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Media
Research Center Topic Index
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R Howell Raines | Dan Rather | John Roberts | Tim Russert Howell Raines This section includes entries from Times Watch, an MRC project dedicated to documenting and exposing the New York Times liberal agenda.
An NBC Nightly News story in the wake of Raines resignation as
New York Times Executive Editor suggested that Fox News and conservative bias were to blame for the public’s widespread distrust of the media.
Reports gave multiple reasons for Raines’ resignation but a common theme was
his autocratic management style.
Times Watch reported on Raines’ resignation after 21 months at the helm of the
Times.
A three-year timeline traced Raines leadership at the
Times. Includes items on the Rick Bragg and Jayson Blair scandals and the Augusta National Golf Course coverage.
Newsweek reported that Raines hard-bitten managerial style had driven talented writers from the paper.
Raines admitted that “white guilt” led him to keeping plagiarist Jayson Blair around longer than he should have.
A Media Reality Check compares Raines handling of the Jayson Blair case with comments he made about other reporters accused of plagiarism.
Media observers discussed the role affirmative action may have played in the Blair scandal and why Raines kept the troubled, mistake-prone reporter around.
Numerous media pundits criticized Raines’ management style in the wake of the Blair fiasco.
Raines received a runner-up award in the “And They Called It Puppy Love” category at the MRC’s Annual Dishonors Awards.
At a National Press Foundation awards ceremony, the
Times Executive Editor claimed conservatives were conducting a “disinformation campaign” to convince readers that the
Times had a liberal slant.
The Executive Editor’s comments about former President Bill Clinton’s “huge political vision” was a runner-up in The Best of
Notable Quotables 2002: The 15th Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting.
After a barrage of criticism, Raines and
Times management relented and ran two sports columns critical of the paper’s stance on Augusta National Golf Club’s membership policy.
Newsweek reported that the Augusta National campaign is just one of many the
New York Times had undertaken since Raines became Executive Editor.
An MRC spotlight from September 2002 detailed Raines’ history of liberal partisanship.
Raines appeared on PBS’s NewsHour and claimed those who criticized the
Times’ coverage of the Iraq issue were ideologically driven.
Raines told PBS’s Charlie Rose that Bill Clinton had “huge political vision.” Comment later received a runner-up award in the 2002
Best of Notable Quotables.
A New Yorker piece noted that Raines drew a picture of Monica Lewinsky that Maureen Dowd kept on her office wall. Also noted that
Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. picked Raines for the top job because of his liberal views.
Raines told C-SPAN that the Times had supported almost every Clinton policy during his stint as editorial page editor.
Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson criticized Raines ascension to the top editor’s position at the
Times. Samuelson noted that Raines had been a partisan as editorial page editor and was unlikely to change as executive editor.
The Times reported that the Bush administration increased education spending by 29 percent. The same day, an editorial penned by then-editorial page editor Raines, attacked the President for not increasing education spending.
FNC’s Brit Hume reported that Raines had been named Executive Editor at the
Times. A review of Raines past comments included his statement that the Reagan years had “oppressed” him.
CyberAlert reported that the
Times had announced Reagan-hater Howell Raines would take over as the top editor.
CyberAlert reported that Raines, the man likely to become the next
executive editor at the
Times, was a liberal partisan.
Dan Rather
Lt. General Jerry Boykin says war on terrorism is a war on Satan and that God placed President Bush in the White House. Rather: "should or should not an American General, in uniform, be publicly proclaiming it to the world?""
Rather: "With U.S. public support for his Iraq policy slipping, President Bush is blaming the national media and attempting to make an end run around it now."
Rather introduced story: "A curious situation has developed about some recent letters home allegedly from American troops in Iraq. Several of the letters, published in local newspapers, are raising some questions, including who actually wrote these letters."
Rather: "Tonight in a new poll, the American people indicate declining confidence in President Bush on the economy and Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction search comes up empty, but the hunt goes on."
During an interview with Schwarzenegger, Rather told him that others are saying he "does not have any idea of a detailed plan. So, therefore, he's running, quote, 'voodoo economics,' which is something left over from the Reagan years, as you know."
First monthly payroll rise since January, but Rather emphasized how "a lot of people who need jobs can’t find them" and though "the economy actually created more jobs than it lost for the first time in eight months."
Rather introduced story: "Limbaugh today denied any racist intent when he claimed the quarterback has been overrated and generally favored by the media because he’s black. Limbaugh’s denial has caused questions among many people."
For the third straight night all the network evening newscasts focused on the supposed "Leakgate" scandal as Rather asserted: ""The Bush White House under increasing fire."
FNC and MSNBC pick up on CyberAlert item on Rather’s caveat to problems in Iraq, "A reminder that television sometimes has trouble with perspective, so you may want to note that in some areas of Iraq, things are peaceful."
Rather: "The government says the economy grew in the second quarter of this year at an annual rate of 3.3 percent...But the jobs picture remains troubling."
Rather: "Where did so many Americans get the idea Saddam was involved in 9/11? Was it or was it not from President Bush and his administration?"
Rather: "While increasingly organized guerilla war-style attacks are a top concern for American forces in Iraq, ordinary Iraqis are faced with an extraordinary surge of crime, banditry and thuggery from carjacking and robbery to kidnapping and murder."
Introducing a story, Rather declared "The President is now trying to blunt criticism that he, his Vice President, and others in his administration overplayed, overstated their case against Saddam Hussein."
Rather: "Good evening. $87 billion, minimum. That is what President Bush is asking Americans to spend for the war on terror, mostly in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and around the world. $87 billion, that’s $300 for every man, woman and child in the United States..."
Rather framed a story on prescription drugs around the assumptions of liberal advocates.
Rather intones that President Bush’s request for foreign troops in Iraq and decision to extend the tours for reservists in Iraq, is "raising new questions about the leadership of Mr. Bush and his team among reservists and their families and the people's elected representatives in both parties."
In Wall Street Journal op-ed, Brent Bozell described the network anchors’ 20 years of bias.
Rather described $87 billion request for Afghanistan and Iraq as being "$300 for every man, woman and child in the United States."
Rather confronted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: "Mr. Secretary, you know just this week in the paper, there’s been phrases used, rank and file Americans, saying 'are we into quick sand?’ 'Is this going to be another
quarmire?’"
Rather asks Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of American forces in Iraq, to name "the biggest mistake or inaccuracy that the press in general is making about the situation here?" Later, Rather gave air time to scarf-covered, US soldier-killing terrorists to denounce Americans..
An MRC report on Rather’s 20 years of liberal bias was updated to coincide with the 20th anniversaries of Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings becoming anchors.
The CBS anchor thought the blackout was a national crisis. Rather asked White House reporter Bill Plante if President Bush had considered canceling a fundraiser in San Diego because of the power failure. Rather wanted to know if "any serious thought" had been given to canceling Bush’s appearance at a San Diego fundraiser because of the electrical blackout in the Northeast. Rather uses term "controversial" in reporting on President Bush’s decision to nominate Utah Governor Mike Leavitt to succeed former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman as EPA Administrator.
President Bush’s nomination of Republican Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to replace outgoing EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman was viewed as “controversial” by Rather.
Shortly after CBS showed a live broadcast of former POW Jessica Lynch’s homecoming in West Virginia, Rather choked up as he recited the lyrics of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
Rather picked up on the fact that the National Bureau for Economic Research had concluded the recession had ended a year and a half ago but added that researchers stress the economy is still struggling.
The CBS Evening News hit a record ratings, attracting just 6.5 million viewers, more than two million fewer than watched either ABC's
World News Tonight or the NBC Nightly News.
Rather reported on the death of Lester Maddox, the hardline segregationist” former governor of Georgia, but failed to note that he was a Democrat.
Fiscal problems in the states were a result of Bush's tax cut and imaginary “federal budget cuts” Rather claimed in an intro to story about Alabama Governor Bob Riley raising taxes.
The CBS anchor asserted that the $400 billion prescription drug entitlement “may wind up falling far short of what Medicare recipients were hoping for.”
Environmentalist complaints about a changed sentence in an EPA report were relayed by Rather. “They say it was altered to put hardball partisan politics over hard independent science,” was the anchor’s interpretation.
A Media Reality Check documented the double standard in network reporting on tax cuts versus a new prescription-drug subsidy. Rather characterized the prescription drug bill as long overdue, “badly needed help.” Minutes later tied the tax cuts to a rising deficit.
Rather told CNN’s Larry King he believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction because otherwise, he would not have played “all of those sort of three-card monty games that he played with Professor Blix.” He also called ousted
New York Times executive editor Howell Raines “a great American journalist.”
Rather commented that “some opponents” had started calling President Bush’s tax cut a “services cut package.”
Rather insisted upon referring to the compromise $350 billion over ten years tax cut as “President Bush's big tax cut plan,” but didn't mention the cost of the prescription plan, $400 billion over ten years, or refer to it as “big.”
Though a $350 billion cut was half the size of the original tax cut plan and would represent barely a 1 percent reduction in expected tax revenue to the federal government over the next ten years, Rather still insisted upon describing it as "President Bush's big tax cut plan."
Rather aired three stories in eight days on the Texas situation in which state House Democrats left the state in order to kill a redistricting plan Republicans had proposed.
Rather gave New Yorker writer Ken Auletta's his take on the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News Channel: “By any clear analysis the bias is towards his [Murdoch’s] own personal, political, partisan agenda...primarily because it fits his commercial interests.”
Without mentioning that Texas Democrats used extra-legal means to kill a redistricting bill when they left the state House and fled to Oklahoma, Rather focused on the story that “a powerful Republican in Congress got Homeland Security personnel involved in a politicized search [for the Democrats] that had nothing to do with homeland security.”
Rather announced a new CBS
News/New York Times poll found the tax cut was a “problematic sell for the President,” since “less than half the respondents thought the Bush tax cut would actually help the economy.” Rather failed to mention that the 41 percent felt the tax cuts would have a good impact the economy, twice as many as the 19 percent who predicted a bad effect.
On the CBS Evening News, Rather portrayed Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan as definitively against Bush's tax cut plan.
An MRC Special Report, Grading TV’s War
News, gave Rather a B-plus for his optimistic coverage of the coalition’s advance toward Baghdad and accurate reporting of the interaction between U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Rather’s network, CBS, got a B-minus.
While other networks were sending mixed messages about public opinion in Iraq, Rather in Baghdad noted that “one of the hallmarks of Baghdad these days are the wild and woolly swings in public of mood.”
The CBS anchor reported from Baghdad shortly after liberation and noted the “wild and wooly” mood swings of the Iraqi public.
Rather arrived in Baghdad and found the people glad to have been liberated and appreciative of the U.S.
Rather’s pre-war interviews and claims of Iraqis defending Baghdad street-by-street made the MRC’s special “Gloat and Quote”
CyberAlert.
The CBS anchor provided an upbeat assessment of American battlefield successes.
The contrasting approaches of Rather and ABC’s Peter Jennings’ war reporting were examined.
Rather was much more upbeat than either ABC’s Peter Jennings or NBC’s Tom Brokaw a couple of days into the war.
The CBS News anchor cited a recent poll that found 58 percent felt the U.N. had done a poor job of handling Iraq. He did not mention that Americans overwhelmingly supported war against Iraq.
Rather is no Peter Jennings. The CBS anchor graciously ended a story about a Marine shipping out despite a desperately ill daughter with “lest we forget, a price is paid.”
The CBS anchor’s interview with Saddam Hussein drew significant media attention and a good deal of it was critical. Even for comedian Bill Maher, a vociferous critic of President Bush’s Iraq policy, condemned Rather for being too soft.
In an appearance on CNN’s Larry King
Live, Rather admitted that Ramsey Clark, the left-wing former Attorney General, had helped arrange the interview with Saddam Hussein.
Appearing on Late Show with guest host Bruce Willis, Rather dodged a question about Saddam Hussein’s veracity.
A synopsis of Rather’s interview with Saddam Hussein, complete with Rather asking the dictator if it’s the “last time” they will see one another.
“Dan Rather Stars in Gullible’s Travels.” A
Media Reality Check examined Rather’s less-than-probing interview with the Iraqi dictator.
A segment of Rather’s Saddam Hussein interview ran on the
CBS Evening News. It served as a tease, hyping the prime time interview on
60 Minutes II.
The AP first reported that anti-American Ramsey Clark had a hand in securing the Saddam Hussein interview for Rather and CBS News.
Rather highlighted the announcement by 10 European nations that they were supporting the Bush administration’s approach to Iraq.
Less than six hours after the Columbia disaster, Rather went political and suggested the Bush tax cut may be an impediment to improving NASA and launching new missions.
A crank caller trying to impress radio host Howard Stern once again fooled CBS News during the Columbia disaster coverage, leading Rather to lament “I’m an idiot.”
Rather offered only a sentence about the support of eight European nations for President Bush’s Iraq policy while his
Evening News presented an entire segment on Nelson Mandela’s attack on the President.
Reporting from Baghdad for 60 Minutes II Rather showcased Iraqis claiming they would fight the American forces to the death.
The CBS anchor’s claimed the pro-life and pro-abortion rallies marking the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade had tens of thousands participants. The pro-abortion rally was actually much smaller.
After Al Sharpton made his presidential bid official, Rather skipped over his racial hatemongering. Rather didn’t bother to identify Sharpton as a liberal, either.
Rather highlighted a CBS News poll that found only 14 percent think cutting taxes should be Congress’s top priority. He neglected to inform viewers that 54 percent considered “helping unemployed and creating jobs” to be the highest priority, which Bush backers said would be achieved with tax cuts.
CBS anchor Dan Rather took a highly skeptical approach to missile defense. “The thing,” as he called it, may never work. Rather also cited critics’ concerns that it was “a kind of relief act or corporate welfare for defense contractors.”
New Treasury Secretary John Snow was expected to push for more “controversial tax cuts,” according to Rather.
Rather made sure viewers knew a federal judge that ruled the GAO lawsuit against Vice President Cheney unconstitutional was nominated by President George W. Bush.
Rather and ABC’s Peter Jennings provided two different views of U.N. inspectors in Iraq. Jennings reported that they said things were going well and Rather reported that
U.N. inspectors were not satisfied.
A British dog bite made the CBS Evening News but Rather ignored Sen. Tom Daschle’s baseless attacks on radio commentator Rush Limbaugh.
Democrats complained about not getting enough air time and Rather started his
Evening News with a 32-second anti-Bush blast from Democratic Senator Tom Daschle.
Another Jennings-Rather comparison. When Saddam Hussein decided to allow U.N. inspectors into Iraq, Jennings reacted with smug glee while Rather warned that he had taken only one small step required to avoid war.
In a post-press conference analysis, Rather noted that President Bush wanted to re-nominate two judicial picks that Democrats had rejected. One candidate was rejected because of her abortion stance and another was rejected because of questions of racial prejudice. “Mind you those were questions, accusations,” Rather quickly added.
After the Republican victory in the November 2002 congressional elections, Rather
claimed that President Bush would have “control” of the Supreme Court.
With just a couple of days left until the Congressional elections, Rather raised “new” questions about President Bush’s sale of Harken Energy stock.
Rather was upset that Republican Norm Coleman was interviewed standing beside a plane “similar” to the one Sen. Paul Wellstone had died in. Turned out Rather was wrong about the type of plane and that Coleman had stood in front of the plane to accommodate an NBC
Today interview.
Rather couldn’t let the bad Democratic behavior at the memorial service for Sen. Paul Wellstone stand alone so he brought up a weeks-old Georgia controversy and accused Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman of posing in front of a plane similar to the one Wellstone had died in.
“CBS’s Campaign Gifts to Liberal Candidates.” A
Media Reality Check examined how Rather twisted the 2002 campaign story line to boost liberal politicians and impugn conservatives.
Vice President Dick Cheney was uninvited to the Paul Wellstone memorial service and Rather managed to pin the blame on Cheney.
Another shooting represented another chance to blame the military. Rather described a gunman at the University of Arizona as a “Gulf War veteran,” a tag he had also applied to the Washington, D.C. sniper.
Rather practically hyperventilated over the condition of the federal budget, calling the deficit “a stunning reversal of fortune.” He didn’t mention that the deficits of the early and mid-90s were higher.
Al Gore gave a speech criticizing President Bush’s Iraq policy and Rather highlighted the former Vice President’s claim that he “felt betrayed by the first Bush administration's hasty departure from the battlefield.” FNC’s Brit Hume noted that back in 1991 Gore had said the opposite.
A political spat between President Bush and then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle over homeland defense was the President’s fault, according to Rather. Al Gore made a speech at the Commonwealth Club in California condemning President Bush’s Iraq policy and Rather went out of his way to make him credible.
Rather and CBS News tried to turn the release of an intelligence committee document on 9-11 into a scandal, suggesting there were more “warning signs” of an attack than the administration had acknowledged.
The CBS anchor countered a report from Baghdad. After correspondent Mark Phillips said there were “belligerent noises” coming from Washington, Rather corrected him by quoting Mark Twain: “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between fire and firefly.”
Rather hyped a Time magazine story that claimed the Clinton administration had a plan to fight al Qaeda that the Bush administration neglected.
When Congress refused to enact a new drug prescription entitlement for seniors, Rather said it was a failure of President Bush and Congress to fulfill their “promises.”
Corporate accounting fiascos highlighted the supposedly “growing concern” with President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s corporate backgrounds, Rather claimed.
Rather was upset because President Bush was still willing to let people “risk” some of their Social Security money in stocks.
CBS devoted a story to vague allegation against Vice President Cheney and Rather suggested the charges undermined President Bush’s claims of an “economic hangover” from the 1990s.
The major networks Larry Klayman’s many lawsuits against the Clinton administration. But when he sued Vice President Cheney, Klayman got major coverage from all the broadcast networks, including CBS and Rather.
The CBS anchor claimed “big bucks” from the pharmaceutical administration was helping shape White House policy on drug coverage for seniors.
When the Bush administration announced new rules on power plant emissions, Rather relayed liberal spin by calling them “rollbacks.”
Attorney General John Ashcroft, traveling in Russia, announced the arrest of a suspected “dirty bomb” terrorist. Rather was immediately suspicious of Ashcroft’s motives.
Rather provided some inexplicable logic about President Bush’s political motives, noting that Democrats accused the President of playing politics with homeland defense while Republicans didn’t want him to expand the federal government.
Rather claimed President Bush’s primetime address on the Homeland Security Department was taking publicity away from hearings into FBI failures.
The CBS anchor was concerned about the President’s Homeland Security Department. Bush had “talked about making the government smaller and here you have a situation where he appears to be making it larger.”
In an appearance on CNN’s Larry King
Live, CBS News colleague Andy Rooney called Rather “transparently liberal.”
Rather told radio host Don Imus that John Ashcroft was “inexplicably” using private aircraft the summer before 9-11 and it was proof he knew about the terrorist threat to commercial aircraft. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski debunked the story less than hour later.
A media frenzy erupted in May 2002 over what the Bush administration knew about the terrorist threat prior to September 11. Here are some of Rather’s memorable moments.
The CBS anchor made some off the wall statements in an interview with BBC. The most memorable was that he was worried about having “the flame tire of lack of patriotism” put around his neck.
Democrats complained about a Republican fundraising tactic that used photographs of President Bush on September 11 and Rather, in his report, wondered if it crossed “the line of bad taste.”
A week-and-a-half after CBS News had ran a story on global cooling, Rather was warning viewers about the impact of global warming on the Antarctic ice shelf.
During a heated flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rather passed along the Palestinian claim that a “massacre” had occurred at Jenin on the West Bank.
The anchor had a 70s flashback as he raised concerns about “Big Oil” and the manipulation of gasoline prices.
Three suicide bombers were shot dead in Israel before they could blow themselves up. Rather described them as victims.
Unlike his ABC News’ Peter Jennings, the CBS anchor recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
Rather whitewashed the beneficiaries of a Saudi Arabian telethon.
Rather highlighted a poll that found 60 percent of Saudis “hate” the U.S.
In a change of pace, Rather cited the Pope as a sort of moral authority after he had criticized Israel for its actions towards Palestinians.
While Peter Jennings fretted about ethnic profiling, Rather was telling viewers that more than 1,000 foreigners who were believed to be in the country were wanted and could not be found.
The “shame” of Enron forced the Congress to pass campaign finance reform, according to Rather.
The CBS anchor closed his show with a memorable tribute to U.S. servicemen who had died in Afghanistan.
Rather warned viewers that the war against terrorism would be long and a test of “our collective national willpower and staying power.”
More contradicting news from the networks. After President Bush’s tough “axis of evil” speech, he traveled to Tokyo. ABC reported that the President sounded “very different” while Rather claimed he had “no intention of changing his language or his policies.”
An excerpt about Rather from former CBS News reporter Bernard Goldberg’s book
Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Rather was seething after Goldberg wrote a 1996
Wall Street Journal op-ed about media bias.
Rather trumpeted an anti-U.S. march in Teheran, Iran as proof that Iranians were angry with President Bush for including them in the “axis of evil” comment.
Bill Clinton is an honest man, Rather repeated to Don Imus. The fact that someone’s told several big lies doesn’t necessarily make them a dishonest person in his opinion, he added.
Rather wondered if the embarrassment of Enron would finally force Congress to pass campaign finance reform.
Rather and CBS News framed a story about the Bush administration expanding prenatal health care to the poor around abortion.
The CBS anchor praised President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address. “This was a solid, at times even eloquent address,” Rather said.
Another wacky Rather moment. Before the 2002 State of the Union speech, Rather read from an AP story that claimed Republicans favored the wealthy.
The CBS anchor claimed the Bush team wanted to keep details about its energy task force “secret.”
Rather was hopeful that the Enron “fiasco” would result “in some kind of real campaign reform.”
According to Bernard Goldberg, Rather was so angry when Connie Chung beat him to Oklahoma City after the 1995 bombing that he spent hours on the phone with TV writers condemning her as a bad journalist.
Rather complained about corporations that avoided taxes. “Legal or not, critics say it is outrageous,” the anchor told viewers.
Rather won 2001 Quote of the Year at the Dishonors Awards. The CBS anchor had told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that he believed former President Bill Clinton was an honest man.
The MRC celebrated Dan Rather’s 20th anniversary as anchor of
CBS Evening News by issuing a report that detailed just how biased he had been.
John Roberts
Roberts opened the Evening News by incorrectly stating that President Bush knew the Iraq-Africa-uranium claim was bad.
Joining in the media outrage over a changed sentence in an upcoming EPA report, Roberts reported, “Environmentalists today denounced the Bush administration for censoring the scientific evidence on global warming.”
If the Bush administration had exaggerated or manipulated intelligence reports on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, “it could be a significant scandal for the Bush White House, potentially worse than Watergate,” Roberts claimed.
On the terror attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Roberts concluded with the more common view that the war on terrorism has been somewhat successful and “under intense pressure, al-Qaeda has been forced to abandon attacks in the United States and hit soft targets closer to its base of operation.”
Roberts pointed out in the aftermath of President Bush’s speech on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln that “carrier appearances are hardly unusual for U.S. Presidents” since Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon all made them. He also that “they flew in on helicopters, and no commander-in-chief has ever donned the garb of a warrior…”
Unlike many network reporters, Roberts stressed that the Iraqis realized the U.S. was trying to help them. Roberts recounted a tragic accident involving Marines in which three Iraqi civilians died, but also reported that the Marines had helped the family bring the bodies to a mosque and conveyed the effort being made to keep civilians safe.
Unlike colleague Terry Moran, Roberts described talks at the UN Security Council as “bitter and unpleasant,” but didn’t’ place the blame on any one side.
Roberts adopted the liberal line that President Bush’s tax cut plan “would give the most to the rich and reduce tax receipts in the short-term” and suggested both the Republicans’ and the Democrats’ plans are “as much about political insulation as they are economic stimulation.”
Sen. Trent Lott’s “voting record against an extension of the Voting Rights Act, the Martin Luther King Holiday, and an African-American judge’s confirmation suggested to some in his home town a disturbing pattern,” according to Roberts.
Treasury Secretary nominee John Snow’s membership in the all-male Augusta National Golf Club was relevant to Roberts, who also stressed that “Democrats praised” the nominee’s “stellar reputation.”
The ousting of Bush’s economic team was a “clear sign of an economy in distress and a White House fearing trouble,” Roberts claimed.
Roberts complained that Democrats couldn’t get voters to focus on anything but the war on terror in the upcoming election: “With the sputtering recovery, the slumping stock market, and a plunge from record surpluses to deficits, it should be all about the economy. Instead, it's all about war.”
Roberts warned against military action in Iraq, reporting that CIA Director George Tenet believed “Saddam Hussein could lash out against the United Sates in frightening fashion if he feels his back is against the wall.” According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, 70 percent of respondents said they wanted to hear more about the economy than war, Roberts reported. The correspondent failed to report, however, that the same poll also revealed that 52 were happy with the President’s balance on domestic affairs and foreign policy. (CyberAlert, October 8, 2002)
An MRC special report “Operation: Audit the Media” report called attention to Roberts’ biased, anti-Bush reporting.
Sen. John McCain was not in line with the President on his policy in Iraq, Roberts suggested. He also claimed Bush was “under enormous pressure from hawks in Congress, who even today were beating the drums of war.”
Filling in on Face the
Nation, Roberts asked DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe why there was “no great hue and cry among Democrats in Congress to repeal the tax cut,” since it seemed to benefit wealthy investors over middle and low-income families
Roberts described how a secret federal court panel denied Attorney General John Ashcroft's request to expand the ability to share intelligence information with criminal prosecutors, as a “big setback for the Justice Department.”
Defeated Democrat Cynthia McKinney had “created a storm by suggesting President Bush may have known in advance about the September 11th attacks.” He didn’t report McKinney’s anti-Israel stance the out-of-state campaign contributions she received from Muslims and Arabs.
Though WorldCom donated to both Republicans and Democrats, Roberts linked it only to Republicans, noting that a lawsuit against the company was dismissed in 2000 by a judge who was the cousin of both Republican lobbyist Haley Barbour and campaign chairman for Republican Congressman Chip Pickering. Picking up on a question posed by AP’s Ron Fournier about investigations of Bush’s and Cheney’s old companies, Harken Energy Corporation and Halliburton, Roberts reported the President was “stung” with questions about his past stock dealings. (CyberAlert, July 18, 2002)
Roberts was more upfront than many of his colleagues in reporting about the federal circuit court that ruled the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. “The 9th Circuit is the most liberal court in the land. It's also the most overturned court in the land by the Supreme Court.”
In an interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Roberts wondered if “President Bush’s blunt call for Yasser Arafat’s removal amounts to a victory for administration hardliners.”
The liberal spin on the Bush administration’s new rules on power plant emissions was relayed by Roberts, but at least attributed it: “Critics charge the plan is the most dramatic rollback of the Clean Air Act in history, a give back to an industry that pledged more than $4 million to President Bush and Republicans in recent years.”
Roberts insinuated there were underhanded motives behind the timing of President Bush’s national address on the Department of Homeland Security, since it came at “the very same moment that the administration was taking fire on Capitol Hill for lapses in intelligence.”
When President Bush addressed the German Bundestag, Roberts attributed the protest by a few communist members of the legislature simply to “skeptical Germans.”
Roberts joined his colleagues in cover-up-detecting mode at a White House press conference, pressing Ari Fleischer to answer why no one in the administration came forward and said “‘By the way we had information about the hijackings.’”
In response to a Republican fundraising gimmick that offered a picture of President Bush aboard Air Force One on September 11, Roberts quoted the Center for Responsive Politics as saying that “the President who promised to change the tone in Washington has changed nothing.”
Roberts suggested President Bush’s challenge to Kim Jong-Il to change his ways was more dangerous than the dictator himself, noting that “the man who could become South Korea’s next President says Mr. Bush may have already failed.”
Bush’s “harsh rhetoric” for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, was “a prescription for deadlock,” according to Roberts.
With a cartoon graphic of money pouring out of a gold kettle on the screen, Roberts said told viewers that President Bush had proposed "the first deficit budget in five years, one that drains the entire Social Security and Medicare surpluses and still ends up $80 billion in the red.”
Pro-abortion groups were upset that the Bush administration had let states include unborn children in a health care program for the poor, Roberts noted how the decision would “play well with conservatives,” but that "abortion rights advocates” viewed it as “an assault on women’s rights under the guise of compassion."
In a report on the GAO’s demand for energy task force records, Roberts reported a CBS
News/New York Times poll found “67 percent of Americans think the White House is hiding something, even lying about it.” The actual poll results, shown in the on-screen graphic, were that 58 percent thought the administration was hiding something, but just 9 percent thought it was lying.
Roberts characterized the Enron scandal as one of "who knew what and when" in the Bush administration: “Today we learned that a top executive of Enron asked the administration to step in late last year to try to head off the company's collapse.”
Roberts stressed that “the lion’s share” of campaign contributions from Enron went “into Mr. Bush's political career and party coffers.” He did briefly mention that Enron Chairman Ken Lay “contributed heavily to Bill Clinton's election, played golf with the former President, even received White House support for overseas Enron projects.”
Roberts cited a CBS News poll in noting “the sagging economy is still the number one concern of Americans, beating out the war on terrorism.” He also devoted airtime only to opponents and no supporters of Bush’s tax cut plan.
Tim Russert
Russert mourned the losses in the Baghdad museum looting, and demanded of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “What happened there? How did we allow that museum to be looted?”
When Tom Brokaw proposed to Russert “this is not the time for the tax cut” because Iraqi reconstruction would “cost a lot of money,” Russert cheerfully agreed.
Russert cued up Sen. John McCain, who was opposed to the tax cut: “Do you believe the President, because of the war, should be asking Americans for more sacrifice and should hold off on any future tax cuts until we have a sense of the costs of the war and the state of our economy?”
Russert reported the President’s approval rating had jumped from 54 to 61 percent and Americans were convinced 66 to 11 that Colin Powell made a strong case for war. But Russert cautioned the administration that 51 percent of Americans believed the U.S. should go to war only with U.N. help and 46 percent believed the President had not adequately prepared the people for war.
Russert stressed the fact that top Senate and House Republicans were not completely on board with the President’s March tax cut proposal.
A compilation of quotes from Russert as
Meet the Press moderator was the runner up for the “Media Millionaires for Smaller Paychecks Award (for Demanding the Tax Cut Be Repealed)” in the MRC’s Best Notable Quotables of 2002.
Russert read from a Concord Coalition ad in the
New York Times opposing the tax cut: “We ask our soldiers to sacrifice. What about the rest of us?” Russert pointed out that Bush’s new economic advisor was a member of the Coalition and in favor of “freezing or postponing those tax cuts.”
Democrats seemed to be more afraid of Russert than Republicans, since “nine Democratic candidates have said thanks but no thanks after their GOP opponents had agreed to debate on NBC.”
Russert pressed Senate candidates Lindsey Graham and Alex Sanders of South Carolina to “postpone” the Bush tax cut and refused to press his guests from the right on the subject.
Russert asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who was already opposed to the tax cuts, “If you feel so seriously about it, Senator, why not postpone the tax cut, freeze it and not let it take place?”
Russert suggested that Tom Daschle’s outburst against President Bush on the Senate floor was motivated by ambition, since Daschle, “with one eye on Gore, also hearing from Democrats around the country realized he also had to step forward” and appeal to the “peace wing of the party.”
As usual, Russert pressed his Meet the Press guests, Republican Colorado Senator Wayne Allard and his Democratic opponent, Ted Strickland, to agree with his view that the tax cuts should be rescinded or postponed “in order to raise revenues to help fight the war in Iraq.”
Normally a balanced interviewer who presses both liberals
and conservatives to justify their positions, Russert used his position as moderator of
Meet the Press to push the idea of either freezing or repealing the Bush tax cut 40 times in nine months.
In a span of just five-and-a-half minutes on
Meet the Press, Russert urged his guests, Republican Congressman Tom Davis and Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey, eight times to accept that Congress should “freeze” or repeal the Bush tax cuts in order to restore the surplus.
Russert cited how the Financial Times charged that “'the ghost of Herbert Hoover is back to haunt Wall Street,” linking a quote from President Bush (“The fundamentals of the economy are sound.”) to what Herbert Hoover said just as the stock market was plunging in September 1929.
Normally a balanced interviewer, Russert had “abandoned his objectivity in a crusade to dilute the tax cut’s benefits,” an MRC
Media Reality Check reported.
Russert suggested that the passing of Sen. Paul Sarbanes bill “on accountability and reform in corporate America” would reassure the investors and help the markets.
On Meet the Press Russert made a possible Freudian slip: “We’re going to take a quick break and come back and talk about the tax cut, if anything can be done about it.” He quickly added: “If anything should be done about it.”
Russert explained that, despite their opposition to “big government,” conservatives supported the creation of a Department of Homeland Security because they realized “This is life or death. This is not tax cuts. This is not Social Security. This is the essential makeup of our nation.”
Russert reported people in the intelligence community were troubled with the way the White House issued a public statement about charges that it did not do enough to act on rumors of terrorist activities before September 11.
Russert dedicated a large chunk of
Meet the Press to Caroline Kennedy’s book “Profiles in Courage of Our Time,” about the recipients of the “Profiles in Courage Award,” which honors only the proponents of liberal policies.
On the Late Show with David
Letterman, Russert referred to “the late Newt Gingrich, the late Speaker Newt Gingrich” as he was telling a story. After a commercial break, Letterman reassured the audience, “He’s not dead. We just confirmed that.”
Russert called President Bush’s State of the Union speech “very sober” and “very effective.”
On news that an Enron CEO called members of the administration asking for help, Russert worried, “If you give lots of money then you have lots of access. A normal businessman in the country wouldn't have been able to make these phone calls and get through.”
Russert pushed Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill to concede the tax cut must be rescinded or delayed in order to avoid deficits and protect Social Security. Russert asked, "What has caused the disappearance of the surplus: the war, the recession or tax cuts or all three?”
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