NBC News "Cheering for Gore"; Clift Defended Condit; Sexist Gumbel; His Anti-Communism Made Helms Intolerable; Latest NQ

1) On election night the NBC News control room was full of staffers "all cheering for Gore," GE CEO Jack Welch revealed, "and two or three of us cheering for George Bush."

2) Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift is the only member of the media still willing to defend Gary Condit. Wednesday night on FNC’s Hannity & Colmes she dismissed Anne Marie Smith’s claims as a "side show" and maintained Condit fully cooperated with police.

3) Bryant Gumbel is such an established sexist that on Thursday’s show his co-host, Jane Clayson, marveled at how he accepted a golf lesson from a woman, what she dubbed the "kicker" in "a first in the world of Bryant Gumbel."

4) Bob Novak pointed out media hypocrisy and suggested the real reason for their animosity toward Jesse Helms: "Paradoxically, a North Carolina Senate predecessor, the late Sam Ervin, described himself as attorney for the segregationist cause but is still beloved by liberals for condemning Joe McCarthy and investigating Richard Nixon. It is Helms' fierce anti-Communism that has made him intolerable to the Left."

5) Text of the September 3 Notable Quotables, the MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.

6) Letterman’s "Top Ten Signs a Little Leaguer Is Too Old."

     >>> Oops? George W. Bush the "acting President." New video up on the MRC home page, thanks to Webmaster Mez Djouadi. It’s of ABC Sports reporter Leslie Gudel introducing her interview with Bush during ABC’s coverage of last Sunday’s Little League World Series: "He is the first acting President to ever make a trip to the Little League World Series..." To view the RealPlayer clip go to the MRC’s home page, or directly to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2001/cyb20010828.asp#7 <<<

Correction. The Wednesday, August 29 CyberAlert moved dates forward by a day. It stated: "On Tuesday night anchor John Roberts hyped how ‘the fat federal surplus vanishes into thin air...the President will have to use Social Security money to keep the government running.’ But on Wednesday night he acknowledged that spin ‘may be more symbolism than substance’ as Bill Plante explained..." The paragraph should have read: "On Monday night anchor John Roberts hyped," but "on Tuesday night he acknowledged that..."

1

On the election night, the NBC News control room was full of people "all cheering for Gore," retiring General Electric CEO Jack Welch told Vanity Fair as he denied he pressured anyone to call the election for Bush, "and two or three of us cheering for George Bush."

     Welch’s revelation about the candidate preference of most NBC News staffers came in reaction to, as the Names & Faces column in the August 29 Washington Post reported, "rumors that he asked the men supervising computer projections, ‘What would I have to give you to call the race for Bush?’ Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, is threatening to subpoena a video recording of that night from NBC." (General Electric owns NBC.)

     The Post quoted Welch as calling that "a crazy story." An August 28 Reuters dispatch quoted from the interview in the upcoming October issue of Vanity Fair as Welch, apparently referring to at least NBC News President Andy Lack, maintained: "To think you could ever influence two old pros who wouldn't call an election for anyone if their lives depended on it, is just plain silliness. The facts are there was a room there (at NBC on election night) of young kids all cheering for Gore and two or three of us cheering for George Bush. That's all that happened."

     As anyone who has seen appearances by Welch on C-SPAN knows, he describes his 20-something and 30-something employees as "young kids."

     But Welch’s support for Bush didn’t do him a whole lot of good, as the Washington Post item relayed: "The article also records Welch’s reaction to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent decision to require GE to clean the Hudson River of toxic waste it dumped there decades ago. While Welch remains a supporter of Bush, he said GE is ‘paying the price for Kyoto and arsenic,’ in reference to Bush decisions criticized by environmentalists. ‘The politics of the current administration are going to make it tough to make a logical decision,’ he said."

     For a photo of Welch, retrieve the above quoted Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10818-2001Aug28.html

2

Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift has found a new role: The only member of the media still willing to defend Gary Condit (?-CA). Wednesday night on FNC’s Hannity & Colmes, the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth noticed, she put herself to the left of liberal co-host Alan Colmes as she dismissed Anne Marie Smith’s claims as a "side show" and maintained he was fully cooperative with the police.

     On the August 29 Hannity and Colmes show Clift argued: "Look, I think the Bill Clinton case has been resolved. The country voted on that one. Polls overwhelmingly showed that people did not believe he should be impeached for essentially having a private affair with a young woman. The Gary Condit affair is quite different. We’re not, I hope, not condemning him for having adultery-"
     Ann Coulter: "Wouldn’t want to do that!"
     Clift: "-because I’ll leave that to the preachers, we’ll leave that to the preachers and to his conscience and whatever. What we’re talking about is whether he didn’t act quickly enough and speak fully enough in those critical days after she was first missing."
     Co-host Alan Colmes: "Also he may have given Anne Marie Smith a piece of paper to sign. He may have given her something with which he could possibly have suborned perjury."
     Clift: "That is a side show. That’s a side show."

     Later, Clift contended: "Look, Gary Condit also spoke, also gave an interview to Newsweek magazine in which he did express great sadness over the disappearance of this young woman, and he did express sympathy for the family, and he did point out that in his first interview with the police, he was asked whether he had an intimate relationship with Chandra Levy, and he asked whether it was relevant. He then, later in the interview, said, he concluded it was relevant and claims the police have all the information. So, you know, we really don’t know exactly what he did or didn’t tell the police."

3

Bryant Gumbel is such an established sexist that on Thursday’s show his co-host, Jane Clayson, marveled at how he accepted a golf lesson from a woman, what she dubbed the "kicker" in "a first in the world of Bryant Gumbel."

     MRC analyst Brian Boyd took down this exchange from the top of the 8am half hour of the August 30 Early Show:

     Gumbel: "Back now at 8:00 and set for a second hour of The Early Show on this Thursday. Another gorgeous day here in the northeast, man, was yesterday fabulous."
     Clayson: "It really was and, by the way, how was your golf game yesterday?"
     Gumbel: "My golf game was fine yesterday."
     Clayson: "Yeah? I heard there was a first in the world of Bryant Gumbel yesterday."
     Gumbel: "Yes."
     Clayson: "There was a golf lesson, a golf lesson. That was your first ever, right?
     Gumbel: "Well, yeah."
     Clayson: "But that's not the kicker. The kicker is-"
     Gumbel: "Go ahead, since you've started."
     Clayson, drum rolls her hands on the desk: "The lesson came from a woman."
     Gumbel: "Yes."
     Clayson: laughs
     Gumbel: "Mary."
     Clayson: "Mary?"
     Gumbel: "Yes."
     Clayson: "I would never have thought that you would take a golf lesson from a, number one that you would take a golf lesson, number two that it would be from a woman."
     Gumbel: "OK. Ahead in this hour. (laughs) It worked."
     Clayson: "She was good?"
     Gumbel: "She did a wonderful job, she really did."
     Clayson: "She's a better golfer than you?"
     Gumbel: "Actually, she learned the game from a guy I used to play with, which is really strange."
     Clayson: "So that made it OK?"
     Gumbel: "No, but it was just strange."

4

A new column by Bob Novak provides an excellent refutation to the widespread media spin that Senator Jesse Helms used race in an improper way to win elections.

     In a Wednesday column, Washington Post reporter David Broder condemned Helms as he complained reporters were "pussyfooting" since they did not reflect Broder’s assessment that Helms "is the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country." For a column excerpt, go to: http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2001/cyb20010830.asp#1

     The August 30 CyberAlert undercut that premise by showing how the television networks castigated Helms on race. ABC: "On racial issues, he was a lightning rod, unrepentant about his support for American segregation." CBS: "His opponents have accused him of using race to win elections." NBC: "Others saw Helms as mean-spirited and accused him in close elections of race-baiting." For more about these August 21 stories, refer back to: http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2001/cyb20010822.asp#2

     Novak pointed out media hypocrisy and suggested the real reason for their animosity toward Helms: "Paradoxically, a North Carolina Senate predecessor, the late Sam Ervin, described himself as attorney for the segregationist cause but is still beloved by liberals for condemning Joe McCarthy and investigating Richard Nixon. It is Helms' fierce anti-Communism that has made him intolerable to the Left."

     As for dismissing blacks as a bloc vote and running an anti-quota ad in 1990, Novak explained: "With 90 percent or more of African-American voters voting Democratic in post-segregation Southern politics, a Republican needs well over 60 percent of the white vote to be elected. This polarization resulted in a notorious racial television ad in Helms' 1990 campaign, but Helms himself never engaged in racial demagoguery."

     An excerpt from Novak’s newest column, which started appearing in newspapers on Thursday:

Democratic operative John Podesta, Bill Clinton's last White House chief of staff, commented on CNN's "Capital Gang" last weekend that Sen. Jesse Helms "was personally gracious, but he has built his whole career on hate and division." That was the Washington establishment's consensus when the North Carolina Republican announced he would not seek a sixth term, and it constituted a slander on one of the most effective Foreign Relations Committee chairmen in Senate history.

Critical though Podesta's assessment was, it was milder than liberal journalists calling him "harsh and intolerant" and "a mean-spirited homophobe."...

In truth, anybody who really knows Jesse Helms should acknowledge him as an amiable Southern gentlemen totally uninterested in racial politics. What has driven him throughout more than 28 years as a senator has been U.S. national security during and after the Cold War. He has so often defeated the liberal conventional wisdom in shaping the country's international policy that enemies have been reduced to ad hominem assaults and playing the race card.

Unlike Thurmond and especially Wallace, whose political careers were shaped by white supremacy, Helms did not enter the Senate until 1972 after the great civil rights struggles. Paradoxically, a North Carolina Senate predecessor, the late Sam Ervin, described himself as attorney for the segregationist cause but is still beloved by liberals for condemning Joe McCarthy and investigating Richard Nixon. It is Helms' fierce anti-Communism that has made him intolerable to the Left....

An experienced Republican politician at age 28, John Carbaugh joined freshman Sen. Helms' staff in 1974. Along with another bright young man named James Lucier, Carbaugh built what became Helms' "shadow State Department."...

"He wasn't interested in race," Carbaugh told me. "He never talked to me about race. His constituents were interested in race." With 90 percent or more of African-American voters voting Democratic in post-segregation Southern politics, a Republican needs well over 60 percent of the white vote to be elected. This polarization resulted in a notorious racial television ad in Helms' 1990 campaign, but Helms himself never engaged in racial demagoguery.

I personally encountered an example of Helms' enemies trying to trap him in a racist blunder. Six years ago, I was substituting for Larry King on his television program and enticed Helms into appearing as my guest. A caller identified himself as being from Tilk, Ala. Neither Helms nor I had heard of Tilk, and no wonder. There is no such place. The caller was an agent provocateur, who told the senator: "You should get a Nobel Peace Prize for everything you've done to help keep down the niggers."

We were both taken aback, and Helms struggled to say "one of the worst spankings" he ever got from his father was when he used the n-word as "a little boy" and "I don't think I've ever used it since."...

Actually, an African-American named Claude Allen was on the Helms Senate staff in the early '70s. Richard Holbrooke, President Clinton's U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, found a "racially diverse" staff when he visited Helms' Senate office 25 years later....

     END Excerpt

     To read Novak’s column in full, access it via the CNSNews.com commentary section: http://www.cnsnews.com/Commentary.asp

     Or, go directly to: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\200108\COM20010830a.html

     The August 30 CyberAlert also quoted from an August 23 Wall Street Journal op-ed by Walter Russell Mead defending the Helms record on racial issues. National Review’s Washington Bulletin noted that piece was since posted on the Journal’s free site. To read "Farewell to a Great Jacksonian: Liberals' bete noire helped ensure the triumph of the civil-rights revolution," go to: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001024

5

Text of the September 3 Notable Quotables, the MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.

     Most of the quotes have appeared in previous CyberAlerts, but Notable Quotables provides a compact collection of the most egregious bias from the previous two weeks.

     The issue does include two quotes which will be fresh to CyberAlert readers: The comment from Al Hunt under "Helms: Odious & Mean-Spirited" (which the Novak column quoted) and, under "Missing Mao," this New York Times headline caught by CyberAlert reader Tom Johnson: "Workers’ Rights Suffering as China Goes Capitalist."

     Now, to the text of the September 3 NQ (Vol. Fourteen; No. 18), put together by Rich Noyes, the MRC’s Director of Media Analysis, and re-compiled into proper text format by Kristina Sewell:

We’ve Noticed

"We may tell you all the time that our principal aim in life is to communicate and assist, inform, whatever the fancy words are, our audience. But if you see injustice and you can get people to do something about it, ahh, it’s just a glorious feeling....There’s nothing a reporter likes more than to have an effect on policy."
-- ABC’s Peter Jennings on Breaking the News, a CBS News special produced by the Museum of Television and Radio, which aired on August 24.

Ignoring $158 Billion Surplus

"The fat federal surplus vanishes into thin air. Congressional accountants say the President will have to use Social Security money to keep the government running....It’s gone: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the federal budget surplus for this year has been eaten up by President Bush’s tax cut and dwindling tax revenues from the slowing economy."
-- John Roberts on the August 27 CBS Evening News.

"What’s gobbling up the surplus? The President’s tax cut and the sluggish economy. And now the non--partisan CBO says the President will have to take $9 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund to cover his spending proposals this year and use $18 billion from the trust fund in two years to cover his tax cut. New ammunition for Democrats who charged the President is breaking a promise to keep Social Security funds in a so-called lock box."
-- Campbell Brown, NBC Nightly News, August 27.

Tax Cut Threatens Seniors

"Gambling with the federal budget surplus. Billions of dollars evaporate into thin air. Is your Social Security money at risk?"
-- Substitute anchor Elizabeth Vargas’s tease at the top of the August 22 World News Tonight.

"Adios, surplus. When retired boomers dine on dog food, will they say thanks for that $600?"
-- Newsweek’s "Conventional Wisdom" box, assigning President Bush a "down" arrow in its Sept. 3 issue.

Gumbel Cheers Helms Departure

"[Republican Senator Jesse] Helms is, let me pick my words here, an unapologetic right-wing conservative, I guess we could say. Is his departure good news for all but hard-right Republicans?"
-- CBS’s Bryant Gumbel on the August 22 Early Show.

Helms: Odious & Mean-Spirited

"On racial issues, he was a lightning rod, unrepentant about his support for American segregation, firmly opposed a Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday."
-- ABC’s Claire Shipman, World News Tonight, Aug. 21.

"He’s been known as ‘Senator No’ because of his willingness to fight everything -- from civil rights bills to help for AIDS patients. That makes him a hero to many conservatives and a favorite bogeyman of liberals with whom he so loves to do battle."
-- NBC’s Lisa Myers on the August 21 Nightly News.

"He fought the Panama Canal treaties and has opposed abortion rights, AIDS funding, and even the Martin Luther King holiday. His opponents have accused him of using race to win elections."
-- CBS’s Bob Orr on the August 21 Evening News.

"Liberals are going to miss him, he was so wonderfully odious. Remember that old Time magazine that had him on the cover with the dark shadows under the eyes and he’s this dark and menacing figure? And he was very comforting to the East Coast media establishment to know that there was an evil guy out there that you could really fear."
-- Newsweek’s Evan Thomas, Inside Washington, Aug. 25.

"As a native North Carolinian, the only question I have is what took him so doggone long? Glad he’s gone. He was an old segregationist. He never changed."
-- Time’s Jack White on Inside Washington, August 25.

"Helms reveled in the politics of personal vilification. He is a mean-spirited homophobe. And whatever one thinks of Bill Clinton, it was unconscionable for Sen. Helms to say the President of the United States would need a ‘bodyguard’ if he went to a military base in North Carolina."
-- Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt in his August 23 column.

Too Easy on Helms for Broder

"The squeamishness of much of the press in characterizing Helms for what he is suggests an unwillingness to confront the reality of race in our national life....What is unique about Helms -- and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans."
-- Washington Post reporter David Broder, in an August 29 op-ed headlined, "Jesse Helms, White Racist."

Pushing Phony "Lock Box" Fears

"Politicians call Social Security the third rail of politics: Touch it, fool with it, and you can get a terrible shock. Well, today the non-partisan congressional office that crunches the budget numbers projected the government will have to use $9 billion in Social Security funds this year just to pay for the programs it already has in place. Democrats and Republicans alike have always sworn on a stack of Bibles that Social Security was absolutely, totally, completely off limits."
-- ABC’s Charles Gibson, World News Tonight, Aug. 27.

"You talk about talking straight and tough choices. Are the Democrats prepared to make those same tough choices? You say there’s a big problem with the budget this year. Are you prepared, as Senator Byrd has suggested, to come forward and say we have to repeal or delay parts of the tax cut to make sure we don’t tap the Social Security lock box?"
-- ABC’s George Stephanopoulos questioning Democratic Senator John Edwards on This Week, August 26.

Reality Check:
Brit Hume: "We keep hearing that the Social Security surplus may be invaded, which is to say that these payroll tax revenues that come in, which are estimated to be in excess of what’s necessary to pay benefits by somewhere between $155 and $160 billion this year, will not be touched, that they’re in a quote, ‘lock box,’ unquote....Isn’t it the case that the money will be very much touched and it will be loaned back to the government? Social Security will get IOUs or government securities, and what will happen is the money will be used to pay down other government debt, correct?"
White House advisor Lawrence Lindsey: "That’s correct."
-- Exchange on Fox News Sunday, August 26.

Bush = Cynical Reagan

"He is trying to duplicate a Reagan strategy. Ronald Reagan managed to run for re-election for President as an outsider to Washington. Now, that is an incredible political feat to be able to do it. But I think in the end Reagan’s relentless campaign against Washington, Newt Gingrich’s campaign against Washington when Republicans took over the Congress -- and then they wonder why there’s no faith in government, why there’s no confidence in public policy and they’re the ones who are running the government. And I find it inappropriate for people who are running the government to make political profit at bashing the government, and I think that Bush is doing that, and I think it’s cheap and I think it’s cynical."
-- U.S. News & World Report’s Steve Roberts on CNN’s Late Edition, August 19.

ABC’s "Symbol of Human Rights"

"When you first heard that Jesse Jackson admitted he’d fathered an out-of-wedlock child, what did you think? Jackson, the charismatic national symbol of human rights, the married father of five grown children."
-- ABC’s Connie Chung introducing her 20/20 interview with Karin Stanford, the mother of Jackson’s illegitimate daughter, August 17.

Condit’s Really A Conservative...

"He did make a point of talking about how close he is with the Bush White House, and how he has access to the President and Vice President Dick Cheney, and can get them on the phone and people in the Bush White House on the phone at any time. After all, he’s a conservative Democrat."
-- Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff on NBC’s Today, Aug. 27.

"Did he almost in ‘94 switch parties? There were a lot of stories that he was going to go Republican, because he is a very conservative Democrat."
-- CNN’s Larry King to Chad Condit, August 27. Over his career, Condit’s votes place him in the middle of the spectrum as he earned 52 percent approval from the liberal ADA and 48 percent from the conservative ACU.

...And Reporters Are Sex Police

"While I certainly don’t condone any of this, we should remember that Chandra Levy was a 24-year-old woman, she was not his intern, she was working in Washington, and it’s very sad the way this has turned out. And if Mr. Condit has withheld information that could be helpful in the investigation, he should be rightfully condemned, but I don’t think we need to be the sex police here."
-- Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift on FNC’s The Edge, Aug. 27.

Missing Mao

"Workers’ Rights Suffering as China Goes Capitalist."
-- Headline over front-page New York Times story by Erik Eckholm about low-paid workers employed by private and foreign companies in China, August 22.

CNN: Clinton = The King

"Elvis, the first rock star. Clinton, the first rock star President....Clinton had a talent for convincing anyone listening to him that he was speaking only to them, just as Elvis convinced someone in the 100th row that he was singing only to them. Presley drew on black culture for inspiration. Clinton draws on black culture for solace."
-- CNN political analyst Bill Schneider, prompted by the August "convergence" days apart of Bill Clinton’s birthday and the day Elvis died, August 16 Inside Politics.

PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes
MEDIA ANALYSTS: Geoffrey Dickens, Jessica Anderson, Brian Boyd, Brad Wilmouth, Ken Shepherd, Patrick Gregory
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Kristina Sewell
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Liz Swasey
DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES: Tim Jones

     END of Reprint of Notable Quotables

6

From the August 29 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Signs a Little Leaguer Is Too Old." Copyright 2001 by Worldwide Pants, Inc.

10. His drug tests come up positive for Centrum Silver
9. After the game, team orders 18 Slurpees and one margarita
8. Has to miss one weekend a month because of his national guard duty
7. Possible cuts in Social Security have left him too depressed to pitch
6. Teammates put teeth under pillow -- he puts his teeth in a glass of water
5. Artificial turf made by same company as his artificial hip
4. His positions: shortstop and team bus driver
3. He actually saw the Red Sox win a World Series
2. His first baseball memory: chasin' hookers with Babe Ruth
1. He's the only Little Leaguer going through a lengthy, bitter divorce