All But FNC Ignore Hillary's Tie to Brown's Scheme; Latest NQ
1) What's an Academy Awards
show without a hit on Republicans or conservatives?
2) Commerce sold trade mission
slots to donors, Ron Brown's business partner said Monday, asserting
that Leon Panetta told Brown to defy a court order. Nothing on ABC, CNN or
NBC. CBS aired a story, but only FNC revealed it was Hillary Clinton's
idea.
3) The March 23 edition of
Notable Quotables: Tripp bashing, Starr bashing, Scaife bashing and
conservative bashing, but Clinton's the victim.
"The Man from Grope." The March
30 Weekly Standard out this week features in its "Scrapbook"
section the photo of Clinton and the flight attendant recently featured on
the MRC Web site and first described in the February 19 CyberAlert. The
Weekly Standard identifies the flight attendant, with her arm around
Clinton's as he rests his hand inside her leg, as Debra Schiff. After
the 1992 campaign she got a receptionist slot in the West Wing where, the
March 11 Washington Times list of White House salaries pegged her annual
take at $39,000. Not bad for a receptionist. The magazine added that she
just last week jumped to the State Department as an assistant to the
protocol chief. The Weekly Standard photo is in black and white, so to see
multiple color stills from the video, go to where Rush Limbaugh
recommended on his show last Thursday: http://www.mrc.org
1
Just
after showing a clip of Jack Nicholson in the Best Picture nominated film
"As Good as It Gets," Academy Awards emcee
Billy Crystal delivered this joke during
ABC's Monday night broadcast:
"That is a tough role playing that,
really. Playing a bigoted anti-women, anti-gay, anti-minority millionaire.
Not only won an Oscar but he's the front-runner for the Republican
nomination."
2
On
Monday Nolanda Hill, business partner with the late Commerce Secretary Ron
Brown filed an affidavit in Judicial Watch's civil suit and gave
testimony in court. What did she say? ABC, CNN and NBC viewers have no
idea since those networks skipped the development that CBS and FNC found
newsworthy. Both of those networks reported that she asserted that
Commerce sold inclusion on trade missions to businessmen who donated to
the Democratic Party or Clinton-Gore. CBS also reported that top White
House officials told Brown to defy a court order demanding release of
documents showing the scheme. FNC added that Hill claimed the "scheme
was First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's idea."
Meanwhile on the First Lady front, reports
on Monday indicated that the White House will claim that executive
privilege covers conversations Hillary Clinton had with Sidney Blumenthal.
(And reporters scoffed at conservatives who once dubbed her the
"Co-President.") But while FNC mentioned the ploy Monday night
and CNN talked about it on Inside Politics, the broadcast networks did not
utter a word about it in the evening. Even NBC, which ran a full story on
Monday's Today by Lisa Myers about the decision to demand the privilege
for Mrs. Clinton, did not mention it on NBC Nightly News.
Monday night, March 23 ABC, CNN, and CBS
began with Clinton in Ghana, leading with the scare of the surging crowd.
NBC put Boris Yeltsin's Russian shake-up first and FNC topped it prime
time news show with the Nolanda Hill bombshell. Here are some highlights:
-- ABC's World News Tonight.
Zilch on executive privilege for anyone or the Commerce scheme. Sam
Donaldson concluded his report from Ghana by noting how foreign trips let
Presidents escape bad news:
"This trip may be of historic
significance as white House officials insist, but such foreign travel also
gives Presidents a great stage on which to walk, particularly useful when
like Mr. Clinton they have trouble at home. It changes the subject and
it's worth noting that today not a single question was asked the
President about the current Washington scandal. But tomorrow is another
day."
-- CBS Evening News. Scott
Pelley opened his piece on Clinton in Ghana: "The President reached
out to Africa and thousands of hands lunged back..." After showing
the progress Ghana has made, in such areas as vaccinations, Pelley
concluded with another reference to the crowd surging Clinton:
"....and even he was unprepared for how a deprived continent would
react to the promise of progress."
Half way through the show, Dan Rather made
a vague reference to executive privilege, but said nothing about Hillary,
in introducing a story on Hill's charges:
"While President Clinton is away in
Africa there's a whole new dimension developing tonight in the White
House under fire story in Washington. The concerns about the President and
his top aides reportedly invoking executive privilege in the Ken Starr
investigation. Those concerns are fueling impeachment talk and Watergate
comparisons among Republicans on Capitol Hill while on another front the
investigation into sleazy and possibly illegal political fundraising took
a very interesting turn during the day."
Bob Schieffer reported: "Like other
Commerce Secretaries the late Ron Brown organized overseas trade missions
like this one with business leaders to promote American business overseas.
But in a sworn affidavit filed in federal court, Nolanda Hill, Brown's
former business partner, said Brown told her before his death, 'the
trade missions were being used as a fundraising tool for the upcoming
Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic Party.' She said 'Ron told me
that domestic companies were being solicited to donate large sums of money
in exchange for their selection to participate.'
"And, when a conservative watchdog
group, Judicial Watch, became suspicious and filed suit to get government
documents about the trips, she said Brown told her former White House
Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and presidential aide John Podesta urged him
to hold back the documents until after the 1996 elections and to devise
'a way not to comply with the court's orders.'
"Hill is under indictment for income
tax evasion and other business schemes tied to Brown, but White House
officials call these allegations false in every respect. While they seemed
stunned that she made the charges they would not speculate on why she
did."
-- At the top of FNC's
7pm ET Fox Report anchor Uma Pemmaraju announced an angle missed by CBS on
a story skipped by the rest:
"It was another embarrassment for the
White House today. Sworn testimony that the President and Mrs. Clinton
took part in a plan to use trade missions as fundraisers for the
Democratic Party."
Reporter Carl Cameron explained: "Hill
said Brown told her that the scheme was First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton's idea to raise money for the 1996 campaign, testifying, quote:
'Ron expressed to me his displeasure that the purpose of the Commerce
trade missions had been and were being perverted at the direction of the
White House.' Hill implied that the President knew about the scheme and
said former White House Deputy Chief-of-Staff Harold Ickes and Alexis
Herman, now the Labor Secretary, implemented it..."
-- NBC Nightly News led
with two stories on the Yeltsin shakeup before Tom Brokaw got to news that
Clinton was "caught in what was close to a stampede in Ghana."
Claire Shipman in Ghana observed that
"the huge turnout was an embarrassment of riches for the President
and a welcome escape from the hothouse atmosphere in Washington..."
Shipman concluded: "Advisers
acknowledge that this trip is mainly about symbolism, that Africa its
people and its problems count. But of course symbolism matters at home too
and the image of a President at work, even overwhelmed by crowds, is more
favorable than that of a President besieged by scandal."
Well, we wouldn't want reality to intrude
on Clinton's wonderful trip. NBC did its part, ignoring the controversy
over Hillary Clinton's executive privilege claim and the testimony from
Nolanda Hill.
3
The March 23 edition of Notable Quotables, the Media Research Center's
bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes
in the liberal media. As usual, quite a few of these have already appeared
in CyberAlerts, but seven have not, including the one under "Campaign
Reform Opponents Are Like Terrorists" and two quotes of reporters
denouncing Illinois Republicans for picking a conservative Senate nominee,
under "The Overnight Scoop: Conservatives Are Losers."
The headline contrast is fresh and
"Time Turns 75: More Objective Now?" contrasts a reporter's
assertion, caught by the MRC's Tim Graham, that Time magazine is now
objective with two quotes from recent issues picked out by MRC news
analyst Gene Eliasen. In one Time gushes over Clinton's brilliance, in
the other the objective news journal decries Ken Starr's tactics.
The NQ follows below. -- Brent Baker
Notable Quotables
March 23, 1998 (Vol. Eleven; No. 6)
Linda Tripp: Evil Clinton-Bashing Snoop
"And Kathleen Willey also spoke about
Linda Tripp, a Clinton-basher who seems to be at every ugly turn in this
controversy. Tripp was outside the Oval Office when Willey emerged from
her encounter with the President. Just how is it that Linda Tripp is so
often conveniently involved in the President's troubles? For some clues
let's bring in The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, who has profiled the
controversial Miss Tripp in this week's issue. You write that co-workers
often viewed her as an inveterate busybody. Has she always been a snoop
and a gossip with a particular interest in other people's romantic
lives?" - Bryant Gumbel on Public Eye, March 17.
Dick Scaife: Bill
Clinton's Darth Vader?
"The alleged conflicts involve this
man, Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon family fortune and the
148th richest American according to Forbes magazine. Scaife is the
financial patron of conservative causes, donating tens of millions of
dollars a year. To the Clinton White House Scaife is the Darth Vader of
the alleged right-wing conspiracy against the President, having helped
bankroll a Pittsburgh newspaper that specializes in anti-Clinton
conspiracy theories; the American Spectator, which broke the story about
Arkansas troopers soliciting women for Clinton; lawyers once involved in
Paula Jones' suit against the President, and a group that ran ads in
search of other women." - Lisa Myers on Ken Starr, March 5 NBC
Nightly News.
While Clinton Slimes His
Accusers,
Media Paint Him As the Victim
"But ever since agents began guarding
Presidents after the assassination of William McKinley, the Secret Service
has kept its secrets. Now the man investigating the President may want to
ask agents in the White House what they know about Bill Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky. And that's made a lot of current and former agents wonder who
they're supposed to protect the President from - an assassin, or a
character assassination?" - Reporter Josh Mankiewicz, February 27
Dateline NBC.
"I do think there is some value in
[David Brock's] apology because it does illuminate some larger facts
about our times. I think when historians look back on all this, they're
gonna be less concerned about all the legal details of who said what to
whom when, and more concerned about the way we drove this truck into the
muck. And if David Brock, who helped drive the truck into the muck, wants
to help push it out now, great." - Newsweek Senior Editor and NBC
analyst Jonathan Alter, March 10 Today.
Putrid Poetry Corner
"The best defense it seems somehow is
going on the offense now. While seedy stories in the media seem to be
getting ever seedier. Each reporter in his turn sounds more and more like
Howard Stern. A great investigative boom reporting who did what to whom.
We see so many different styles of accusations and denials. When so much
mud around you flies, you are bound to get some in your eyes. When such a
war has been declared, everyone's in, nobody's spared. The jokes, the
snickers, and the flippery. The slope we're on is long and slippery. And
there is something in the air which this country best beware: for there is
danger in the dirt and lots of people could get hurt. And what we sow, we
someday reap. Last night as I laid down to sleep I dreamed an apparition
swarthy, the unshaved ghost of Joe McCarthy." - Charles Osgood, CBS
Saturday Morning, February 28.
Campaign "Reform"
Opponents Are Like Terrorists
"It was a bill that was doomed to die.
The last time you heard people so eager to claim responsibility for
something like this, they were terrorists." - NBC reporter Gwen
Ifill, February 27 Washington Week in Review.
Three Cheers for
Clintonomics
Dan Rather: "With the economy humming,
CBS's White House correspondent Scott Pelley reports, President Clinton
was singing his own praises, this time with the facts and figures to back
him up."
Scott Pelley: "The recovery began
before Mr. Clinton took office. The fact that it's run so long is
credited to what some call the great odd couple - Mr. Clinton and Alan
Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman. Simply put, when Mr. Clinton made
deficit reduction his top priority, Greenspan felt confident driving
interest rates down. America did the rest. If the recovery continues to
December, it will be the longest peacetime recovery in history." -
March 6 CBS Evening News.
The Overnight Scoop:
Conservatives are Losers
"It could be the Republican Party's
worst nightmare as it tries to retain control of Congress - and it's a
recurring one in Illinois. State Republicans threw away their chance of
winning a U.S. Senate seat two years ago by nominating a pro-gun,
anti-abortion conservative who was crushed by a Democrat in the fall
election. They may have done it again." - Associated Press reporter
Mike Robinson's lead paragraph on Peter Fitzgerald winning the March 17
Illinois Republican Senate primary, March 18.
"Some Illinois Republicans say results
of yesterday's Senate primary may have hurt their hopes of beating
Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun in November. Conservative Peter Fitzgerald,
who wants to legalize concealed weapons and ban abortions, won the GOP
nomination over moderate Loleta Didrickson. Many Republicans say she would
have had a better chance of beating Moseley-Braun, who's running for a
second term." - Reporter John Roberts, March 18 CBS Evening News.
Public Trust in Government Waning or Growing?
"Survey Finds Americans Have
Underlying Distrust of Federal Government" - Minneapolis Star
Tribune headline, March 10
"Uncle Sam Gets a Tip O' the Hat
from a More Trusting Public" - St. Paul Pioneer Press, same day
(Thanks to Jason Lewis, KSTP Radio)
Time Turns 75: More
Objective Now?
"After [Time founder Henry] Luce died
in 1967, his successors gradually transformed his brainchild into a more
objective, more conventional, less controversial and perhaps less lively
magazine. Like so many other once-feisty publications, Time has
mellowed." - Washington Post writer Peter Carlson, March 6.
Reality Check:
"In the gaudy mansion of Clinton's mind there are many rooms with
heavy doors, workrooms and playrooms, rooms stuffed with trophies, rooms
to stash scandals and regrets. He walks lightly amid the ironies of his
talents and behavior, just by consigning them to different cubbies of his
brain. It's an almost scary mind, that of a multitasking wizard who
plays hearts while he talks on the phone with a head of state, who sits
through a dense briefing on chemical weapons intently doing a crossword
puzzle, only to take reporters' questions hours later and repeat whole
sections of the briefing word for word." - Time Senior Editor Nancy
Gibbs opening a news story in the March 2 issue.
"Though Starr was operating within the
law, not many people have seen up close how rough the law can get when a
determined prosecutor pulls out all the stops. And the very notion of
turning mother against daughter plays into the hands of the critics who
say the independent counsel is on a mad tear." - Time Senior Writer
Richard Lacayo, February 23 issue.
Larry King, Master of Subtle
Allusions
Susan McDougal: "What kind of country
has a mother go in and testify against her daughter?"
Larry King: "But that they could
always do, right?"
Mark Geragos, McDougal's attorney:
"They can always do that, but..."
King: "Germany did it, too." -
Exchange on CNN's Larry King Live, February 24.
L. Brent Bozell III,
Publisher
Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
Eric Darbe, Geoffrey Dickens, Gene Eliasen,
Steve Kaminski, Clay Waters; Media Analysts
Kristina Sewell, Research Associate
Michelle Baetz, Circulation Manager
Rebecca Hinnershitz, Karen Sanjines, Interns
-- Brent Baker
>>>
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