do, that Clinton is getting a free pass from the press. This week's headlines show once again that she is hardly immune to critical coverage. But it is true that she benefits from Trump's habit of taking the spotlight off her.

If he ever cleans up his act, Clinton could be in for a rude awakening.

Previously:

• 06/06/16: Hillary makes her Second Amendment problem public
• 05/20/16: Lib pundits blame Deb Schultz, not Sanders, for Dems' division
• 05/05/16: Here's what we know about the big Donald Trump-Megyn Kelly interview
• 05/05/16: 12 of the most misguided media predictions about Donald Trump
• 04/28/16: Trump thinks it's time to label him the 'presumptive nominee.' Nope.
• 04/25/16: The 'nasty effect,' and why Donald Trump supporters mistrust the media
• 03/07/16: Even Trump's favorite TV hosts, Scarborough and Bill O', can't avoid feuding with him
• 03/04/16: Mitt Romney: Media darling?
• 03/02/16: Donald Trump: The King of the 'No Comment'
• 02/29/16: Why this new media narrative could actually, for once, hurt Donald Trump
• 02/26/16: Why haven't Trump's tax returns, Clinton's speech gotten the Romney treatment?
• 02/08/16: In media coverage of Chelsea Clinton, the kid gloves are still on

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