Hailing Maverick McCain; "Gipper Was an Airhead"; Leftist West Wing
1) Without raising doubts
about his sincerity, CBS and NBC relayed how Bill Clinton thanked the
"power of grace" and "the God in whom I believe." Dan
Rather added how he's seeing religious counselors.
2) "I suspect a lot of
people would find it the height of irony that Linda Tripp files a suit for
invasion of privacy," declared ABC's Charlie Gibson as he doubted
Clinton officials did wrong.
3) The networks hopped aboard
John McCain's campaign, stressing how he's a "maverick" and a
"renegade" who's willing to "buck the odds for what he
believes in." His Big Government ideas were deemed an asset as
reporters still labeled him a conservative.
4) "Good morning. The
Gipper was an airhead!" blurted Katie Couric at the top of Today, but
other stories on the Morris book led with the strife over fake characters
and noted his praise for Reagan.
5) In NBC's drama The West
Wing actor Martin Sheen, as the President, told leaders of the Religious
Right, who are called anti-Semitic, to get their "fat asses out of my
White House."
s12111
While ABC ignored President Clinton's prayer breakfast appearance, without
any judgment on his sincerity Tuesday's CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly
News both played the same soundbite of Clinton thanking the "pure
power of grace" and "the God in whom I believe."
-- CBS Evening
News, September 28. Dan Rather announced:
"It's been one year since President Clinton
stood before religious leaders at a White House prayer breakfast to say
that he had sinned Monica Lewinsky and ask for forgiveness. Today the
President stood before the same group again, this time it was to express
his gratitude."
Clinton: "I have been profoundly moved as
few people have by the pure power of grace, unmerited forgiveness through
grace. Most of all to my wife and daughter, but to the people I work with,
to the legions of American people and to the God in whom I believe, and I
am very grateful."
Rather: "The President said he still meets
with his religious counselors and says the sessions are, and I quote, 'not
always comfortable but always rewarding,' unquote."
Yes, Rather said
"sinned Monica" though I assume he meant to say a word in
between.
-- NBC Nightly
News. Tom Brokaw stated:
"In
Washington, one year after he admitted to being a sinner for his
relationship with Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton spoke this morning to
the national prayer breakfast. He said the past year has been the most
difficult of his life and that he is continuing spiritual counseling. He
also said he has learned about forgiveness."
Clinton: "I have been profoundly moved as
few people have by the pure power of grace, unmerited forgiveness through
grace. Most of all to my wife and daughter, but to the people I work with,
to the legions of American people and to the God in whom I believe, and I
am very grateful."
2
The
privacy of a whistle-blower is improperly violated in an effort to
discredit the person's testimony about wrongdoing by high-level government
officials. Normally, you'd assume the media would be outraged and treat
his or her lawyer as a hero fighting to correct an injustice. But not if
the victim is Linda Tripp.
Tripp is suing the
Defense Department and White House officials civilly for invading her
privacy by releasing her personnel file to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker
who was working on an article aimed at discrediting her.
Tuesday morning
Tripp's lawyer, Stephen Kohn, appeared on ABC's Good Morning America.
Co-host Charlie Gibson hit him with four questions, all of them hostile
MRC analyst Mark Drake noticed, as Gibson assumed Tripp is the one in the
wrong:
-- "I suspect
a lot of people would find it the height of irony that Linda Tripp files a
suit for invasion of privacy."
-- "But you charge there was an attempt to
smear Ms. Tripp. The only thing that the Defense Department revealed was
that she'd never committed a crime. That' seems to be rather favorable to
her."
-- "But Mr. Kohn, the person who revealed
the fact that she had committed a crime was not the Defense Department, it
was her own former step mother."
-- "The Defense Department acknowledges that
any release of information was inappropriate or improper but in order to
show a conspiracy to harass or to intimidate Ms. Tripp, you have to show
some sort of conspiracy and you've alleged that involves the White House.
What evidence do you have of that?"
Kohn explained how
the request to the DOD was for a specific form which meant Mayer had to be
tipped by the White House.
For more on this
subject, check the October 5, 1998 MediaWatch Review which offered this
overview of the controversy:
"Every network reported The New Yorker's
allegations in March that Tripp lied on her federal job application that
she'd never been arrested. As a teenager, she was once detained by
Greenwood Lake, New York police over a missing wallet and watch another
teenager had placed in her purse as a prank.
"But that story carried a twist that
reflected badly on the Clinton administration. The story's author, Jane
Mayer, had contacted her former Wall Street Journal colleague, chief
Pentagon spokesman and Clinton appointee Kenneth Bacon, and asked if Tripp
had claimed never to be arrested on her application form. Bacon ordered
Tripp's confidential personnel file released -- a possible violation of
the Privacy Act and a clear violation of Pentagon security policy."
The article runs
through several subsequent developments in the case which most outlets
ignored. Go to:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/mediawatch/1998/mw19981005rev.html
3
Coverage of John McCain's official presidential announcement demonstrated
he really is the media's candidate. Network stories Monday night all
stressed how he is a maverick -- Tom Brokaw tagged him a
"renegade" and Dan Rather said he's willing to "buck the
odds for what he believes in" -- and, by labeling him a conservative,
gave him cover against the view that his liberal anti-free speech stands
on campaign finance and tobacco make it impossible to consider him
conservative. ABC's World News Tonight gave his entry just a sentence, but
the September 27 evening shows on CBS, CNN and NBC all provided full
reports.
-- CBS Evening
News. Dan Rather introduced the story:
"Senator John McCain, of Arizona, put his
reputation as a candidate willing to buck the odds for what he believes
in, on the line today. He officially announced that he is running for the
Republican nomination. He did so amid all the talk, true or not, that
George W. Bush has the money and the nomination all but sewn up, unless
McCain can stop him."
Reporter Bill Whitaker began: "Arizona
Senator John McCain prides himself on going his own way. Today in New
Hampshire he asked the American people to go with him and chose him to
lead the country into the new millennium."
Whitaker later added, MRC analyst Brian Boyd
observed: "So, the conservative Republican who backs school vouchers
and tax cuts, also bucks the party leadership and implored Americans to
fight for campaign finance reform."
-- CNN's The World
Today. Candy Crowley reported: "Even as he strays from party
positions in very public ways, McCain remains conservative at his core. He
is pro-business, pro-defense, pro-voluntary school prayer, anti-abortion,
and anti-gun registration. He considers himself a Goldwater conservative,
but conservatives picket his campaign, while his liberal partner on
campaign finance reform can't say enough."
-- NBC Nightly
News. Tom Brokaw seemed in awe:
"A man who
promises to shake up the American political system formally announced that
he's a presidential candidate. Republican Senator John McCain: war hero,
renegade."
Lisa Myers began: "Ever the maverick, the
former war hero turned Senator launches his mission for the White House by
kicking the political establishment of both parties and vowing to restore
dignity to the Oval Office."
After a clip of McCain asserting "something
has gone terribly wrong when parents no longer want their children to grow
up to be President," Myers positively portrayed his campaign finance
view: "Saying government has become a spectacle of selfish ambition
auctioned to the highest bidder, McCain vows to break the power of big
money in Washington."
Given that
McCain's bill would prevent conservatives from buying ad time to spread
their views in the weeks before an election, a restriction that would
increase the influence of journalists, it's no surprise media figures
favor shutting out competing voices. But on CNN's Inside Politics on
September 27, MRC analyst Paul Smith noted, Bruce Morton suggested
nobler-sounding reasons for why reporters love McCain:
"Reporters like McCain because he is a hero
and because they suspect he might run, even govern, on principles, on what
he really believes."
Of course,
governing on conservative principle didn't earn Reagan much media support.
Leading
journalists assume McCain's liberal principles are correct and so instead
of challenging them they act bewildered in wondering why most Republicans
don't "get it." For instance, MRC analyst Jessica Anderson
caught how on Monday's Good Morning America co-host Diane Sawyer didn't
challenge McCain's campaign finance ideas and instead tossed this softball
at him:
"Well, however brave a stand campaign
finance reform may be, members of your own party have rejected it. What's
the matter with them? Why don't they get it?"
4
With the exception of NBC's Today, network stories on the Reagan biography
by Edmund Morris relayed both his negative and positive assessments of
Reagan, though giving precedence to the derisive comments, as the
controversy over Morris's use of fictional characters sometimes became the
lead. All the stories let former Reagan aides contradict Morris's claims
and Dan Rather dubbed the book "a controversial new fiction
biography."
MRC analyst
Geoffrey Dickens pointed out how NBC's Today twice opened the show this
week by highlighting how Morris dismissed Reagan as an
"airhead."
At the top of
Monday's broadcast, co-host Katie Couric exclaimed: "Good morning.
The Gipper was an airhead! That's one of the conclusions of a new
biography of Ronald Reagan that's drawing a tremendous amount of interest
and fire today, Monday, September the 27th, 1999."
Tuesday morning
Today featured a taped interview with President Bush who denied Morris's
claims that he and Reagan were distant, but co-host Matt Lauer still
opened by citing the "airhead" charge: "Good morning. For
the first time President Bush is responding to the controversial new
biography of Ronald Reagan. And in particular the author's assertion that
Reagan was a great President but an airhead."
George Bush: "And it's brutal and grossly
unfair and untrue."
Lauer: "And Mr. Bush has more to say today,
Tuesday, September 28th, 1999."
Here's a look at Monday night, September
27, stories:
-- ABC's World
News Tonight. Peter Jennings stressed the controversy:
"The official
biography of President Reagan will arrive in bookstores this week to
considerable controversy about the methods and the ideas of the
biographer, Edmund Morris. When Mr. Morris first met President Reagan in
1981 he found him to be largely benign. In his words, 'I couldn't conceive
of writing more than a paragraph about him.' Morris ended up spending 14
years on Reagan."
Barry Serafin
started his piece: "The author of the Reagan biography describes the
former President in both harsh and glowing terms -- 'bland' and 'boring,'
an 'airhead' and a cultural 'yahoo.' But also, 'a great President,' 'the
bravest and most incorrupt figure I've ever studied.'"
-- CBS Evening
News. Dan Rather plugged an upcoming story: "The Reagan inner circle,
including Nancy Reagan, responds to a controversial new fiction biography
of the 40th President."
Rather's intro to
the story will never make it onto the back cover of the paperback edition
of the Morris book:
"Excerpts
from a controversial new book about Ronald Reagan hit newsstands today.
It's a mixture of fact and fiction and the author wrote himself into the
book as a character. You may have seen the writer last night on CBS's 60
Minutes. He's under fire from associates of the former President, who
chose him to write the book, and from literary critics who say the book
just isn't very good."
Bill Plante began:
"First Lady Nancy Reagan hand picked Edmund Morris to write her
husband's biography. Now that the book is finally about to appear, a close
friend says that Mrs. Reagan is definitely not please with what she's
heard."
Plante allowed
Michael Deaver to take on some premises in the book and aired a clip of
former Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon complaining about how Morris
missed a great opportunity.
-- CNN's The World
Today. Bruce Morton began his piece, that MRC analyst Paul Smith watched,
with some balance:
"His official biographer never figured him
out. Edmund Morris told 60 Minutes 'Reagan was frequently an old,
spaced-out man, inattentive to details. Boring in private.' He told
Newsweek that Reagan was 'shatteringly banal' when they first met. But he
also said, 'I have gradually come to the conclusion that he was a great
President.'"
But following a
comment from Marlin Fitzwater, Morton uniquely added some specific
negatives: "Morris writes of a Reagan with bizarre beliefs, that
North and South Vietnam had been separate countries for centuries, that
the Soviets wanted to invade the United States through Mexico, adding:
'His beliefs are as unerasable as the grooves of an LP.'"
Morton later noted
that Morris "was around for the Iran-Contra crisis." After
playing a clip of Reagan in he 1980s denying a arms for hostages swap,
Morton asserted: "Morris told 60 Minutes: 'His will was so enormous
that it resisted logic. It resisted protest. What Reagan willed, what
Reagan believed was fact.' Things worked for him, as in this debate with
George Bush during Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign."
Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Green..."
Moderator: "Would you turn down the
microphone...."
Reagan: "....I am paying for this
microphone."
Morton: "Three things: the moderator's name
wasn't Green; the line is from an old Spencer Tracy movie; and it worked.
It brought down the house in a Reagan triumph. Morris told Newsweek: 'When
you asked him a question about himself, it was like dropping a stone into
a well and not hearing a splash.'"
Deaver got a
chance to react before Morton concluded with the positive side, sort of:
"Morris, in the excerpts published so far, describes a Reagan with
little curiosity, a man of the surface, but a winner. 'I can only note
that what Dutch believed has largely come to be.' And he writes of Reagan,
'his optimism unquenchable...his laugher impossible to resist.' The Cold
War, restoring America's belief in itself -- he used to talk about the
little boy who, confronted with a pile of manure, knew there had to be a
pony around somewhere. Ronald Reagan was good at finding ponies."
-- NBC Nightly
News. Tom Brokaw asked: "What new information does the author,
Pulitzer prize winner Edmund Morris, reveal about Reagan the man and his
presidency? Why do some people say it's really a work of fiction? Some
answers tonight from NBC's Andrea Mitchell."
Of the broadcast
network and CNN stories Mitchell uniquely raised Morris's bizarre blood
tale: "In his book, Morris says the President almost died -- lost,
quote, 'well over half his total supply of blood,' but Reagan friend Ed
Meese disagrees with Morris....Even more sensational, Morris says some of
the blood transfusions were still cold -- not properly warmed, what Morris
calls, quote, 'a major physiological insult from which he would never
entirely recover.'"
Nonsense countered Dr. Laurence Altman: "I'm
not aware of any long-term consequences that come from receiving a blood
transfusion of that type."
Mitchell also
raised how "Morris describes Reagan as, quote, 'vacuous, shatteringly
banal,' 'culturally a yahoo,' 'boring,'" but she countered that's
"not the Reagan described by his friends and another biographer,
journalist Lou Cannon" who told Mitchell:
"You don't get to the places he got to by being some superficial, I
think he calls him an apparent airhead. No, that's not the Ronald Reagan I
knew."
That's a
good sign of how anti-Reagan Morris is. His portrait is so negative that
even a liberal reporter like Cannon feels compelled to come to his
defense.
+++ See Stahl
stew. The September 27 CyberAlert quoted how Lesley Stahl took on Reagan
over homelessness and argued to Morris that Reagan's supposed lack of
compassion is a character flaw. Upon his return Tuesday after being out
for a few days, MRC Webmaster Sean Henry posted a RealPlayer clip from
Sunday's 60 Minutes. To watch it, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/1999/cyb19990927.html#1
5
The
second episode of NBC's drama, The West Wing, will air Wednesday night at
9pm ET/PT, 8pm CT/MT. Last week in the premiere viewers saw how the
Hollywood Left views conservatives as the show concocted a preposterous
plot and series of scenes which portrayed leaders of the Religious Right
as anti-Semitic buffoons. The show culminated with an angry Democratic
"President Josiah Bartlet," played by Martin Sheen, indignantly
telling ministers: "You can all get your fat asses out of my White
House."
Reviewers last
week uniformly denounced the show for lacking minority characters, but in
having an all-white cast the show matches reality.
First, a review of
the September 22 show made possible thanks to some transcribing by MRC
intern Ken Shepherd.
Controversy ensues
after Deputy Chief-of-Staff "Josh Lyman" says to a Ralph
Reed-type character, named "Mary," on a TV show: "Lady, the
God you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud."
For some reason
this concerns the Democratic White House and the staff call in Mary and
several other male Christian Right types so that Josh can apologize. Mary
then demands that in return for "insulting millions of
Americans" the liberal President come around to their viewpoint:
"Sunday morning radio address: public morals, school prayer, or
pornography, take your pick."
Mary soon says to
Josh: "It was only a matter of time with you, Josh. That New York
sense of humor was just a little..."
A reverend tries to calm her down and Josh points
out he's from Connecticut, but "Toby Ziegler," the
Communications Director, is on to her: "She meant Jewish. When she
said New York sense of humor, she was talking about you and me."
The show soon
portrays the ministers as confused by basic religious facts:
Reverend: "The First Commandment says:
'Honor thy father.'"
Toby: "No, it doesn't."
Josh: "Toby!"
Toby: "It doesn't. No! If I'm going to make
you sit through this preposterous exercise, we're going to get the names
of the damn commandments, right. Honor thy father is the Third
Commandment."
Reverend: "Then what's the First
Commandment?"
In walks
"President Bartlet," limping from a bike accident: "'I am
the Lord your God, thou shalt worship no other god before me.' Boy those
were the days, huh?"
The Reverend asks
Bartlet: "If our children can buy pornography on any street corner
for five dollars, isn't that too high a price to pay for free
speech?"
Bartlet: "No."
The Reverend seems surprised by this logical
answer from a liberal: "Really?"
Bartlet: "On the other hand I do think that
five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography."
"C.J.", the Press Secretary: "Why
don't we all sit down?"
Bartlet: "No, let's not, C.J., these people
won't be staying that long."
Turning to one of the ministers, Bartlet demands:
"Al, how many times have I asked you to denounce the practices of a
fringe group that calls itself the Lambs of God."
Reverend Al: "Sir, that's not up to
me."
Bartlet: "Crap, it is up to you, Al. You
know my wife, Abby, she never wants me to do anything while I'm upset.
Twenty-eight years ago I came home from a very bad day at the State House,
I tell Abby I'm going out for a drive. I get into the station wagon, put
it in reverse and pull out of the garage full speed. Except I forgot to
open the garage door. Abby told me not to drive while I was upset and she
was right. She was right yesterday when she told me not to get on that
damn bicycle while I was upset but I did it anyway. And I guess I was just
about as angry as I'd ever been in my life. Seems my granddaughter Annie
had given an interview in one of those teen magazines and somewhere
between movie stars and makeup tips she talked about her feelings on a
woman's right to choose. Now, Annie, all of 12 has always been precocious
but she's got a good head on her shoulders and I like it when she uses it
so I couldn't understand it when her mother called me in tears yesterday.
I said, Elizabeth what's wrong. She said, 'It's Annie.' Now, I love my
family, and I've read my Bible from cover to cover so I want you to tell
me from what part of Holy Scripture do you suppose the Lambs of God drew
their divine inspiration when they sent my 12 year old granddaughter a
Raggedy Ann doll with a knife stuck through its throat? You'll denounce
these people Al, you'll do it publicly, and until you do you can all get
your fat asses out of my White House. C.J., show these people out."
Mary: "I believe we can find the door."
Bartlet: "Find it now!"
+++ Watch this
scene. Wednesday morning MRC substitute Webmaster Eric Pairel will post a
RealPLayer clip from The West Wing. Go to: http://www.mrc.org
TV critics focused
on the color of the actors:
-- On the
September 19 Sunday Morning on CBS John Leonard complained: "Not
since Murphy Brown has a prime-time series been both witty and edgy about
politics. It is of course scandalous that a liberal President like Martin
Sheen has a staff entirely white. They promise to fix this."
-- The Washington Post's Tom Shales whined on
September 22 that the staff is "alarmingly short on minority
representation."
-- In the Los Angeles Times on the same day TV
critic Howard Rosenberg, MRC analyst Paul Smith noticed, grumbled about
"the absence of characters of color, an omission the producers vow
they are remedying."
-- USA Today's Robert Bianco claimed "the
only weak link" in the cast "is the absence of minorities, a
ludicrous lapse the show plans to correct."
Actually, it's the
one part of the show which is accurate. The program features six
characters. Five are white males: The President, Chief-of-Staff, Deputy
Chief-of-Staff, Communications Director and Deputy Communications
Director. The sixth is a white female, the Press Secretary.
Sound familiar?
Just like the Clinton White House in 1993 with Dee Dee Myers as the only
non-male in a top position. None of the positions portrayed as being held
by a white male has ever been held by anyone but.
Tonight, Hollywood
solves the problem. As revealed in the promo shown last week, the show
will add a black character as the "personal aide" to the
President, in other words, his valet.
Now that's
progressive thinking. But since the show lacks a National Security Adviser
I wouldn't be surprised if the producers soon have this garment
bag-carrier solving an international crisis. --
Brent Baker
3
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