Tax Cut Eating Into Surplus; CBS Pushed Prescription Entitlement; PBS’s
Ifill: HMOs "Fighting Dirty"; Condit a "Right-Wing Democrat"
1) ABC marked the implementation of Bush’s tax cut by
trying to discredit its viability. Josh Gerstein warned that "budget
surpluses this year may be much smaller than anticipated, raising doubts
about whether there will be enough cash to pay for the tax cut."
Gerstein relayed the usual liberal scaremongering: "The Senate's top
Democrat said today that may force the government to tap Social Security
or Medicare funds."
2) After marking progress toward one liberal goal, with
Senate passage of a bill creating the right to sue HMOs, the CBS Evening
News moved on to another. Diana Olick used an anecdotal victim to promote
the Democratic vision of a new entitlement program for prescription drugs:
"President Bush backs a plan that would target only the poorest and
that leaves out middle income patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein."
3) PBS’s Gwen Ifill accused the HMO industry of
"fighting dirty" for daring to produce a TV ad which used humor
to suggest that lawyers would get rich off the liberal Democratic/McCain
version of a Patients’ Bill of Rights.
4) To the recommendation that if the Senate rejects a
conservative judicial nominee Bush should keep nominating conservatives
until one is confirmed, NBC’s Tim Russert countered with the liberal
spin on Jim Jeffords: "Is that the same attitude that drove Senator
Jeffords from the Republican Party?"
5) NPR’s Nina Totenberg, a tool of the left who first
publicized the uncorroborated charges from Anita Hill, denounced David
Brock for being "a tool of the right." Instead of looking
inward, she complained that Brock’s book and "the stuff in the
American Spectator, which is a propaganda sheet, was taken very
seriously."
6) The Sunday CBS duo pressed RNC Chairman Jim Gilmore
from the left on campaign finance "reform" and the more liberal
version of a Patients’ Bill of Rights. Bob Schieffer demanded: "But
what’s wrong with trying to get these enormous, almost obscene sums of
money that we saw pour into the campaign the last time around, what’s
wrong with putting some limit on that?"
7) When is a Democratic Congressman labeled "right
wing"? When a network reporter is doing a story on a Congressman
linked to a victim of a probable crime.
>>> A Holiday Week Video Treat: See
and hear Dan Rather look goofy singing a train song, "The Wreck of
the Old Ninety-Seven," on the Late Show with David Letterman back on
June 22, 1994. He really did try to sing and even imitated the sound of a
train whistle. MRC Webmaster Andy Szul posted the RealPlayer video clip
and it will stay up through Monday. The volume level was a bit low on our
tape, so just turn up your RealPlayer volume to hear it. Go to: http://archive.mrc.org
<<<
1
ABC News
marked the July 1 implementation of the tax rate cuts by rolling out the
usual liberal arguments about how there’s not enough money to
"pay" for them and that they will reduce the surplus, as if the
federal government would starve with slightly less revenue.
"Administration officials are increasingly worried about the
deteriorating budget picture and about Democratic efforts to blame the tax
cut for the shrinking surpluses," ABC’s Terry Moran announced
Monday night after Sunday’s World News Tonight had furthered that very
Democratic effort.
Reporter Josh Gerstein on Sunday night warned:
"Just as the tax cut President Bush championed begins to take effect,
administration officials say budget surpluses this year may be much
smaller than anticipated, raising doubts about whether there will be
enough cash to pay for the tax cut." Gerstein even highlighted Tom
Daschle’s usual spin as if it were fresh news: "The Senate's top
Democrat said today that may force the government to tap Social Security
or Medicare funds."
MRC analyst Jessica Anderson took down the two
ABC stories which only acknowledged the role of spending hikes after first
blaming the tax cuts.
-- ABC’s World News Tonight/Sunday. Anchor
Carole Simpson opened the July 1 broadcast:
"The first of President Bush's tax cuts took
effect today. The four top tax rates dropped by one percentage point. For
about 35 million taxpayers that means less money will be withheld from
their paychecks. In a few weeks, the IRS will also begin mailing refund
checks to many taxpayers. As ABC's Josh Gerstein reports, the tax cuts
have cut deeply into the surplus, far deeper than the White House
expected."
Josh Gerstein: "Just as the tax cut
President Bush championed begins to take effect, administration officials
say budget surpluses this year may be much smaller than anticipated,
raising doubts about whether there will be enough cash to pay for the tax
cut."
Thomas Mann, The Brookings Institution: "His
tax cuts are unsustainable as now written and will almost certainly be
revisited over the next couple of years."
Gerstein: "Due to slumping corporate tax
revenues, the White House now projects the surplus may be a significant
$56 billion lower than previously estimated. The Senate's top Democrat
said today that may force the government to tap Social Security or
Medicare funds."
Senator Tom Daschle on This Week: "We know
those funds have already been committed. We know we're going to need them.
So to use them for any other purpose is a deceit, is a shell game that we
can't afford."
Gerstein: "The President's top economic
advisor issued a statement today saying that Senator Daschle is mistaken
and promising that 'Medicare dollars will be used only for Medicare.' The
top House Republican said any shortfall would require spending cuts."
Dick Armey: "If we have to make up that
difference we must make it up on the spending side, and that means
everyone of us is going to have to be willing to make some trade-off
decisions in this budget process."
Gerstein: "But so far, Congress has shown
little interest in reining in spending. Budget bills passed by the
Republican House are already billions of dollars above what President Bush
requested. Mr. Bush said recently he'd use his veto pen to control excess
spending, but Democrats say the President will have a hard time vetoing
bills supported by Republicans and that eventually members of Mr. Bush's
own party will be forced to unravel the tax cut."
ABC News producers sure seem to hope so.
-- ABC’s World News Tonight on Monday July
2. Peter Jennings, the only broadcast network anchor to work the holiday
week, cautioned: "The first phase of President Bush's tax cut goes
into effect today. After several years of piling up surpluses, the
government is going to give some of it back. If you make enough money to
qualify, the federal government is reducing the amount it takes out of
your paycheck -- it won't exactly be a windfall. If you are a single
person who makes $2600 a month, you will pay about four dollars less in
federal taxes a month, but the numbers add up, and we're going to start
with the President today because his administration is beginning to feel
the pinch. ABC's Terry Moran is at the White House. Terry."
Moran confirmed: "Well, Peter, you're right.
Administration officials are increasingly worried about the deteriorating
budget picture and about Democratic efforts to blame the tax cut for the
shrinking surpluses....President Bush, out for a stroll at the Jefferson
Memorial, greeting tourists on a picture-perfect afternoon, all part of a
new White House effort to soften Mr. Bush's image as polls show voters
feel he cares more about big business than ordinary people."
President Bush: "Good opportunity to say
hello to some of our fellow Americans."
Moran: "But all the pretty pictures won't
change a stark fact that is causing headaches for the administration, the
budget surplus is rapidly dwindling. Why? The President's tax cut,
congressional spending and a weakening economy."
Robert Reischauer, former CBO director: "All
three of these things are coming together and transforming a very large
and healthy-looking surplus into a fairly small one."
Moran: "In January, the Congressional Budget
Office estimated the surplus at $96 billion in 2001, and rising. In June,
it was down to $16 billion, and the estimates continue to shrink.
Democrats, sensing a political opportunity, are pushing their case that
the $1.35 trillion tax cut Mr. Bush signed last month is to blame."
Senator Daschle: "The ramifications of that
are every bit as serious and problematic as we said they would be a couple
of months ago. I hate to say I told you so, but we told you so."
Moran concluded: "The crimped surpluses will
hamper Mr. Bush's efforts to boost defense spending, add a prescription
drug benefit to Medicare, provide more money for schools and partially
privatize Social Security. But administration officials vehemently dispute
the Democratic argument. They say congressional spending is the main
culprit in the case of the shrinking surplus, and they say, Peter, that
the tax cut will actually raise revenue by boosting economic growth."
2
After
noting progress toward one liberal goal, with Senate passage of a bill
creating the right to sue HMOs, the CBS Evening News on Sunday night moved
on to another: creating a new entitlement program to have Medicare pay for
prescription drugs. Diana Olick delivered the typical network news sob
story which illustrated the supposed problem by highlighting an anecdotal
victim, this time one left behind by a less-expansive plan:
"President Bush backs a plan that would target only the poorest and
that leaves out middle income patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein."
Substitute anchor Sharyl Attkisson set up the
July 1 story which followed an update on Dick Cheney: "The Vice
President's tiny heart device cost $25,000. Just another sign of the high
price of health care in America. Rising prescription drug prices are
another and now Congress is about to attack that problem, as Diana Olick
reports."
Olick began the story, as transcribed by MRC
intern Lindsay Welter: "No sooner had the winning gavel sounded on
the Patients' Bill of Rights than Senate Democrats announced they would
charge ahead on comprehensive health care reform when they return from the
holiday recess."
Following a clip of Senator Bob Graham of
Florida, Olick explained: "Last Thursday Democrats introduced a
Medicare reform act which includes unlimited prescription drug benefits
for seniors who have paid their deductibles. President Bush backs a plan
that would target only the poorest and that leaves out middle income
patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein."
Baer-Schenkein: "So now I'm not taking
anything at all for my osteoporosis."
Olick helpfully chipped in: "Because she
can't afford the three and half thousand dollars a year for the drug her
doctor prescribed."
Baer-Schenkein: "When I was given this bill
I almost passed out. The pharmacy was crowded so I felt embarrassed to
give it back."
Olick: "In the last two decades prescription
drug prices have increased 300 percent. Last year Americans spent $116
billion to get their medications."
Olick then ran a soundbite from Ron Pollack of
the unlabeled Families USA before she concluded by stressing the agenda
change made possible by the Democratic takeover of the Senate: "It
was just two months ago that Senate Republicans said there was simply no
time in this session to take up the issue of prescription drugs. Not so,
now that the Democrats are in charge. They have the upper hand, but
President Bush has the final word."
3
HMOs
"fighting dirty"? Gwen Ifill, host of PBS’s Washington Week in
Review, denounced the HMOs for "fighting dirty." Their sin?
Producing a TV ad which used humor to suggest that lawyers would get rich
off the liberal Democratic/McCain version of a Patients’ Bill of Rights.
The shot from Ifill, a former reporter for NBC
News and the New York Times, occurred on the June 29 edition of the weekly
PBS show. Seeming pleased, Ifill set up the segment: "Well we have a
little bit of news. On Capitol Hill tonight, the Senate passed the
Patients’ Bill of Rights. Americans may be able to sue their HMOs but
how much of a difference will this bill make in the end, ultimately,
really, Ceci Connolly?"
A few minutes later Ifill introduced the ad
clip: "Now, Ceci, today, big, big victory for the Democrats in the
Senate but the next battle is in the House of Representatives and the HMO
industry is already gearing up to fight back with this new ad."
PBS viewers then saw most of an ad created by
the American Association of Health Plans. MRC analyst Ken Shepherd took
down the words to the ad in which two croquet-playing British barristers,
wearing wigs, discuss the windfall for lawyers across the lake:
First British barrister: "Our barrister
chums in the U.S. are suing health plans for the sport of it."
Second British barrister: "Bloody genius,
they’ll make millions and send rates sky high!"
First British barrister: "And when employers
can’t afford to pay-"
Both in unison, laughing: "They’ll sue
them too!"
First British barrister: "Nigel, perhaps we
should move to America?"
Voice of first British barrister as ad ends, the
final line also shown in writing on screen: "Kennedy-McCain. Lawyers
love it."
Back on the set, Ifill pounced: "So the
HMO industry is back and they’re fighting dirty. Where are we going to
see that ad? Is it going to be targeted against House members running for
re-election?"
4
NBC’s
Tim Russert on Sunday forwarded the liberal spin that Senator Jim Jeffords
abandoned the GOP because the party was too conservative, not because he
saw a chance for personal aggrandizement if he switched parties before
Senator Thurmond died.
Russert’s contention came during a July 1
Meet the Press exchange with conservative Wall Street Journal columnist
Paul Gigot:
Russert: "What would happen to George W.
Bush politically if there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court and he
decided, and to take Senator Sessions' advice and put forward the name of
a very strict constructionist, conservative justice in the tradition or
philosophy of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas?"
Gigot: "I think he's going to do that. I
think he would be smart to do it. I think his base cares about two things
principally. The economic conservatives really do care about taxes, and
the cultural conservatives really do care about judges and the courts. And
judging by what we heard from, from Senator Schumer, the Democrats look
like they're going to oppose anybody to the left of, of, you know, Larry
Tribe or Cass Sunstein or some of these liberal academics. So why not send
up a judge who is conservative, if they're going to defeat anybody who has
any real conservative leanings, send up a conservative. Send up another
one if they defeat one. Send up a third, send up a fourth. Your base is
going to like it and ultimately they can't defeat everybody."
Russert countered: "But is that the same
attitude that drove Senator Jeffords from the Republican Party?"
Gigot: "I think there's something of a, no,
I don't think so...."
5
NPR’s
Nina Totenberg, who by first running a story on the uncorroborated charges
from Anita Hill advanced the political left’s effort to destroy Clarence
Thomas on a personal level, over the weekend denounced David Brock for
being "a tool of the right." Instead of looking at her own sad
record, she bemoaned how Brock’s book on Hill and "the stuff in the
American Spectator, which is a propaganda sheet, was taken very
seriously."
Reacting on PBS’s Inside Washington over the
weekend to David Brock’s new claim that he lied in his 1993 book, The
Real Anita Hill, though he so far has only managed to cite one
misstatement in a 1994 review of another book, Totenberg delivered this
sermon:
"Well, you know, I don’t quite know what
to make of this. I would like to be able to say oh, well, gee, David Brock
is now obviously telling the truth. It was clear to me that The Real Anita
Hill was not a real journalistic exercise. It had little factual errors,
you know, people’s ages, where they worked, every kind of thing that you
can think of."
Moderator Gordon Peterson: "This is
Brock’s first book."
Totenberg: "This is Brock’s first book.
And I’m not prepared to say, when he says now that I made it all up
basically and I was covering for Clarence Thomas, I’m not prepared to
say that that’s the truth. What I am prepared to say though, that this
is really a pretty serious commentary about journalism. Because, the first
book, The Real Anita Hill, was taken very seriously. The stuff in the
American Spectator, which is a propaganda sheet, was taken very seriously.
David Brock admits that he didn’t know anything about journalism when he
wrote The Real Anita Hill, that he was a tool of the Right, that that’s
what he was doing. That he’d never had any journalistic training. And
this is a pretty bad commentary on where we’ve come in our profession
and where the public’s come frankly and who they believe."
Totenberg added: "I think this is very
seriously damaging for Justice Thomas. He’s been on the Court for ten
years, this seemed to be behind him, it clearly isn’t now, to the point
that his wife was calling up a radio station in tears this week."
Though nothing Brock has "confessed"
in any way lends credence to Hill’s claims, looking back now how
"seriously damaging" could any of Hill’s charges really be
even if accurate? A few jokes about the fake names of actors in porno
videos? Nothing she accused Thomas of doing even approaches the kind of
behavior displayed by Bill Clinton during his White House years and
before.
6
The
Sunday CBS duo of Bob Schieffer and Gloria Borger pressed RNC Chairman Jim
Gilmore, the Governor of Virginia, from the left on campaign finance
"reform" and the more liberal version of a Patients’ Bill of
Rights.
A bewildered Schieffer demanded: "But
what’s wrong with trying to get these enormous, almost obscene sums of
money that we saw pour into the campaign the last time around, what’s
wrong with putting some limit on that?" If President Bush vetoed a
Patients’ Bill of Rights, Schieffer asked, "would that hurt the
Republican Party?"
MRC analyst Ken Shepherd took down many of the
questions posed on the July 1 Face the Nation to Gilmore and Republican
Congressman Chris Shays:
-- Borger to Shays: "On your issue of
campaign finance reform, for example, there are lots of things about your
bill that the president does not like. Do you fully expect him to sign a
campaign finance reform measure?"
-- Schieffer followed up: "Governor
Gilmore, as the Chairman of the party, do you, are you going to sign on to
Congressman Shays’s bill?"
-- Not hearing the affirmative answer he
wanted, Schieffer argued: "But what’s wrong with trying to get
these enormous, almost obscene sums of money that we saw pour into the
campaign the last time around, what’s wrong with putting some limit on
that?"
-- Schieffer wouldn’t let go: "But
Governor, don’t you think that the fact that people see all this money
pouring in has something to do with the fact that people don’t really
trust politicians anymore, they don’t really believe them anymore? I
don’t know anybody who thinks that somebody who gives a half million
dollars to a political party or to a campaign thinks that they’re doing
that ‘cause they like good government. They want something in
return."
-- Picking up on a Gilmore point, Borger
allowed Shays to shoot down the argument: "Well, Congressman Shays,
let me ask you this: Do you think this is the end of political parties as
we know them? Is your bill going to kill both political parties?"
-- Instead of taking on Shays on the
implications of his bill, Schieffer just wondered why one group of
Congressmen would oppose it: "Let me, the point that the Governor
raised is in fact accurate. It does seem that they are peeling off members
of the black caucus to vote against the bill that you’re now sponsoring.
Why do you think that is?"
-- Following some questions about John McCain,
Borger returned to campaign finance, but only to ask Shays about the
chance of victory: "And very quickly, do you have the votes, right
now, to pass your version of campaign finance reform?"
Shays: "It’s going to be very close."
-- Schieffer turned to Gilmore: "One
final word for you, Governor. The Patients’ Bill of Rights bill that the
Democrats sponsored has just passed the Senate. Democrats believe they
have the votes to pass similar legislation in the House. If that happened
and the president vetoed it, would that hurt the Republican Party?"
Gilmore: Well, I think we need to remember that
the goal here is to get health care for people. There are 44 million
people today that are without health care."
Schieffer: "I understand all that. I
understand all that. But I’m asking, do you think from a political
standpoint it would hurt the Republican Party?"
7
When is
a Democratic Congressman labeled "right wing"? When a network
reporter is doing a story on a Congressman linked to a victim of probable
crime.
Most TV stories I’ve seen have studiously
avoided naming the party affiliation of Gary Condit, the Democratic
Congressman from California linked to Chandra Levy, the intern missing in
DC since early May -- though I recall that in a June 21 CNN piece Candy
Crowley identified his party. Tuesday night, July 3, for instance, NBC
Nightly News ran back-to-back pieces on the Levy case -- starting with the
Fox News Channel exclusive about how Condit supposedly asked a United
Airlines flight attendant, with whom he had an affair, to offer misleading
statements in an affidavit -- but neither story mentioned his party.
The morning before, however, MRC analyst
Geoffrey Dickens noticed how NBC tagged him as a "right-wing
Democrat." In a piece on the July 2 Today about his district, George
Lewis asserted: "Modesto, California, in the middle of the state's
central valley. A major agricultural area with lots of farms and cattle. A
politically conservative place where the average home goes for around
$190,000. They call it 'Condit Country' around here and six-term
Congressman Gary Condit, a 53 year old right-wing Democrat, has won
re-election by huge margins."
That reminds me of how some have predicted
that if Democratic Senator Zell Miller becomes a Republican the national
media will then suddenly find it newsworthy to highlight what they have so
far skipped over: his segregationist history.