***MRC CyberAlert:
From San Diego***
One item today:
A Republican Party platform
subcommittee passed a plank stating: "We also recognize that members
of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views. We view this
diversity of views as a source of strength."
Nonetheless, the very networks
which barely touched in 1992 the refusal of the Democratic Party to allow
Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey to make a pro-life speech at their
convention, pounced on the GOP Tuesday night for intolerance.
-- Here's how Peter Jennings
opened the August 6 World News Tonight: "Good evening. We begin
tonight with what you could certainly call zero tolerance. As much as Bob
Dole would like to have the nation focus on his very sweeping tax cutting
proposals of yesterday, the men and woman who will join him at his party's
political convention in a few days are once again involved in a power
struggle about abortion. Today by the time Mr. Dole spoke by satellite to
his party's delegates, who were already gathered in San Diego, all notions
of tolerance on the subject of abortion had disappeared from the party's
platform."
-- On the NBC Nightly News
reporter Gwen Ifill's piece ended by showing Massachusetts Governor Bill
Weld saying in a soundbite: "I don't want to drum the pro-lifers out
of the party. I just want there to be room for me and them within the same
description of the party."
Ifill then concluded: "But
there's not enough room for the words abortion and tolerance to co-exist
in this party's platform. Dole is gambling that voters care more about the
economy and taxes than they do abortion. But he has undercut moderate
Republicans at a time when he needs every vote he can get. Gwen Ifill, NBC
News, San Diego."
It just shows that it pays to
suppress any dissent. When you allow debate and what reporters consider
the wrong side wins they call you intolerant. --
Brent Baker
4
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