Media Research Center Spotlight

Go Gore!
A Summary of George Stephanopoulos’s Election 2000 Coverage

Whether insisting Al Gore was honest or calling George W. Bush a “kamikaze conservative,” George Stephanopoulos acted as a political partisan throughout the 2000 presidential campaign. Even Gore’s erratic and heavily criticized debate performances drew praise from Stephanopoulos.

Supreme Court Wanted to Help Republicans
U.S. Supreme Court “jumped right into the middle of a political dispute in a way that will hand the election to the party of the person that appointed them,” Stephanopoulos complained of the court decision that upheld Bush’s victory in Florida.

General Gore
Stephanopoulos admired how Al Gore, after directing the Democrats post-election efforts from behind the scenes, was coming out to “lead the charge himself.”

If Gore Doesn’t Win…
“If this race is counted fairly, Al Gore won…” Stephanopoulos insisted days before the Bush inauguration.

Al Gore, The Great Debater

Stephanopoulos expressed admiration for what he called Gore’s grasp of the facts in third presidential debate. “Gore seemed to know some of Bush’s proposals and facts about his record better than Bush did himself…”

In report on the second presidential debate, Stephanopoulos took Bush to task for comments about former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin but ignored Gore misstatements about Chernomyrdin.

Most pundits gave the first presidential debate to George W. Bush, but not Stephanopoulos. The former Clinton aide claimed Gore “dominated the debate.”

…Even Though He May Exaggerate Sometimes
After Gore had falsely claimed to have traveled to Texas with the FEMA director to visit a disaster area, Stephanopoulos explained it away. “Gore exaggerated a little bit,” the former Clinton aide said.

Partisan or Analyst?

A Media Reality Check examined Stephanopoulos’s seeming role as an unpaid Gore campaign worker in assessing the Vice President’s debate performances. “Four years ago, George Stephanopoulos was a paid staffer for Al Gore's election. The only difference last night was that he's now paid by ABC News.”

Stephanopoulos’s claim that the Gore campaign’s recent good publicity was simply the result of being “in the zone” was examined in a Media Reality Check.

Don’t Worry, Joe’s a Good Liberal
From the Democratic National Convention, Stephanopoulos told viewers not to worry about Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman, the vice presidential-nominee. “He's been down the line with liberals on a woman's right to choose, consumer issues, environmental issues.”

Cheney’s a “Hard Line Conservative”
Stephanopoulos read a list of the bills “hard line conservative” Republican vice presidential-nominee Dick Cheney opposed while in Congress. His last line: “So I think for Democrats, this is real red meat for liberals and kind of something for everyone.”

And George W. is a “Kamikaze Conservative”
Stephanopoulos argued that Bush had moved so far to the right in the South Carolina primary that he had become a “kamikaze conservative.”

Asking Gore’s Questions
In an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, Stephanopoulos asked several questions prefaced with items from the Gore agenda – “the real difference in your adult lives is that you spent 10 years in the NBA. He spent eight years, or will be eight years, as Vice President,” is one example. Also managed to work in a Jesse Jackson attack on George W. Bush.

Also See:
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