DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: CONVENTIONAL MEDIA FAILURES
SUBSECTION: PART 2
Revised 8/20/99
The Weekly Standard 3/15/99 David Frum "…Soon after President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Timothy Phelps of Newsday and Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio heard rumors that a law professor in Oklahoma had accused Thomas of making crude sexual remarks to her when they worked together almost a decade before. Phelps and Totenberg called Anita Hill, for that's who it was, who refused to confirm the story. Then, with barely days remaining before the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the Thomas nomination, somebody leaked to the reporters the statement Hill had given to the FBI. On October 6, 1991, the story broke. At the time, Phelps and Totenberg had no witnesses who could confirm Hill's allegations, nothing except a complaint anonymously given to the police….In the eight years since then, however, journalistic standards seem to have become considerably more stingent. In 1999, Juanita Broaddrick stepped forward to accuse the president publicly of rape. There were five people willing to confirm that she had told them her story at the time it happened; one of them said she had seen Broaddrick's physical injuries. The strongest counter-evidence against her story - that she had earlier signed an affidavit denying the rape - actually tended to confirm it As we now know, Clinton's protectors have made a habit of collecting false affidavits from women linked to their man. But according to Rosentiel and Kovach, none of this was good enough to justify the Wall Street Journal's editorial page in publishing its interview with Juanita Broaddrick. It should have checked the story more laboriously, more thoroughly, rather than hurrying into print a mere four weeks after Broaddrick first publicly stepped forward…."
Washington Times 3/11/99 Greg Pierce "…James Lilley, the former U.S. ambassador to China, takes reports of Chinese spying very seriously and thinks everyone else should, too. "This is about 10 million times more important than Monica Lewinsky," Mr. Lilley said in an interview on the television network America's Voice, referring to accusations that China stole U.S. nuclear weapons technology from the Energy Department facility in Los Alamos, N.M. The sex-and-lies scandal was "a stupid, teen-age prank in the White House -- cheap, humiliating for all of us," Mr. Lilley said. "This is deadly serious. This is life and death." …"
American Spectator Online 3/12/99 R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Freeper Cincinatus "…"Where's the outrage," as they say in these here parts. Chinese espionage agents and commercial espionage agents have been carrying off top-secret American technology for years, the New York Times now reports. The report has incited anger among both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. But will it become outrage? Will it last? And will it eventuate into any action at all? Finely-documented stories of Beijing's intrigue have appeared in print since at least 1995. Always the White House manages the scandal as suavely as if it were merely the most recent squawk of a begroped lady in distress or another tearful victim of the boss's sexual depravity…."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 3/12/99 (Vol. Four; No. 45) "…1) ABC skipped China for the third night in a row, but NBC aired its second story of the week, focusing on how no one thinks Wen Ho Lee is guilty. Zilch again on Today and Good Morning America. 2) "This is dead serious," NBC's Tim Russert declared of Chinese espionage, but NBC Nightly News has aired only two stories and Today hasn't mentioned it three out of four days this week…." 6) "I took the initiative in creating the Internet," Al Gore preposterously claimed…"
The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart,FL) 3/11/99 James Carroll Freeper Wallaby "…he following story has been front-page news in Canada. However, since it contains no sex, it has been largely ignored by the mainstream media in the U.S. I hope you agree that the American public needs to know about this. On Feb. 24, angry Canadians called for a criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into the sale of infected blood to the Canadian government that was forcibly taken from prison inmates in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor. Dozens of hemophiliacs have already died from Hepatitis C and the HIV virus as a result of this tainted blood, and it's expected that hundreds, if not thousands of people will die over the next few years…."
Village Voice 3/15/99 Jason Vest "…Despite all the bilge that's gushed through institutional Washington over the past year about the importance of "honesty" and "accountability" vis-à-vis the dishonorable, immoral Mr. Clinton- homilies to the importance of telling the truth, rebukes for lying under oath, anguished hand-wringing about how these tawdry lapses will warp a generation of children, etc.- one fundamental reality of Babel on the Potomac remains unacknowledged. Simply put: While the Domestic Lie will draw the wrath of Congress and the independent counsel and whip the Fourth Estate into a frenzy that flings all else aside, the National Security Lie- though more blatant and consequential- will be granted and allowed to fly off into the horizon of memory. Case in point: Last August's obliteration of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan….."
WorldNetDaily 2/16/99 Charlton Heston at Harvard "…. A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so-at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend. What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer" -- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word. "I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF
I'm ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF I'm ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..." It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore. "SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ...." Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print that." "I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner Ìs selling it." Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk…."
Chicago Tribune 3/22/99 Julia Keller Freeper Cincinatus "…Television network executives have been taken to task for a similar paradox. First, they insist violent TV shows and shows depicting drug use and irresponsible sexual behavior have absolutely no effect on behavior; viewers don't imitate what they see. So leave us alone, you critics of "Melrose Place" and "Martial Law." Then, quick as a wink (or perhaps a Tinky-Winky), the executives congratulate themselves, usually in the midst of some self-serving public service campaign, for the positive messages embedded in prime-time programs, such as storylines discouraging drunken driving, date rape or bulimia…."
worldnetdaily.com 3/24/99 Joseph Farah "…How does Bill Clinton explain his problems? Somebody upstairs just doesn't like him, he explained at his latest press conference. His explanation came in response to a question from Sarah McClendon, the biggest nut in the White House press corps. She asked, and I quote: "Sir, will you tell us why you think the people have been so mean to you? Is it a conspiracy? Is it a plan? They have treated you worse than they treated Abe Lincoln!" McClendon may have first-hand knowledge. It seems like she's been around the White House long enough to recall what kind of treatment old Honest Abe received. Here's how Clinton answered: "You know, one of my favorite jokes -- you know, that story about the guy that is walking along the Grand Canyon, and he falls off? And he is falling hundreds of feet to certain death and he reaches out. He sees a little twig on the side of the canyon and he ... grabs it. He takes a ... deep breath, and then all of a sudden he sees the roots of the twig start to come loose. And he looks up in the sky, and he said, 'Lord, why me? Why me? I pay my taxes, I got to work every day; why me? And this thunderous voice says: 'Son, there is just something about you I don't like.'" It was that question and that not-very-funny response that set the stage at last Friday's press conference for Sam Donaldson's grilling about Juanita Broaddrick's rape charge against the president…."
worldnetdaily.com 3/24/99 Joseph Farah "…[Sam Donaldson:] "Mr. President, when Juanita Broaddrick leveled her charges against you of rape in a nationally televised interview, your attorney, David Kendall, issued a statement denying them. But shouldn't you speak directly on this matter and reassure the public? And if they are not true, can you tell us what your relationship with Mrs. Broaddrick was, if any?" Clinton responded: "Well, five weeks ago today, five weeks ago today, I stood in the Rose Garden after the Senate voted, and I told you that I thought I owed it to the American people to give them 100 percent of my time and to focus on their business, and that I would leave it to others to decide whether they would follow that lead. And that is why I have decided, as soon as that vote was over, that I would allow all future questions to be answered by my attorneys. And I think the American people do understand it and support it, and I think it was the right decision." Donaldson: "Can you not simply deny it, sir?" Clinton: "There's been a statement made by my attorney. He speaks for me, and I think he spoke quite clearly." And that's how Clinton dealt with the only rape charge ever leveled against a sitting U.S. president….. So, the question remains, why won't Clinton address this important allegation? The answer is: Because the White House press corps and Congress won't force him to answer it. They have let him off the hook. Clinton beat the rap on perjury and obstruction of justice, so he won't be held accountable for rape
Savannah Morning News 3/21/99 "…THE INCESTUOUS nature of Washington's Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner was never more sickeningly obvious than last Thursday night, when hundreds of members of the Beltway media laughed and applauded President Clinton for joking about breaches of national security…What is funny about China having the capability of launching nuclear missiles at the U.S. mainland?
By now no one should be surprised at Mr. Clinton's shamelessness. Perhaps we should feel fortunate that he didn't make any rape jokes. But what's really appalling is the response of the assembled media and celebrities. A group that routinely denounces politically incorrect remarks by radio shock jocks apparently finds nothing inappropriate about a president making light of what one intelligence officer has called the most serious breach of national security since the Rosenbergs. Alas, the audience saved its disapproval for an ABC News producer who, after winning an award for investigative work on Whitewater, publicly thanked the late Jim McDougal, the Clintons' former business partner in Arkansas who cooperated with Kenneth Starr's investigation. That elicited plenty of nervous tut-tutting from the fourth estate's glitterati. Bad form, you know, embarrassing the president like that…."
Wall Street Journal 3/25/99 "...One of the least publicized, least broadcast, least cared-about issues in our large cities is the government's suppression of economic opportunity for black citizens. The techniques that governments and the public sector employ to hold down upwardly mobile black entrepreneurs get little ink and no airtime. It is by and large simply a non-issue. So it comes as welcome news that a judge in New York has just struck a powerful blow for poor city residents who lack access to transportation and the men and women who want to provide it to them. .... In 1993, the New York City Council--a fortress of big-city liberalism--passed a law requiring van operators to prove that their service is convenient and necessary, and then win Council approval for a license. In effect, the pols were ensuring that their constituents--the public subway and bus systems--would get no real competition. Since 1993, pressure from transit unions has prevented all but 20 new vans from being added to New York's streets....Mr. Ricketts and other drivers joined with the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based law firm that fights for economic freedom for the poor, to fight the case as a civil-rights issue. "Work is the medicine for poverty," said van driver Lateef Ajala. Among the huge New York political establishment, the drivers found one major ally--Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani filed a lawsuit on their behalf, noting that the vans "promote competition and improve service.".... State Supreme Court Justice Louis York ruled that the City Council lacked the power to veto van licenses approved by the Taxi and Limousine Commission and could not automatically deny any application that hadn't been acted on for 180 days. Assuming that the City Council doesn't crack back and appeal the ruling, the number of licensed vans should now increase sharply..."
Associated Press 3/25/99 Pete Yost "…Prosecutors then started to show a videotape to the jury of Mrs. McDougal's interview several years ago with ABC in which she talked about Whitewater. In one out-take, Mrs. McDougal, who had been convicted and sentenced before the interview, is asked what is the one thing she wants to say after four years of silence in the Whitewater investigation. In a joking manner, Mrs. McDougal said ``that I hate'' the prosecutors ``and that I want them dead and their children dead.''…"
WorldNetDaily 3/26/99 Joseph Farah "…You've all heard of "The Clinton Chronicles." It's a videotape documentary exposing many of Bill Clinton's crimes and cover-ups -- even before he reached Washington. What's interesting about the video is that it has sold hundreds of thousands of copies over the years without so much as a wink or a nod from the establishment media. But don't think the big press hasn't noticed little details like the popularity of underground video documentaries and a growing anti-government counterculture that has helped to disseminate them. The Washington Post periodically runs a column by a reporter named David Segal, who is closely associated with Williams & Connolly, the law firm representing both the newspaper and President Clinton. In that column, Segal has developed a recurring feature called "The Klayman Chronicles," in which he does his best to cast aspersions on the chairman of Judicial Watch,a group which has filed about two dozen suits against the Clinton administration for various forms of corruption and cover-up. The administration has tried everything to silence Klayman and Judicial Watch -- even resorting to a $2 million bribe to drop its relentless pressure for more information about Chinagate and the Commerce Department scandals. The latest tactic of the White House smear machine is to use one of its agent provocateurs in the press -- Segal -- to carry on the attacks…."
AP 3/30/99 Deb Riechmann "…Flash! It's not just the public that thinks the news media lack credibility. In a survey, a rising number of journalists say so too. Turning the tables on the media, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press interviewed 552 national and local journalists and news executives in print, television, radio and the Internet on how they view themselves. The results, released Tuesday, indicate that journalists think that reporting has become sloppier, that too many reporters use their articles and newscasts to speculate or state opinion and that financial pressures hamper the quality of news coverage…."
Mike Reagan's Hot Topics 1999 Buffalo Six "….SUMMARY: While we were all asleep listening to scintillating tales of gropings and trouser droppings by our fearless leader, our sharp as a cue-ball "National Media" failed to notice the mass resignation of two dozen General officers. The Japanese have a phrase for this sort of thing; roughly translated it means "Killing it with silence." ….I had a very interesting ride on a company (UAL) DC10 yesterday into Chicago. The F/E was a retired USAF BG - '61 USAFA (with his ring on), Vietnam Thuds (shot-down once) and one of the original Viper guys at Hill. He said that in 1997 twenty-four (24) Generals retired early (all on July 7th 1997) in mass protest over the conditions in the military (due to the administration's policies). They had fought in vain to correct PC, ops tempo, deployments everywhere, readiness and pay, so they ALL went to Sec Cohen's office and resigned. Cohen and the White House told them that they knew what they were up to and they would not let them get the publicity they desired. He said they were threatened with courts martial and their non-disclosure statement (the form we all sign saying we won't discuss classified stuff after we're out) was changed to include a requirement that they not discuss their resignations or face punishment and loss of retirement benefits…."
WorldNetDaiy 3/29/99 Geoff Metcalf "…From 1946 to 1991 the United States of America deployed military troops to eight foreign campaigns. From 1992 to the present (The Clinton reign), the United States of America has deployed military troops to 33 foreign places. The Internet tends to recycle significant data as the network of telling 10 people to tell 10 people to tell 10 people expands. Recently I received a gaggle of messages listing data I had reported in a September 1998 WorldNetDaily column. *709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel *293,000 reserve troops *Eight standing army divisions *20 air force and navy air wings with *2,000 combat aircraft *232 strategic bombers *13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with *3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles *500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads *Four aircraft carriers *121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force. All of the above are GONE ... history ... they have been attrited by the Bill Clinton "Reduction in Force" from the military of the United States of America. A foreign enemy did not destroy those significant assets. They were not combat losses. Those military assets have been eliminated by civilian political policy wonks. I am also attempting to determine how many Tomahawk Cruise Missiles (at about one million dollars a copy) have been expended. ... AND how much of that ordnance has been (or will be) replaced? Have the mainstream media mandarins alerted you to our military atrophy? Have you seen it on ABC, NBC, CBS or the Clinton News Network (CNN)? The Clinton department of propaganda has succeeded (kinda) in suppressing a significant protest, which has gone virtually unreported. Some of us have been complaining about the "perfumed princes" (Colonel Hackworth's phrase) in the Pentagon. The complaint has been "... why don't you military types DO or SAY something about the serial absurdities of the administration's foreign policy?" Well, in fairness, we know the military can't itch and moan about their civilian leaders. However, they can, and have done something. According to what I consider reliable sources, in 1997 24 -- count 'em, twenty-four -- generals retired early. I am still in the processing of confirming names, dates and replacements (if any). On July 7, 1997, in what is being called a mass protest over the conditions in the military (primarily because of administration policy) 24 generals quit. They reportedly had fought a losing battle to correct, modify, or mitigate the politically correct, operational tempo, and repeated "hey you" deployments. They tried to address the problems with readiness (or lack of) and pay. They tried, and they failed to compel the administration to fix what is wrong. Then, in a final act of courage and commitment (two concepts alien to this administration), they ALL went to see Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen, and RESIGNED. Twenty-four general officers representing 600 years of combined military experience tendered their resignations. THAT is a big deal. ... So why haven't we heard about it? …"
Conservative News Service 3/30/99 Justin Torres "…A panel of press experts today discussed the coverage–or lack of coverage–of charges that then-Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton allegedly raped a nursing home operator in a Little Rock hotel in 1978…Hume responded that the press has not followed up on the story, or attempted to force a more detailed denial from President Clinton. "If the press wants an answer, they'll go after someone like the hounds of hell, and that will usually yield an answer after time. To say that this has not happened in this case is an understatement."….. "To say that there's no where to go and everybody believes it anyway, so you may else well drop the story, is tempting," continued Hume. "But there's more to be done. The problem is not that there's no where to go, it's that nobody's going there. That's alarming." Hume says that Fox News is attempting to continue to cover the story, but that the story is "difficult" to develop…."
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 3/31/99 Patrick Howe Freeper HAL9000 "…In a panel discussion at the National Press Club on Tuesday, Wall Street Journal editorial-page writer Dorothy Rabinowitz said the story has become "the elephant in the living room" that the national press is ignoring. Fox News Channel's Brit Hume, who was on the panel, agreed..."
Wall Street Journal 4/2/99 "...Remember the old Hollywood films like "Ben-Hur" and "The Robe," which would always include a scene with a sneering Roman emperor or centurion spitting out the word "Christian" as though it were a slur? In those days the intended effect was irony, a reminder to audiences that there was a time when the Christian faith so publicly honored in American life was looked upon by authorities as low and unnatural. As Christians the world over Friday commemorate the passion and crucifixion of their Lord, it may be a good moment to reflect on the caricature that has come to dominate public treatment of America's predominant faith. Clearly, Americans continue to rank among the most religious peoples in the world. Year after year the Bible outsells all other books. More Americans go to church each Sunday than watch the Super Bowl. Yet our public squares are increasingly dominated by elites who look upon Christian expression in much the same way Hollywood's centurions did in the 1950s and 1960s. Just this February, for example, Ted Turner used a Washington forum to mock the Ten Commandments, particularly the injunction against adultery, a return performance from a man who has in the past dissed Christianity as "a religion for losers." He is not alone. In a speech at Harvard last April, Sidney Blumenthal denounced Hickman Ewing, then one of Kenneth Starr's deputies, as "a religious fanatic," evidently on the grounds that Mr. Ewing helped found a church where he worships and occasionally preaches. During her "20/20" interview with the independent counsel himself, Diane Sawyer wrinkled her nose in disbelief when she asked Mr. Starr to confirm reports that "you jog and sing hymns and pray" -- the last two evidently constituting pretty serious misdemeanors if not high crimes in the ABC canon. Later still, a "CBS Evening News" report on the selection of House impeachment managers noted ominously that "all 13 are white, all 13 males, all 13 Christians." As the CBS reporter understood, this wasn't just a description. It was an indictment. The distinguishing feature here is not the contempt but the license to express it in an American milieu otherwise disposed to hypersensitivity. When Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott made offensive remarks about blacks a few years ago, baseball suspended her for a year. But Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who spent this past weekend with Fidel Castro, confined baseball's disapproval of Mr. Turner, who owns the Atlanta Braves, to a $25,000 fine, not likely to be much felt by a man donating a billion dollars to the U.N. Ditto for Mr. Blumenthal. Though forced to apologize, the White House aide retained his post. As the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote, Mr. Blumenthal's crack "caused barely a ripple -- nothing like the uproar that routinely accompanies a personal insult regarding, say, race or gender or sexual orientation."..."
Freeper shoedog 4/1/99 "Click on the headling [Starr Probes cost 80 million] and it states accurately that ALL the independent Council's on Clinton have added up to 80 million..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 4/13/99 Vol Four No 66 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) ABC and NBC gave more time Monday night to the man rescued from a fire than to Clinton's contempt. "This is a legal tangle that simply will not die," lamented Tom Brokaw. On McDougal, CBS relayed how her lawyer charged "Starr used Hitler-style tactics." 2) McDougal's attorney thanked Geraldo Rivera for his help: "You were...early money in this case." Rivera celebrated "Susan's sweet victory" before denouncing Ken Starr as a "legal terrorist." 3) The Energy Dept. official who uncovered the Chinese espionage and identified a potential spy testified that his superiors "urged me to cover up and bury this case." Only CBS and FNC cared. 4) Investor's Business Daily revealed that "lab directors were actually prodded by former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and her senior staffers -- many of whom were anti-nuclear activists -- to open their doors to visitors from other nuclear states..." 5) On Fox News Sunday Tony Snow noted about some networks gave more time to Beavergate than Chinagate..."
The New York Observer 4/12/99 Philip Weiss "..."When they were setting up, I said, 'What's the process after this interview is finished? How will you go about getting it on the air?' "Lisa said she would have to speak to her higher-ups. I said, 'Wait a minute-what are the chances that this won't run?' My stepfather was standing there. And she said, 'None.' I said, 'O.K.'" Mr. Hickey paused. "And, you know, it ran. But how could she sit there and tell us that?" The accusation by a mature businesswoman that she had been raped by Bill Clinton in 1978, when he was Arkansas' Attorney General, aired on NBC on Feb. 24, opposite the Grammy Awards. The 35-day interval between tape and air is now one of the legends of the impeachment process. Why didn't the American public get to hear Mrs. Broaddrick before the Senate voted to acquit Mr. Clinton on Feb. 12? "This came out at a time when it had the absolute smallest impact it could have," said Steve Friedman, a lawyer friend (who favored censure) said to me at lunch. "The thing was finally over. Everybody was sick of it, and the Republicans looked like a bunch of scoundrels when they said, You have to understand what we're seeing and can't talk about. It was certainly relevant to the question, his fitness to be President." My friend's suspicion that NBC protected Mr. Clinton is widely shared..."
The New York Observer 4/12/99 Philip Weiss "..."Recently, the National Press Club held a panel on the Broaddrick story, "Too Hot for a 'Scandal-Weary' New Media to Handle?" where several speakers made that point. Conservative media watchdog Reed Irvine charged in the Washington Times that NBC delayed the story because executives are cozy with the President. And TV Guide has questioned why NBC's "apparent hesitation" to run the interview cost it a scoop-to the Wall Street Journal editorial page.....The mainstream press again ignored the story in the fall of 1998, when Mr. Starr's referral to Congress reported that Jane Doe No. 5 had told an F.B.I. agent that her earlier affidavit was indeed false. The press has never been comfortable with Mrs. Broaddrick's story. "It smells because it comes out of the sewers in Arkansas," one reporter said. Another said, "People hate rape stories." Its means of exposure had an air of Clinton-hatred, or the culture war, or sexual McCarthyism-whatever paradigm you choose to taint those who see Mr. Clinton's private life as having public relevance. And the story was associated with the venomous Clinton enemy Larry Nichols. Even while the press ignored it, the curious name Juanita Broaddrick became a shibboleth on the Internet, talk radio and supermarket tabloids. That is why Mrs. Broaddrick, who owns nursing homes, said she changed her mind about talking to Ms. Myers...One source outside NBC with knowledge of the process described it in this way: "They go down and do the interview. They come back. It sits there. You hear that [Jeff] Zucker, the Today czar, David Doss, the czar of Nightly News, and [Tom] Brokaw don't like this. It's not going to air on their program, nor did it. Within the first week, three problems developed that were being touted against the piece for reasons to be suspicious..."
The New York Observer 4/12/99 Philip Weiss "..."Some resistance gathered at the network around the feeling that they might be used in the impeachment context. Why was Mrs. Broaddrick going forward now? Some felt that the Jones lawyers had successfully manipulated Nightly News the previous March into going on air-off Mr. Brokaw's watch-with irresponsible charges. More importantly, the House impeachment managers had never named Juanita Broaddrick publicly, even while they were using the confidential F.B.I. report of her assault to push impeachment.....Mrs. Broaddrick was by then deeply angry at NBC. She told her son that the network's treatment felt in ways like being raped again. "I felt that way because they had been after me and after me for a year. And I finally give in and go through this, a day of baring my soul. A bunch of people are standing around in my house as I tell the most private things of my life. Then it was like what I told them wasn't really worthy," she said. How many rape victims go public? "It was very hard for me to say the word rape. It's a difficult word to say." When Lisa Myers named higher-ups, it struck Mrs. Broaddrick that almost all the NBC executives were men (the only woman's name among eight listed to me was Cheryl Gould)....."
The New York Observer 4/12/99 Philip Weiss "...NBC's wrenching interview has had a quiet impact. It disturbed several columnists who have tended to see Ken Starr as the problem, including Richard Cohen of The Washington Post, The Nation's Katha Pollitt, and San Francisco Examiner columnist Stephanie Salter. The National Organization for Women (finally) urged the President to end his "nuts and sluts" defense, and leading newspapers have called on Mr. Clinton to respond substantively to the charges.....When I asked Sam Donaldson whether there had been rancorous arguments at ABC over coverage of Mrs. Broaddrick, he stammered. "I am dodging your question," he said. "I can tell you that people in charge of our coverage, at managing editor status, have not seen this as a story they wanted to spend a lot of time on. But I have not seen a memo, nor have I been given any orders not to do this story, and when I have, there have been no problems from above." He went on: "The thing that astounded me from the get-go, and some day I may write about this, is that important aspects of the news business argued that we shouldn't follow the [Lewinsky] story. I don't mean just Mr. [Steve] Brill, Mr. [Anthony] Lewis, Mr. [Frank] Rich. But lots of people argued that it was unseemly." ..."
The New York Observer 4/12/99 Philip Weiss "..."Julia Malone, a national correspondent for the Cox newspapers, grew so upset by the neglect of Mrs. Broaddrick's story that she organized the March 30 panel at the National Press Club. "It's like we're in Lotus Land," she said. "It seems like everybody has been smoking something and the economy has been so good that this man has bamboozled the country. I mean, the irony of this man who's very likely a rapist talking about human rights!" Seventy-five people attended the panel. Ms. Myers declined to appear (as she declined to comment to me on the matter). Ms. Rabinowitz said that NBC had treated the story like a "dead fish." Fox News anchor Brit Hume argued that neglect of the story reflected a deep bias in the media against material that might hurt someone they had voted for. Ms. Malone echoed that point. "My impression of Tom Brokaw is that he was not a newsman on this decision, he's a Democrat." (I sent Mr. Brokaw a letter, and he left me a message. "I have just a little bit for you, not much, because we have felt strongly from the beginning that our decisions in the Juanita Broaddrick story or any news decisions we make have to be kept within these walls, otherwise we'll spend too much time explaining and too little time reporting." He told me to call him back, then didn't return my call.) Ms. Malone said she hopes that reporters will get together before Mr. Clinton's next press conference and try to force an answer about Mrs. Broaddrick. "But in this city that's considered some kind of conspiracy." Mr. Donaldson said he can remember occasions when reporters barraged a President, forcing a more forthright answer. "But that certainly wasn't the case in the Broaddrick matter." No, Mr. Donaldson was alone when he boldly asked the President about the rape allegation at the President's March 19 press conference. Mr. Clinton said he would have no more to say than his lawyer's statement, and that was that...."
Reagan.com - original sources.com 4/8/99 Mary Mostert Freeper sunshine "...Media Manipulating of American Emotions to Start a War - an American Tradition ...... In the last two weeks we have seen almost a perfect example of the traditional use of pr opaganda to whip up the emotions of the public, get their minds off any of the other investigations, i.e. the Chinese military connection to the 1996 Clinton-Gore Campaign funds. The Cox report, which indicated a threat to our National Security, has not b een found on any front page for two weeks. We have seen hourly emotional reports about the plight of the Albania refugees who are streaming out of Kosovo by CNN's Christiane Amanpour and others...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 4/9/99 Vol Four No 64 "...1) Neither CBS or NBC even mentioned Chinese donations Thursday night. ABC only touched on the subject broadly and none noted the Chung charges. CBS even ignored Chinese spying and a New York Times story on how it occurred in Clinton's first term. 2) FNC put it all together. Carl Cameron outlined how money flowed on a "circuitous" route from Chinese intelligence to a front company to Lippo to John Huang to the DNC. Plus, in 1993 Al Gore met with the "head of Beijing's alleged espionage front." 3) All three morning shows skipped a Washington Times report liking Huang and Trie to money from the Chinese military and gave only seconds to the NY Times story on Chinese spying in 1995. 4) ABC claimed Zhu Rongji is a "delightfully appealing" and "witty" guy. CNN was impressed that he can ad-lib and joke about Chinese spying...."
Freeper Kieri on FoxNews 4/11/99 "...In his "parting thoughts" segment, Tony Snow (Fox News Sunday) made an EXCELLENT point -- cherry tree munching beaver got more airtime on other networks than CHINAGATE did!!..."
The New Australian No. 115, 12-18 4/99 Peter Zhang "... As more Americans learn about China's successful intelligence operations in the US and the disgraceful role that Clinton and his financial backers played in selling sensitive technology to Beijing for use by its military the more they will become incensed, despite most media efforts to suppress the scandal. (I consider the phrase "transferring technology as a weasel-attempt by Clinton supporters to evade the enormity of their actions. Fund raising is one thing - treason is another.) .... Now technology is useless on its own, being mere knowledge. Never mind, though, Clinton also helped overcome that little difficulty by allowing the sale of advanced equipment and the use of US personnel to train Chinese technicians in its use..... The real puzzle is not the spying but why Americans are tolerating a president who sacrificed national security for a bucketful of campaign funds. Americans should know that their president will be having talks with Zhu Rongji, one of the men who OK'd bribes (sorry, I mean campaign contributions) for Clinton's election campaigns. Do not doubt for a moment that Chinese military intelligence would have given this politically sensitive action the green light without permission from Zhu, Zhang and several other high-ranking party officials. Make no mistake, this operation came from the very top. Now these men would only have agreed to an operation like this if they had good reason to believe it would not be uncovered. But such a belief suggests that the recipients of the bribes (sorry, contributions) and those like Johnny Chung who acted as conduits for the money honestly believed they were protected at the highest level of American government. And the White House is the highest level. This is not mere speculation on my part, though logic really allows of no other conclusion, but comes from Chinese sources whose comments led in only one direction.... The truth is so terrible and embarrassing I believe it will never be publicly told. How can a nation like the US allow it to be known that a president engaged in actions that most other countries classify as treasonable?.... We must not, however, allow things to get out of perspective. China is not going to launch an attack this year, next or in ten years. Her ultimate aim at the moment is domination of Asia and the Pacific, not war and occupation. ...Those who believe that China is planning for immediate war against the US overlook an important fact: modern war can only be fought by countries with modern economies, i.e., countries in an advanced state of economic development....Time is on the side of peace and peace is what the Chinese people want. Rapid economic growth plus the free flow of news and knowledge, courtesy of technology, combined with a growing popular desire to be rid of the nationalist fist could bring about the kind of political changes that would not make China a threat to world peace. The present oligarchy lacks the legitimacy that tradition bestowed on German and Japanese militarists. Sure, these generals tend to be nationalists in the worst possible way but they lack, at least for the moment, the kind of hereditary respect that would legitimise their actions and rule. So there is real hope...."
4/12/99 Freeper report "...For the second time in four months, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes'' has issued an on-air apology for an inaccurate report about drug smuggling, this time for citing a memo that turned out to be bogus. The apology, delivered Sunday night by correspondent Lesley Stahl, was part of a settlement reached with a customs official who had filed a lawsuit against the newsmagazine, spokesman Kevin Tedesco said today. In December, "60 Minutes'' founder Don Hewitt apologized for airing a June 1997 story based on a British documentary about smugglers swallowing heroin in latex gloves to get past authorities. An investigative panel later found the documentary producers had faked locations and paid actors to portray drug couriers...."
WorldNetDaily 4/12/99 Joseph Farah "...I have been watching the polls like everyone else since the start of the U.S. NATO aggression against Serbia and scratching my head wondering how it is possible that so many Americans support an illegal, immoral, incomprehensible, nonsensical war. Like many others, I assumed the polls must be rigged by the war-crazed establishment press that conducts them. So I decided last week we would conduct our own unbiased public opinion survey, with the help of the respected pollster John Zogby. The results were not encouraging for anyone hopeful Americans can hold on to the ideals that made their country free and independent. It seems Americans now believe they have a right -- perhaps even a duty -- to impose their will on a sovereign nation, even when the civil conflict has no direct bearing on the vital interests of our nation. Americans believe the president has the power to direct such military action unilaterally, without the approval of Congress and the assent of the people. Americans, by a slim majority, even believe President Clinton, despite all his many moral and ethical shortcomings, and his failure to serve the military when called, is capable of directing such action. Watching the effects of 30 years of the deliberate dumbing-down of a people is not a pretty sight. Americans are now certifiably insane. They are crazy. They are suffering a mass psychosis. They have lost their own ability to discern right from wrong. ...Zogby says the numbers are understandable in light of what most Americans have been seeing through media coverage of the war. "What they were seeing was Americans being taken hostage, tens of thousands of people being dislocated somewhere between 'no-man's land' and Macedonia, and a defiant Milosevic," Zogby said. "Within this context, I think that it's fairly easy to see why a majority would say, 'Go for it.'" I was more hopeful that Americans were smarter than that...."
WorldNet Daily 4/12/99 Geoff Metcalf "... To compound the sin of the Clinton administration, the "unintended consequences" were forewarned. The CIA and the Pentagon both provided advice and counsel that could and should have prevented what could turn into World War III. However, notwithstanding the lessons which SHOULD have been learned from failing to accept advice from experts, the arrogant, myopic bumblers again rejected the counsel of the professionals -- and now seem surprised. John Ruskin once said, "Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own." Truth has become the first casualty of this NATO aggression. Once again, we see petty myopia obfuscating reality and common (regrettably all too uncommon) sense. Seeking truth has become an almost impossible task. I saw a chilling headline recently that stated, "The Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column." Mainstream media has become a co-conspirator with the administration to shape, mold, and spin information, which is designed to defend, rationalize and validate policy, and action which is bad, wrong, and probably criminal..... Conversely, in this modern age of instant communication, commanders have the added challenge of denying combat intelligence to the bad guys. Hell, Saddam Hussein was sitting in his bunker watching CNN for contemporaneous combat intelligence. The grinding out of truth is becoming increasingly difficult. OUR media underreports bad news. Daily, (through the Internet) we are exposed to Greek newspapers overstating casualties. All the time, the elusive truth languishes somewhere between the yin and yang. The tragedy of the Balkans is real. However, it has been, is, and will sadly continue. Regarding those who "don't want to be confused with facts which contradict their preconceived opinions," it should be noted that the Serbian/Ethnic Albanian conflict is in reality merely an extension of the Crusades. However, this time, the defensive NATO, has for the first time in its 50-year history, acted as the aggressor, AND has allied in a religious war against the Christians. Even Cecil Rhodes and Clinton's old Professor Carroll Quigley have to be rolling in their graves over this brain flatulence masquerading as policy....."
The Washington Post 4/12/99 Howard Kurtz "...Critics have long complained that the Clinton White House deals with scandal by parsing the truth, holding back critical information and engaging in selective leaking. Turns out they were right, according to a new book by former White House spinmeister Lanny Davis. He admits that administration officials often withheld damaging information from him so he wouldn't give it to the press. In "Truth to Tell," out next month, Davis argues for "good," factually based spin over "bad," deceptive spin -- but concedes that some of his spin was "so transparent that it is amazing that we thought we could get away with it." The "truth" in Davis's title was elusive. He recalls a previously undisclosed conversation he had with President Clinton on Jan. 21, 1998, the day the Monica Lewinsky story broke. Paraphrasing himself, Davis says he told Clinton: "Do what you do best. . . . Take your case to the American people, tell them everything, everything there is to tell." Davis added that Clinton was "presumed guilty" by the press. But the president just nodded and was noncommittal -- and the author never takes him to task. Davis coins the marvelously bureaucratic phrase "deep-background private placement" to describe negative stories about the White House that he leaked to put the least damaging version in play. Davis's favorite outlet was the Associated Press, not only because it is "notoriously fact-oriented and fair" but because once a story was on the wire, such newspapers as The Washington Post and New York Times "would not be inclined to give it front-page play." ...."
AP 4/15/99 "...Americans sharply criticized newspapers in a national survey released Thursday that accuses the media of chasing sensationalist stories in order to sell papers. The report, delivered at the American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual meeting, found that 78 percent of the public believes there is bias in the media. Another 42 percent thinks there is bias in TV news, 23 percent in newspapers and 17 percent in magazines. In addition, nearly 50 percent of the respondents believe editorial decisions are made by executives who want to sell more newspapers....
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 4/16/99 Vol Four No 68 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) Energy officials conceded on Thursday that the agency withheld from Congress crucial spying information, but only FNC found it newsworthy...."
Washington Post 4/17/99 Daniel Williams "...NATO dropped a veil of silence today over airstrikes that hit civilians in Kosovo. Spokesmen provided no fresh information but reaffirmed an account of the bombing that the Pentagon had already discarded as outdated and incomplete. For the second day in a row, the officials who brief reporters at NATO headquarters here said only one airstrike was made on one refugee tractor during aerial assaults Wednesday. The Pentagon said Thursday evening that alliance jets also attacked two convoys, possibly killing civilians, on a road well southeast of the site described by NATO. The result was that while NATO and the Pentagon have expressed regret over the airstrikes that Yugoslavia said killed 75 ethnic Albanian civilians, it remains unclear exactly how they were killed. The lack of new details fits the evolving character of NATO's handling of public information. For several hundred international journalists who crowd an auditorium for daily briefings, upbeat assessments of the war routinely overwhelm the sparse facts provided. Today, in response to horrific television images and printed accounts of devastated refugee convoys, a flood of good news was released. "We had one of the best nights in our campaign," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "It's clear that life is increasingly unpleasant for Serbs in Kosovo." ..."
The Orlando Sentinel Online 4/18/99 Charley Reese "... Americans, exposed to hours of color images of refugees, now feel great compassion for the Albanians who have fled or been driven out of Kosovo. Indeed you would have to have a lead sinker for a heart not to feel compassion and sadness. But we have to remember that our emotions are being manipulated. There are, at this moment, several millions of refugees around the world, many of whom have rotted in squalid camps for decades. Yet, they don't exist in our consciousness, because no corporation chooses to focus the cameras on them and regale us day after day with the stories of their horrors. So sleazy politicians are able to get away with the big lie: This war is necessary because of the humanitarian disaster; because, they say, the president of a small country of 10 million people is a fiend. Listen, China invaded Tibet and has destroyed virtually 80 percent of its population as well as its culture and historical artifacts. Why did not, why has not, the United States responded to that humanitarian catastrophe with an ultimatum and bombs on Beijing? Simple: China is a nation of more than a billion people, with nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United States' leaders are both cynical and cowardly. They love to bully little countries. They are scared of crossing any country with the means to fight back. They have become that most disgusting of human beings -- the armchair warrior, the barstool blowhard ever eager for someone else to fight someone....."I support the troops," people now love to say. Oh, yeah? Did they support those troops when Congress reneged on its promises to them? Did they support those troops when the government began to degrade and demoralize them? Just what do they mean by support other than that they are willing to break wind with their mouths in the safety of their home or office. Bombing and attacking virtually de-fenseless, small countries (we've bombed four different sovereign states in the past 10 months) does nothing but earn Americans the enmity of most of the world's people. This reckless and illegal behavior by a group of corrupt and incompetent American politicians will come back and bite us one day...."
Email Yandaojie Middle School,Chengdu China 4/16/99 Freeper cyberaxe "...We have a popular saying here"IF you want to watch a bad news to entertain,go to watch CNN".We are behind you,but can we just do in our way to better our life.Why should we be like you and why should you want us be like you?? Look the CNN and BBC recently,they are eulogizing NATO and US aggression into a sovereign country,regardless of the homes for Serbs and Albanians being bombed.Did any bomb dropped in Yugoslavia helped a single fleeing ethnic Albanian????....We can wait 100 years for Britten to return HongKong back to us,why your president cannot wait for a few more weeks to find out better solutions to deal with the Kosovo crisis with peace? Yes,we know you have money and weapons to fight. Since Bill cannot wait to show off his high tech weapons,why he sing songs of world peace and freedom? You can fight to solve the Kosovo crisis,can we learn from you and fight to take back Taiwan back? We will not for we believe war only can worsen things and deepen hatred and widen the difference and increase confrantation. I hope you and other people who has prejudice upon China can use some of those money(waging wars)to come and see what we are doing here to better our life.Do not be fooled by those so-called Chinese dissidents who just want to please your government for a visa to US or a green card to stay in your country.I am a famouse dissident here and I am very critisizing my government,but I am doing so just to help my country not to please US government and other western anti-China organizations or governments..."
The New Australian No. 116, 19-25 4/99 Peter Zhang ".... In the meantime, a media, especially the networks, that was prepared to do everything possible to destroy the Nixon presidency, even publishing stolen classified information, is largely downplaying the scandal in order to save Clinton. But this really amounts to playing Beijing's game I must confess that I am at a complete loss to understand what has happened to the American media. America has a president who is guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice; a president guilty of sexual harassment and who stands accused of rape and who sold out his country for campaign funds. Yet, by and large, the media, especially the networks, still protects him. I can only conclude that it too, meaning the reporters, shares Clinton's values and contempt for the security and wellbeing of the mass of Americans. I do not believe for a moment the media would have been so obliging if Clinton had been a Republican...."
Yahoo! Reuters 4/12/99 "...The families of three students killed by a 14-year-old boy during a high school shooting rampage filed a $130 million damage suit against several entertainment companies Monday, saying they influenced his behavior. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Paducah, claims that Michael Carneal, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the shootings last October, was influenced by computer games, two Internet-related operations and a Leonardo DiCaprio film, ''The Basketball Diaries.'' The suit names 25 defendants including Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news), Polygram Film Entertainment, Ninetedo of America Inc., Sega of America Inc, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., and Network Authentication Systems Inc. and Meow Media Inc. Jessica James, Kayce Steger and Nicole Hadley were killed and five other students wounded during a morning prayer meeting at Heath High School in the Dec. 1, 1997 shooting. The suit claims that Carneal was an avid user of the computer, playing computer games such as ``Doom,'' ``Quake'' and ''Mortal Kombat'', which it said are known for their graphic violence. He also logged onto Internet sites to view sexually violent material, it said...."
Omaha World-Herald 4/20/99 Editorial "...EXCERPTS "The bombing campaign in Yugoslavia does not seem to be affecting Slobodan Milosevic nearly as much as President Clinton and other NATO leaders promised when it began. But the campaign certainly has been drowning out Notra Trulock. Trulock is former director of intelligence for the U.S. Energy Department. He gave shocking testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. He said he had been demoted because he made too much fuss about Chinese spying at government laboratories where nuclear-weapons research occurs. The allegation of Chinese spying is nothing new. A House investigative committee had earlier turned up evidence, its members said, of Chinese nuclear espionage success dating back to the Reagan administration. Trulock's testimony was alarming because of the cynical political attitude about it that he attributed to superiors in the Clinton administration. He said repeated warnings about faulty security were "ignored . . . minimized and occasionally even ridiculed."..."
The Orlando Sentinel Online 4/20/99 Charley Reese Freeper Penny "...In the fog of war propaganda, let us remember the facts. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is in the wrong. NATO is in violation of the United Nations Charter, which forbids military aggression against a sovereign state at peace with its neighbors. Yugoslavia was at peace with its neighbors. NATO is in violation of its own charter because it was supposed to be a defensive alliance only. No attack was launched against any NATO country. The United States, which has orchestrated this war against Yugoslavia, has no legitimate vital, strategic or even marginal interests in the Balkans...."
The Washington Times 4/21/99 "...It was Secretary of Defense William Cohen's moment of truth, three weeks too late: The United States had waged a war it was not in any way prepared for. Worse than that, though, it had waged a war it knew it wasn't prepared for -- without telling the American people. In the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting hearing last week, senators made plain their unhappiness. "If the public knew our state of readiness or our lack of readiness, there would be an outrage out there; the fact that we are roughly at one-half the force strength that we were in 1991," Sen. James Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, told Mr. Cohen..... Sunday's Washington Post reported there are 7,000 more Yugoslav forces around Kosovo than before the bombing campaign; Yugoslav communications and radar systems have sustained only minor damages, and some downed communication lines only take 24 hours to repair; only five air defense targets have been destroyed; and thousands of shoulder-fired rockets are still intact. That's beside the blunders NATO has made jeopardizing human life such as it is: mistaking refugees for Serb aggressors and destroying a civilian train; our stunning lack of preparedness for caring for over half a million refugees. Or, perhaps even more frightening, is the detail that the administration has yet to define what its objectives are in this war, other than to: "persist until we prevail."..... "We must proceed with this campaign," he insisted. This, despite the fact that Mr. Cohen has known from the beginning that the bombings would increase the ethnic cleansing: "With respect to George Tenet testifying that the bombing could, in fact, accelerate Milosevic's plans, we also knew that," Mr. Cohen said. This also, while ignoring the fact that bombing might not ultimately stop Mr. Milosevic's murderous activity: "Another point on Wes Clark when he said he never thought we would stop the paramilitary activities of Milosevic. We all knew that," Mr. Cohen said. And yet the president sent the U.S. military into war with Mr. Cohen's blessing...."
DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX 4/22/99 "...In a move that stunned even veteran media watchers, ABC NEWS late on Thursday issued a press release bragging about its increased viewership after the Columbine High School massacre! "Last night, 20/20 WEDNESDAY featured a full hour of reporting on the tragic aftermath of the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado," Dahlia Roemer, ABC NEWS Media Relations, said in the press release. "With the exception of the Monica Lewinsky interview, the broadcast delivered its highest ratings since premiering on September 16, 1998," Roemer declared, "easily outrating both Wednesday newsmagazines on other networks." The press release, that moved with the headline: ABC NEWS 20/20 WEDNESDAY IS HIGHEST-RATED PROGRAM OF THE NIGHT ON ANY NETWORK, even broke down the advertiser-friendly adults 18-49 demos. "I can not believe that they would be so completely insensitive to the victims and their families," one executive for a rival network told the DRUDGE REPORT late Thursday. "Bragging about the ratings and issuing a press release like this during such a tragic moment in the country's history? Disgraceful. Sickening." ..."
WorldNetDaily 4/22/99 Charles Smith "...There is no such thing as a good war. The war in Kosovo is being portrayed as a "good" war. The Clinton and Blair propaganda machine is spinning the killing in Kosovo as if it were some crusade to save lives. The only real images from the war in Europe were of U.S. planes killing innocent civilians, including Kosovar refugees. The TV set was filled with bodies blown to pieces by American airpower. The Clinton spin is that such things always happen in war, and that even if they were innocent women and children it was a "good thing" because we are there to save them. Where was the "good thing" spin when American viewers were treated to a naked and burned Vietnamese child, running away from a napalmed village? I don't recall the term "ethnic cleansing" being applied to the hill people of Vietnam, staunch U.S. allies in combat, who were erased by the genocide of the North Vietnamese Army. I do recall the wife of Ted Turner playing games with a communist anti-aircraft gun and NVA soldiers for the cameras. CNN missed that photo in their review of the Vietnam War history. CNN is leading the hysteria brigade to put ground troops in Kosovo, so where are you now, Jane Fonda? Clinton has no plan for victory, no plan for the refugees, no plan for peace and no plan for war. There were several logical alternative solutions. Clinton chose to ignore them all. The ultimate "come as you are" combat with the impulsive child-like "just do it" leader...."
Statement by the President 4/21/99 "...The findings of the damage assessment underscore the need to implement fully the Presidential Decision Directive I issued in February 1998 to strengthen security and protections at the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories.... I commend Secretary Richardson for his efforts in this regard and look forward to the review of lab security I requested by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, chaired by Senator Warren Rudman...."
The Union Leader 4/23/99 Richard Lessner "...The link between the Clinton-Gore campaign and Red China's military intelligence chief, however, may only be the tip of the illegal contribution iceberg. Millions in Asian money flowed into the Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic Party from sources connected to Beijing. The money trail suggests that the Communists used various corporations and business figures as cut-outs to conceal the real source of the contributions. It is this fund-raising nexus between Red China and the Clinton-Gore campaign that elevates Beijing's nuclear spying above the level of a garden variety espionage affair. Was the Clinton administration's inattention to security, and failure to act when informed of Red China's spying at our top secret nuclear weapons labs, related to the campaign funds that were flowing in from Asia? Already one Energy Department official has testified under oath that, when he tried to blow the whistle on lax security at the Los Alamos lab, he was warned off by a Clinton appointee, who ordered the man to withhold from Congress what he knew about possible espionage. The man was told that those investigating possible espionage were interested only in damaging President Clinton and his policy toward China. It also is highly suspicious that the President personally waived export restrictions on the transfer of missile guidance technology to China for two U.S. aerospace firms - Loral and Hughes - whose executives were among the largest contributors to the Clinton-Gore campaign....No, it's not espionage that is troubling; the Clinton administration's lackadaisical attitude toward security is the concern. That and the possibility our secrets were compromised for political motives and campaign contributions. So far, however, this scandal has yet to spark much public outrage. One reason for this, we suspect, is that the affair has been almost totally neglected by the major TV networks. Contrast this with the Iran-Contra scandal, which led the network evening news shows night after night, the Chinagate affair has been conspicuous in its absence. And imagine for a moment the media firestorm had Ronald Reagan or George Bush taken an illegal campaign contribution from the military intelligence chief of a right-wing dictatorship that was simultaneously stealing our nuclear weapons secrets! ..."
WorldNetDaily 4/23/99 Alan Keyes Freeper laz "...This was a dark week in American life. The shooting in Colorado last Tuesday punctuates the truth about the era in which we live -- a culture of death and dark satanic forces is threatening the future of our nation. We are already hearing the usual suspects rising to speak about guns and other material objects as if they are causing our problem, but we know they are not. Our problem is that a spirit of death is stalking the land...."
New York Post 4/24/99 Page Six Gossip "...TOM Brokaw found himself having to silence a fellow Fourth Estater at the Overseas Press Club awards dinner Thursday after the journalist lobbed questions at guest speaker Richard Holbrooke..... Despite a pre-announced press club mandate that Holbrooke not be questioned by journalists, Pacifica Radio reporter Jeremy Scahill - who was one of the night's honorees - tried to interview him as he stepped from the podium. Holbrooke refused to answer. Scahill then asked NBC anchor Brokaw, the night's emcee, and ''60 Minutes'' reporter Lesley Stahl to back his right to question ''this key player in the current war.'' Instead, the angry Brokaw rose from his seat and ordered Scahill to ''sit down,'' drawing applause from the audience..... ''His refusal to answer, along with the acquiesence of the journalists present, makes a mockery of the concept of free speech,'' blasted Goodman....''By injecting themselves into the issue, instead of remaining unbiased, they broke a cardinal rule of journalism.'' ..."
New York Post 4/24/99 RICHARD JOHNSON, JeaneMacIntosh, Kate Coyne "...THE bombing in the Balkans has been great for the ratings at MSNBC, and the folks at the all-news cable channel can't help gloat. "This is why we exist," anchor Brian Williams gushed to the Washington Post. "...If MSNBC is cheerleading for the war effort, it's understandable. Ratings, which had been sagging, shot up 103 per cent once the missiles started exploding...."
The American Spectator 5/99 Kenneth R. Timmerman "....After leaving the Hill in late 1993, I joined Time magazine. After a three- month investigation into Chinese procurement activities in the United States, I discovered the sale to a Chinese state-owned aerospace firm, CATIC, of virtually an entire defense plant owned by McDonnell Douglas in Columbus, Ohio, where the B-1 bomber had been made. The CATIC deal was part of an audacious, and until then unreported, Chinese effort to buy cutting-edge U.S. defense manufacturing gear at auctions, as more and more defense plants closed in response to the Pentagon's defense build-down. My story was pulled by Time the week O.J. Simpson burst onto the front pages--but not because of O.J. The Commerce Department had written a letter to Time's editors (which I subsequently obtained), calling my reporting "one-sided" and "unfair"--all this before my story was even printed! Time fired me within hours. The American Spectator published my article some six months later ("China Shops," March 1995), and has since published nearly a dozen of my feature- length investigations of China's creeping infiltration of U.S. society...."
Insight Magazine 5/17/99 Jamie Dettmer Vol 15 No 18 "...By contrast, in all the words that have been expended on Kosovo since the NATO strike on Yugoslavia, there has been an all but complete failure by commentators and politicians alike to go beyond the polemical talk of the cold-hearted evil of Slobodan Milosevic and to understand why he is behaving the way he is, brutally driving Albanians from Kosovo. Nor have the collective fanaticism or dark fantasies of the Serbs been grappled with psychologically or intellectually -- in fact, the administration just tries to ignore Serbian support for Milosevic and to kid itself that Serbs are unwilling accessories after the fact as opposed to accomplices in the confrontation between their government and NATO. ..."
The Hindu 4/25/99 Thomas Abraham Freeper Jai "...The NATO missile attack on the headquarters of Serb television in Belgrade yesterday, deliberately targeted journalists and other civilians, but it has received remarkably little condemnation from western newspapers and media organisations. . . ."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** Friday April 30, 1999 (Vol. Four; No. 74) Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) NBC News considers hurricanes more threatening than potential nuclear annihilation by China. Not a word on NBC Nightly News about the New York Times bombshell about nuclear data transfer. 2) Clinton falsely denied spying took place on his watch and the New York Times revealed Justice delayed the search of Wen Ho Lee's home, but the networks refused to implicate the Clinton team. 3) Scientists at one of the national labs, with their identities hidden, told CBS News about lax security since the early 1990s 4) Today agreed to a one-topic interview of Bill Clinton, so no China questions, but the show rejected an actress's terms. 5) The mother of a student who survived eight gunshot wounds told CBS how her daughter affirmed her belief in God. 6) In the midst of calls highlighted by the media for more gun control, the Conservative News Service "identified 18 current federal and state gun control laws that were violated by the perpetrators of the Colorado school rampage." ..."
Washington Times 4/28/99 Inside Cover "...Will President Clinton's new gun law legislation, offered in response to last week's massacre at Columbine High, apply to his foreign supporters doing business in America? Previously, certain well-heeled Chinese benefactors seemed to have gotten a pass under Clinton's own 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Tuesday the president said teens have too much access to the kinds of artillery used by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to mow down 13 of their classmates. But three years ago Clinton was playing footsie with a Chinese arms executive who was busy trying to smuggle AK-47's into the hands of American teenagers. .... But there's an even more chilling aspect to the Wang-Clinton meeting; one which the national media has ignored ever since the news first broke. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was one of the few newspapers to report the bombshell development, running the story on its March 14, 1997 front page under the headline, "Arms OK preceded U.S. visit": "Washington -- A massive shipment of Chinese guns and ammunition, which had been banned by order of President Clinton, was approved for delivery into the United States four days before the head of a major Chinese gun company met Clinton in the White House. On Feb. 2, 1996, the federal government issued importation permits for a multimillion dollar shipment of more than 100,000 semi-automatic weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition."...The report noted that the Chinese were granted the waivers at the same time other arms importers from around the world were begging for the same privilege. Only Wang Jun got the green light. Even lawyers lobbying for the Chinese deal were stunned by their good fortune. "Suddenly there was a breakthrough," said one. "I can't account for it." ...."
The Union Leader 5/3/99 Richard Lessner "...Worse, the Clinton administration's criminal negligence in the face of this nearly total failure of security verges on - dare we say it? - the treasonous. The scale of our loss has been almost incalculable. This is the most important news story of the year. Even so, the Los Alamos case continues to be overshadowed by the tragedy in Littleton, Colo., and the war in Yugoslavia. It also may be that the American people - having endured Monicagate, impeachment, campaign finance shenanigans, Whitewater - are suffering Clinton scandal fatigue. Yet as worn-out as we all are with this scandal-ridden Presidency, this security is too serious to be casually written off..... As bad as this is, it is not the worst of the scandal. Lee's computer transfers apparently came in 1994 and 1995. Shortly thereafter, the Taiwan-born scientist became the prime suspect in the transfer to Red China of data on the secret W-88 nuclear warhead, the most advanced in the U.S. inventory..... The FBI began to target Lee in the W-88 theft in 1996. Despite this, he was allowed to keep his top secret security clearance and was allowed to continue working at Los Alamos. Despite the criminal investigation, Attorney General Reno's Justice Department blocked an FBI request for court approval to gain surreptitious access to Lee's office and computer files. At that point the investigation inexplicably stalled. Incredibly, in April 1997, Lee was promoted! Despite being the prime suspect in an espionage investigation, Lee was put in charge of updating the so-called "legacy" codes....... And now the FBI is saying it may be prepared to arrest Lee sometime in the next week or so. Is this delay intended to allow the suspected spy the opportunity to flee the country, as so many other witnesses in the Clinton-Gore/Red China fund-raising scandal have done? As we have noted before, what is so disturbing about this espionage case is the Clinton-Gore/Red China fund-raising nexus. At the very time the FBI was being thwarted in its efforts to investigate the Los Alamos security breakdown, the Clinton-Gore campaign was accepting campaign contributions from foreign sources linked to Beijing and, in at least one instance, directly from the chief of Chinese military intelligence. Did Janet Reno's Justice Department drag its feet in order to conceal the Clinton-China connection? Was the inattention to national security driven by political considerations? Was the FBI investigation blocked in 1996 to prevent this espionage scandal from becoming public during the Presidential campaign? ....."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/3/99Vol. Four; No. 75 Freeper Brian Mosely "...2) The CBS, CNN and NBC evening shows all ignored another New York Times bombshell, this time about how the Clinton team was warned about espionage last November but waited months to take action. ABC's World News Tonight gave the revelation 40 seconds. 3) On Meet the Press Tim Russert showed how the Times story contradicts Clinton. On This Week, George Will pressed Eric Holder about why his office refused the FBI's request to wiretap Lee...."
New York Times Magazine 5/2/99 Max Frankel Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...Domino theories and subtle diplomatic strategies may have guided the White House, but they don't explain Americans' willingness to follow the President into this new war. The reason for that is obvious -- on every television screen. It's those pictures of almost unfathomable atrocity that once again drive our politics. .....A few critics clucked about our inconsistency -- our failure to get similarly aroused about even worse barbarities in Cambodia, East Timor, Liberia, Sudan, Algeria, Rwanda. Did Asian and African slaughters not qualify for American response? What those challenges fail to grasp is that our responses, or lack of responses, are not based on consistency of policy. They're based on the tube. Television drives the public temperature // and cameras were either barred or scared away from those other battlegrounds. Hence there were no bloodcurdling images, and words alone failed to move us...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/6/99 Vol Four No 77 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) A Senate committee heard Wednesday from nuclear lab directors and probed delays in warrants for Wen Ho Lee, but only ABC and FNC covered it on their evening shows. Zilch on CBS and NBC. FNC's Carl Cameron previewed findings from another Senate committee. 2) Tom Brokaw actually asked President Clinton if Chinese espionage isn't "a bigger risk really to the long term history of the United States than Kosovo?" But NBC ignored the topic Wednesday after refusing to report two major NY Times disclosures...."
New Australian 5/2/99 Editorial Freeper Prince Charles "...As tragic events in the Balkans unfold, a self-righteous and untrustworthy media explodes in selective indignation while it begins to dawn on Bill Clinton and his flower-children (or is it flower-pot?) advisers that they have badly miscalculated. Facing the Juanita and Chinese bribery scandals is now beginning to look better to Clinton everyday. What this lot found inconceivable is that a thug like Milosevic might also have courage and determination. Of course he has...."
Investor's Business Daily 5/10/99 Paul Sperry "...Communist China plays a central role in three of the most alarming scandals facing the Clinton administration: campaign finance fraud, satellite technology transfers and nuclear weapons espionage. Yet when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visited the White House early last month, TV newscasters by and large passed on the story, now known as Chinagate, focusing instead on issues like China's entry into the World Trade Organization. It's not as if they didn't have a new scandal hook. Earlier in the week the Los Angeles Times dropped a bombshell: ''The chief of China's military intelligence secretly directed funds from Beijing to help re-elect President Clinton in 1996.'' Network coverage of the scoop? Not a peep. The Big Three - ABC, CBS and NBC - all blacked out the story on both their morning and evening news shows. Surveys show Americans get most of their political information from these networks' evening newscasts, which reach a combined audience of nearly 30 million...... At the request of Investor's Business Daily, CMPA audited nightly newscasts dating back to March 6, when The New York Times first broke the story of Red spying at Los Alamos National Lab. It found that ABC, CBS and NBC together have aired an average of just half of one story a night on the Chinese espionage scandal, or 31 total segments. ''There's almost nothing on TV, certainly nothing that's caught my eye,'' Noyes said. Why would the major networks beg off such a big story? Politics, contends MRC chief analyst Tim Graham. ''This shows the (TV) media doesn't have a liberal bias; it has a Democratic Party bias,'' he said. ''It gives complete, almost Secret Service-level protection to the president.'' ...."
Augusta Chronicle 5/08/99 Editorial Freeper newsman "... The specifics of the peace plan will take days or possibly weeks to negotiate, but it looks like Milosevic will allow thousands of ``ethnically-cleansed'' refugees to return to Kosovo and accept some kind of international peace-keeping force there. This is already being hailed by White House and NATO spin machines as a huge victory ``for the West,'' and a defeat for Milosevic. If the American people buy that, even with the Big Media peddling the party line, then they really are being brain-washed...."
The New Australian No. 118, 5/10- 16/99 Peter Zhang "....The most frequent question is: "What was in it for China." Though I had raised the same question myself, it was only in a rhetorical sense as I thought, at least by now, that the answer was obvious. Clinton gave Beijing a free reign and a guarantee that its activities would not be interrupted during, what he quaintly calls, his "watch" so that China could clear out America's military and high-tech secrets. Simple..... His approach to power and people is truly medieval, minus the noblesse oblige. Given this fact, and his support in the media, it is not surprising that reports made out to Chinese intelligence suggested that Clinton would be favourably disposed to dealing with Chinese representatives - for a price. Intelligence assessments were supported by Clinton's action, shortly after entering (or is it soiling?) the Oval Office, in asking all US Attorneys to resign. This unprecedented and dictatorial move gave the Clinton administration control over the prosecutorial machinery of the federal government in every judicial district in the US. No need to tell you who was impressed by this breathtakingly brazen move. Why Clinton even tried to appoint Webster Hubbel to the post of Attorney General. Imagine where that would have led. But what struck a particular chord was the way the American media acquiesced to the Clintons' manoeuvres. Beijing does not underrate the power of the Western media, especially in America. That, with the exception of a few lone voices, it was prepared to collaborate with the Clintons gave further assurance to Beijing that Clinton was able to deliver. ..."
The New Australian No. 118, 5/10- 16/99 Peter Zhang "....But what of the CIA and the FBI, asked some readers? I have no wish to be patronising, but the naiveté of the American public is almost touching. It didn't even notice that William Sessions, FBI Director, a man noted for his integrity and opposition to political interference in the Bureau's affairs, was removed as quickly as Clinton moved into the Oval office. There is no doubt that Clinton deliberately acted to chain the CIA and the National Security Agency as well as the FBI. One method was to have Clinton supporters in sensitive positions so that they could delay, if not derail, any budding investigations into Clinton's China operations. With these bodies effectively neutered Chinese intelligence would have a field day. Now being ineffective does not mean uninformed. These agencies new very well what Chinese intelligence was up to but were largely powerless to do anything. After all, what could they do when the commander in chief, the president himself, had, by his actions, made it clear that investigations into China's spying activities were not to be implemented. Just to make sure that nothing embarrassing emerged, Clinton appointed Janet Reno to head the Justice Department with the intention of sabotaging any investigations into Chinese intelligence operations. I should point out at this stage that several Chinese officials let it drop that they believed Clinton was blackmailing Reno over certain activities concerning her personal life. Whatever the truth of the matter, Reno's role as the last of Clinton's gatekeepers, so to speak, has more than satisfied Beijing's expectations by thoroughly corrupting the Justice Department and blocking FBI requests...."
Investors Business Daily 5/10/99 Paul Sperry "...Communist China plays a central role in three of the most alarming scandals facing the Clinton administration: campaign finance fraud, satellite technology transfers and nuclear weapons espionage. Yet when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visited the White House early last month, TV newscasters by and large passed on the story, now known as Chinagate, focusing instead on issues like China's entry into the World Trade Organization. It's not as if they didn't have a new scandal hook. Earlier in the week the Los Angeles Times dropped a bombshell: ''The chief of China's military intelligence secretly directed funds from Beijing to help re-elect President Clinton in 1996.'' Network coverage of the scoop? Not a peep. The Big Three - ABC, CBS and NBC - all blacked out the story on both their morning and evening news shows....."
Investors Business Daily 5/10/99 Paul Sperry "...''There's almost nothing on TV, certainly nothing that's caught my eye,'' Noyes said. Why would the major networks beg off such a big story? Politics, contends MRC chief analyst Tim Graham. ''This shows the (TV) media doesn't have a liberal bias; it has a Democratic Party bias,'' he said. ''It gives complete, almost Secret Service-level protection to the president.'' Rendall argues that other big news, such as the Kosovo war and Colorado school shootings, have crowded out the China story. He says the heavier Kosovo coverage, at least, is justified. The Big Three networks combined have devoted an average of 20 stories a night (699 total) to Kosovo since NATO bombing started on March 24, CMPA says. By contrast, they aired an average of 24 stories a night (73 total) on the Colorado shootings in the three days after the tragedy. Graham argues China, not Kosovo, ''should be the most important news story of 1999,'' because it has more direct bearing on U.S. security. ''For 50 years we panicked over the threat of Soviet missiles targeted at us. This dramatic Chinese technological leap puts us back into that era of mutually assured destruction,'' he said. ''This could be the start of the next Cold War.'' Noyes agreed: ''It's a massive story...."
Investors Business Daily 5/10/99 Paul Sperry "...Does it matter then that TV news producers are yawning? Yes, media analysts say. Fully 70% of Americans say they get their political information from the evening news - not newspapers, a 1992 University of Michigan poll shows. ''When the TV news passes on a big story, as it has on this China story, it has little chance of breaking into the public's consciousness,'' Noyes said. The thin coverage contrasts starkly with that of past foreign policy scandals. Consider the nonstop play received by Iran-Contra, which revolved around allegations that the Reagan White House was secretly selling arms to Iran and using the profits to back Nicaraguan freedom fighters. Another goal was to try to free hostages held by Islamic terrorists in Beirut. The networks carried the 1987 congressional hearings live. In 1997, in contrast, they refused to provide live coverage of the GOP-led Senate hearings on illegal Chinese donations to the Clinton-Gore re-election effort. Only the Fox News Channel offered live coverage..... ''The more damaging the news is to Clinton,'' he said, ''the less play it gets.'' ....''The network news is constantly scaring us about fatty cheese fries and sport utility vehicles,'' Graham quipped, ''but not Chinese nuclear espionage.'' ..."
NewsMax.com 5/9/99 "....Now that it's clear America's nuclear security has gone up in smoke, it may be time to borrow a phrase from the Great Chicago Fire and ponder the role of former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and her onetime cash cow, Johnny Chung. Recent media reports have focused on the $300,000 Chung received from Chinese military intelligence and the $35,000 of that sum (at least) that found its way into Democratic National Committee coffers. But the press seems to be suffering a bout of collective amnesia regarding information on Chung it reported two years ago, which points to a much more direct financial connection to Mrs. O'Leary -- and even a member of the First Family. O'Leary was in charge of security policy at U.S. nuclear labs where Newsweek, for instance, has now described the Chinese penetration as "total". Here's what's been on the record about the Chung-O'Leary money trail for nearly two years: "No less startling was Mr. Chung's allegation that the Democratic Party was not the only player with a ravenous appetite for money. He also described how he was, in effect, shaken down for a $25,000 donation to Africare, a charitable organization supported by the Energy Secretary at the time, Hazel O'Leary." (New York Times -- Aug. 22, 1997) Here's how Chung himself put it, in an exchange with NBC's Tom Brokaw days before the Times report: BROKAW: Were you surprised when someone could get you in to see Hazel O'Leary if you would write a check to her favorite charity? CHUNG: I begin to understand a little bit, but I am still a little bit suprised. BROKAW: Yeah. Who picked up the check? CHUNG: There's one gentleman, present himself as the Energy Department official, and said I'm here to pick it up, the $25,000 check... BROKAW: To Africare? CHUNG: To Africare. BROKAW: A charity that the Energy Secretary supports, she sends over somebody from the Energy Department to pick it up, and you get a meeting with her with a very prominent Chinese petrochemical official? CHUNG: Yes. (Investor's Business Daily -- Aug. 26, 1997.....
Media Resource Center 5/11/99 Brent Baker Vol Four, No 80 "...1) ABC, CBS and NBC all noted how the NRA was not invited to the White House summit and that "Hollywood's prime movers who've shown up at Clinton fundraisers" didn't accept their invitations. 2) No broadcast network, not even NBC, picked up Monday morning or night on Richardson's concession on Meet the Press that Clinton's denial of espionage during his term was false. But even the liberal Boston Globe put it above the fold. 3) FNC's Carl Cameron previewed Johnny Chung's testimony, relaying he will "testify that the Chinese claimed they had funneled money to Clinton through...former White House aide Mark Middleton." 4) NBC's Tim Russert appeared on Imus in the Morning and condemned the Clinton team: "You don't spin your way out of national security breaches." He labeled Chinese fundraising "a damn problem." But Today and Nightly News refuse to report any of it...."
NewsMax.com 5/12/99 "...Breaking a 14 month media silence about the events surrounding her sexual assault by President Clinton, on Tuesday Kathleen Willey linked two friends of the president to separate episodes of witness intimidation. Appearing on CNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, Willey alleged that former Commerce Secretary and longtime Clinton operative Mickey Kantor had threatened her friend Julie Hiatt Steele to get her to change her story. Willey said that she was persuaded to go public with her own account in March 1998 only when producers for CBS's "60 Minutes" unearthed Kantor's involvement and shared the information with her: "They told me that my friend Julie Steele had been approached by a very high ranking member of the Clinton administration questioning her about the conditions of the adoption of her child.....I decided that no woman, no person, no mother should be threatened with her child. And that was the reason I did "60 Minutes". Willey said that "60 Minutes" producers specifically identified the administration official to her as Kantor. She told Matthews that "60 Minutes" had promised to expose the cover-up as part of the same episode where she described her assault by Clinton but instead CBS decided to withold the Kantor bombshell...."
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. 5/12/99 Dr. Paul Craig Roberts "....Adultery, sexual promiscuity and lying now bear the presidential seal of approval..... Clinton has established that perjury and obstruction of justice are not sufficient grounds for removing a president from office.....Clinton might be the first president to commit treason.... Clinton is using a totally politicized Justice Department to prevent an investigation and has bottled up Congress' own investigation by refusing to release the Cox report. Both Congress and the media have acquiesced to Clinton's refusal to be held accountable, further strengthening the precedent that the president is accountable only to polls. Clinton is the first to turn the White House into a campaign operation, not only selling the Lincoln bedroom, but also U.S. policy. Using an obscure law, Clinton made a national monument in Utah out of billions of dollars of non-polluting coal deposits. The direct benefactor was the Indonesian/Chinese Lippo Group -- another source of Clinton's illegal campaign contributions -- which owns the other major deposits of environmentally safe coal. Clinton has politicized the FBI. The bureau acquiesced in the Clinton administration's illegal demand for hundreds of files on Republicans. The FBI also helped Bill and Hillary Clinton cover up the purge and illegal prosecution of White House Travel Office personnel..... Clinton politicized the IRS and ordered audits of conservative think tanks and organizations. Clinton has politicized the NATO alliance, turning a defensive European alliance into an aggressor in behalf of a Muslim drug gang in Kosovo, a province of Serbia....The casualties are mainly civilians, making Clinton the first American president who is a war criminal under the charter of the International Criminal Court.... Clinton has established that the morality of the liberal elites is an issue-driven morality. For liberals, morality is determined by a person's position on homosexual rights, the radical feminist agenda, minority privileges and the Second Amendment, not by personal behavior. Clinton has established that the U.S. media has no integrity...... For example, infuriated Canadians have called for a criminal investigation by the Justice Department of the sale of infected blood from prison inmates in Arkansas while Clinton was governor of the state....The Canadian call has gone unheeded, both by the Justice Department and the U.S. media...Clinton is the first president to be held in contempt of court by a federal judge....."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/12/99 Vol Four No 81 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) ABC, CNN, FNC and NBC covered Johnny Chung's House testimony Tuesday night, but not CBS or MSNBC's News with Brian Williams. ABC highlighted how Chung blamed the campaign finance system. 2) Of the three cable news channels only FNC carried Chung live for more than 20 minutes. MSNBC avoided live coverage but provided live updates on a crowd awaiting singer Ricky Martin. 3) Nothing about Chung Wednesday morning on Today or GMA. Tuesday morning only CBS's This Morning uttered his name...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/13/99 Vol Four No 82 "..." 3) Only FNC cared that a top Democrat criticized Justice for turning down the FBI's warrant request for Wen Ho Lee. FNC's Carl Cameron exclusively revealed how the Clinton team ignored evidence about misuse of plutonium by North Korea. 4) No Chung on Wednesday's morning shows, but they had time for a story about a beach party for a furniture store's staff and a discussion about Star Wars toys. CNS picked up how Chung's sentencing judge said if the DNC didn't know then they were dumb. .... Cameron began his May 12 story over video of a nuclear plant in North Korea: "Classified intelligence data about this North Korean nuclear energy reactor, Fox News has learned, was ignored by the Clinton administration just last year. The administration pushed forward with funding for a new cleaner reactor for North Korea even though there was evidence that the North Koreans were using the old reactor's plutonium fuel rods for weapons development instead of sending the material to the new facility for energy production. Sources say there was a huge debate about withholding funds for the new project, but the White House insisted on going ahead anyway." Jumping to Chinese espionage, Cameron showed how at a Senate hearing ignored by the other networks Energy official Mary Ann Sullivan said her department followed proper procedure in deferring the espionage investigation to the FBI. Cameron picked up: "But the FBI says it was denied wiretaps and search warrants by Justice Department brass. That had Attorney General Janet Reno called on the congressional carpet and blasted by members of both parties." .....Cameron concluded with this intriguing development: "Senators were supposed to receive a top secret briefing from House lawmakers who conducted an in depth investigation of China's nuclear espionage, but at the last minute sources say Democratic Senators urged House Democrats not to show up to brief them and the meeting was canceled."...."
shutdown.com 5/14/99 "....Host of MSNBC's "Internight" John Gibson resigned yesterday in a flap over the channel's extensive and continued coverage of the Columbine High School shooting. In recent weeks, Gibson's show became a pulpit for experts decrying America's "toxic culture." In a show aired only two days ago, the embittered Gibson argued with screenwriter Paul Chlosky over the extent to which Chlosky's morbid and oft-violent scripts affect the children. Gibson's sudden decision to resign from MSNBC was explained in a press release issued Wednesday morning: "The news media must take partial blame for incidents such as the Columbine shooting. ... The entertainment industry sells fantasy. We sell reality. By placing images of bloodied high school students on loop in an attempt to boost our ratings, we are telling potential killers that their criminal handiwork will help them achieve the attention and notoriety they seek. ... When we as reporters encourage grieving parents to abandon their families the day after losing their children to discuss how it makes them feel, we have lost our journalistic integrity. I no longer wish to be a part of this exploitation." ..."
The Indian Express 5/14/99 Stephen Abbott "...The recent announcement of Yugoslavia's leadership that they have begun a partial withdrawal from Kosovo was met with an immediate denounciation from NATO. Officials of the newly-aggressive military organization stated that it "wasn't enough", and even called into question whether it was "real", saying that it was simply a few busloads of soldiers being paraded back to Belgrade for the media's benefit. What isn't real, and is in fact surreal, is the ongoing, uncritical reaction of the western media to this and other Kosovo-related stories. With hardly any tough questioning from reporters, everything NATO spokesmen say seems to be given the status of scripture, and is rarely questioned....What isn't making the news is the Serbian side of the equation, and there is more to this side than simply some quaint 19th century romantic "mythical" attachment to Kosovo. The issue runs far deeper than that, and NATO's use of brute force against Yugoslavia has greater and more complicated consequences, for both NATO and the world community of nations, than the media are letting us know...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/14/99 Vol Four no 83 Freeper Brian Mosely "...2) Another spy suspect, Peter Lee, passed on submarine tracking secrets in 1997. The New York Times called his case "significant" because it showed China obtained secrets during Clinton's second term. But only FNC and Fox News Sunday have explored his case. 3) In his book, The Century, Peter Jennings attacked Ronald Reagan from the left: "To the problems of homelessness, AIDS, the skyrocketing budget deficits and a frightening arms build-up could now be added a morally suspect foreign policy."..."
***Media Research Center Special Alert*** 5./16/99 "...MRC Ad in Today's New York Times. The Sunday, May 16 New York Times features a full-page ad, on the back of the Week in Review section, from the Media Research Center. That's page 18 of section 4. Across the top of the page the ad, put together by MRC Marketing Director Bonnie Goff, asks: "ABC, CBS, and NBC... Why are you not reporting THE IMPORTANT NEWS?" Below of photos of leading network news personalities, including Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams, the ad showcases an "Open Letter to ABC, CBS, and NBC" from the MRC's Chairman: If the Fox News Channel and the nation's most prestigious newspapers -- the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Washington Times -- can report story after story over the past year about important dates, facts, people, hearings, testimonies, documents, evidence, and events involved in the Chinese espionage case...Why can't you? Why are you ignoring what is one of the most serious and frightening news events this country has faced in decades? The Media Research Center has been monitoring and documenting your absolutely horrendous record for reporting the story to the American people in your evening and morning news shows. On mornings when newspapers delivered major espionage revelations, your networks dedicated more coverage to beavers chewing down trees at the Jefferson Memorial, the latest weight loss pill, and celebration tips for New Year's Eve 1999. On March 8, 1999, referring to the New York Times article first disclosing Chinese espionage, NBC's own Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert told MSNBC's John Hockenberry: "I said, 'This is dead serious. Why aren't people reacting to it?' Front page of the New York Times on Saturday. I assumed by Sunday the country would be aghast by it and talking about it..." "Why?" he asks. It's because most Americans still don't even know about the espionage. More than half of them get their news from TELEVISION -- and ABC, CBS, and NBC aren't reporting it like they should -- like they would, were it any other Administration. Stop your bias. Report the real news! Sincerely, L. Brent Bozell III, Chairman Media Research Center...."
"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what WE decide they ought to have." -Former President of CBS news Richard Salant. Referance- 'Free American Newsmagazine', Feb. 1998, Pg. 53 (MRC 5/16/99)
"We in the press like to say we're honest brokers of information, and it's just not true. The press does have an agenda." -Bernard Goldberg, Commentator, CBS, '48 Hours' program. Reference-'The Media's Middle Name is Not Objectivity", TV Guide, June 13-19, 1992: and "The old argument that the news networks and other 'media elites' have a liberal bias is so blatantly true...It comes naturally to most reporters". -Goldburg in the 'Wall street Journal', op-ed piece (MRC 5/16/99)
"To hell with the news. I'm no longer interested in the news. I'm interested in causes. We don't print the truth. We don't pretend to print the truth." -Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post, at a symposium of the Smithsonian Institution. Reference- 'The News Manipulators', 1993, Pg. 179 (MRC 5/16/99)
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/17/99 Vol Four No 84 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) A leak to the AP of the Cox Report generated a bit of coverage with CNN highlighting the spin that its findings are "inflated." On This Week Cox condemned the administration's leaks and spin. 2) "China is close to deploying a nuclear missile with a warhead whose design draws on stolen American secrets," the New York Times disclosed Friday. Today gave it 12 seconds, GMA just ten and all three broadcast networks ignored it Friday night..."
Roll Call 5/18/99 Stuart Rothenberg Freeper John Thacker "...Explaining floor votes as solely a function of NRA muscle also ignores the values and views of Members. Couldn't some Representatives and Senators actually oppose new gun laws because they've decided such laws don't work, violate the spirit of the Constitution or fail to address the major reasons for gun violence? Does every anti-gun control vote have to involve merely caving into the National Rifle Association?..."
Freeper Aloha Ronnie 5/18/99 observes "....... FoX News Channel's THE O'REILLY FACTOR...to be repeated at 10:00PM PDT....asks why are ABC, NBC & CBS refusing to cover the China Espionage/POTUS Story for the American People? Why are they protecting POTUS? On April 4th the LA Times published a Front Page Johnny Chung Story that the Head of Red China's Military Intelligence give him $300,000 to give to POTUS....a story which ABC & NBC only covered after Chung's Congressional TV Testimony about this...and CBS NEVER covered. On defense Al Primo-Peter Arnett's new boss at www.foreigntv.com...states..."The Big 3 Networks do not have the time or the guys to investigate stories like POTUS lies!..."
The American Spectator Online 5/18/99 Online Prowler Freeper denydenydeny "... How seriously is the White House taking the ever-breaking revelations of Chinese espionage against U.S. nuclear programs? Clinton has personally installed former Monica spinmeister and White House counsel James Kennedy to lead the White House defense against its latest media blowout. Reporters covering the burgeoning spy scandal report receiving almost daily calls from Kennedy, nit-picking perceived or imagined factual errors and slights against the administration. "He's worse than Lanny Davis, and that's saying a lot," says one long-time national security reporter...."
Freeper truthkeeper 5/18/99 on Foxnews O'Reilly Factor "...O'Reilly: "There's a bias toward establishment power so they can keep access...they are licensed by the government...I don't think they want to "T" anybody off." Primo: "I think you hit the nail on the head, Bill." "I think the Internet is poised to take over the dissemination of news." "The networks don't have the resources to do investigative reporting."..."
The Times Of India 5/19/99 K SUBRAHMANYAM "....A new situation is developing with the international system becoming unipolar and serious imbalances developing in terms of weapon capabilities between NATO and the rest of the world. The US is now able to wage a war devastating the infrastructure of Yugoslavia without itself suffering any combat casualties....The type of war waged against Yugoslavia is specifically tailored to subdue countries which have reached a certain stage of industrialisation..... The war is against the whole of the Yugoslav nation to cripple its infrastructure, its power and water supply, its industries and to pollute extensively air, soil and water. This is a crime worse than that which Slobodan Milosevic is accused of....... Accompanying this high technology campaign is the shrill international propaganda war through the international media to project to the world that black is white. While the suffering of refugees is extensively portrayed, not much is shown on the effects of thousands of bombs rained on Yugoslavia..... George Orwell's doublespeak and Aldous Huxley's conditioning are today practised with a vengeance. Information is shaped and used to have maximum psychological impact to mislead both one's own and the adversary populations. Carefully doctored images portrayed on TV have a powerful effect on popular opinion. Having manipulated public opinion, the politico-strategic establishments cite that to justify their predetermined aggression..... The NATO document spells out that nuclear weapons are essential political instruments and their role is to create uncertainty in the minds of aggressors and demonstrate that aggression of any kind is not a rational option. If that is their purpose, what is wrong in India creating uncertainties in the minds of potential aggressors and persuading them that aggression of any kind is not a rational option. That kind of insurance has become all the more imperative in the light of the widening gap in the sophisticated conventional technology of war using accurate long-range missiles. The issue before India is whether it wants to preserve its sovereignty won after a long freedom struggle and should try to develop one sixth of mankind economically, socially, politically and technological according to the democratic wishes of the Indian people without the threat of foreign intervention of the type we see in Yugoslavia. There were a number of Indians who considered Gandhi as a violator of British law and order and they were content to enjoy the benefits of the British rule. That was not acceptable to the Indian population as a whole..... In the last one year, our relations with Pakistan have improved and the Chinese are coming round to appreciate the need for India, Russia and China taking a common stand against unipolarity and the wanton aggression against Yugoslavia. Those who talked about international trends towards disarmament should explain the thundering NATO document asserting the centrality of nuclear weapons and why an ecocidal war against Yugoslavia is being waged with hardly any protest from the peace movements. The international security environment has never been more threatening to the rule of law and autonomy of nations. The Indian credible minimum deterrent is the only insurance for our autonomous development in a hegemonistic unipolar world....."
http://www.cashill.com 5/18/99 Jack Cashill "....An alien monitoring our media from a different galaxy--even if he did have cable--would never guess that the most God-fearing country in the industrial world is none other than the good old USA. Here, some 60% of the citizenry attends church at least semi-regularly. In England, by contrast, that figure is down to about 3%. In surveys, more than 90% of Americans express belief in heaven and/or hell, devils and/or angels and close to 100% believe in God. Every weekend, from rural backwater to big city store front, millions of American burst out in effusive rituals of energy and enthusiasm that for many represent the most significant cultural expression in their lives. Our alien friend would never see this. Newspapers bury religious news as deeply as they can: The Star stashes it somewhere between entertainment and obituaries. TV avoids religious news altogether unless there is a whiff of scandal about it, say a minister who spends the Orphan's fund on hookers or an accusation of priestly child molestation, real or "recovered." In Hollywood, it's been at least 40 years since the likes of Audrey Hepburn or Ingrid Bergman played nuns or Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart played priests. And in schools, alas, religion in any form is about as welcome as head lice. (It could be worse I suppose. In the more "progressive" Canada, religious broadcasting has historically been illegal.)...What stemmed the hemmoraging of American Christianity was a cross-sect yearning to get back to the basics. Protestant churches, Southern Baptists most visibly, rebelled or reformed themselves as need be to avoid the disintegrating power of progressivism. In the process, they learned that the surest way to make news--maybe the only way--is to challenge the PC canon on hot topics like gender and orientation. This challenge has earned traditionalists the undisguised scorn of the media--Boycott Disneyland! Da noive!--but then again, the Magic Kingdom has never been the Kingdom these folks sought the keys to. ...Still, with or without the media, that old time religion will endure and occasionally revive itself. It had better. America can not exist without it...."
MSNBC 5/19/99 Norman Solomon From the perspective of a Cluster Bomb "...[Some legal scholars contend that the ongoing use of cluster bombs in the air war against Yugoslavia is a violation of protocols to the Geneva Conventions because those bombs are indiscriminate in their grisly impacts on civilians. The Pentagon acknowledges that U.S. cluster bombs are killing some civilians in Yugoslavia but claims that this does not violate international law because the intended targets are military.] A news article that I found in the May 8 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "the bombs struck next to the hospital complex and near the market, bringing death and destruction, peppering the streets of Serbia's third-largest city with shrapnel and littering the courtyards with yellow bomb casings." This was one of my few moments in the U.S. media limelight, so forgive me while I quote some more: "In a street leading from the market, dismembered bodies were strewn among carrots and other vegetables in pools of blood. A dead woman, her body covered with a sheet, was still clutching a shopping bag filled with carrots." I know, it's immodest to flaunt my press notices. But people don't get to see those sorts of news accounts very much in America! If the stories are reported at all, they're usually buried (ha ha) on back pages of newspapers and rarely even mentioned on the networks. ... BBC correspondent John Simpson has been reporting from Belgrade, and he did a rather brusque commentary that the Sunday Telegraph in London published a few days ago. "In Novi Sad and Nis, and several other places across Serbia and Kosovo where there are no foreign journalists, heavier bombing has brought more accidents," Simpson carped. He complained that cluster bombs "explode in the air and hurl shards of shrapnel over a wide radius." And he went on to say: "Used against human beings, cluster bombs are some of the most savage weapons of modern warfare." Cluster bombs like me could do without the overheated pejoratives, thank you. Fortunately, we hardly ever have to endure such indignities in the American press. But please don't forget the very real accomplishments that I can partially claim as my own. The next time you see a headline or hear a newscaster referring to the "air campaign," remember that my achievements are outrageously understated by such jargon. You see, I'm a 1,000-pound marvel, a cluster bomb with an ingenious design. When I go off, a couple of hundred "bomblets" shoot out in all directions, aided by little parachutes that look like inverted umbrellas. Those 'chutes slow down the descent of the bomblets and disperse them so they'll hit plenty of what my maker calls "soft targets." Before that happens, though, each bomblet breaks into about 300 pieces of jagged steel shrapnel. Sometimes, as a cluster bomb, I get a little jealous of the exaggerated notoriety that the news media confer on outfits like the National Rifle Association. They get credited with the proliferation of murder and mayhem. Well, they're rank amateurs! Piddling sidearms pushers! Compared to me, they're small-time retailers. I'm into wholesale. They don't know how to preserve, protect and defend the Grim Reaper as I do....."
edia Research Center Cyber-Alert 5/19/99 "...The Cox Report has been delayed some more by embarrassed Clinton operatives, Fox News Channel's Carl Cameron revealed Tuesday night. On Special Report with Brit Hume the host of the same name asked Cameron: "What about the fabled Cox report on Chinese influence and the spying scandal? What is the status of that?" Carl Cameron disclosed: "This is the report that says China both stole nuclear secrets and acquired through legal tech exports all kinds of U.S. secrets. It has been approved for release by the National Security Agency, the CIA and the FBI but the Commerce Department is now blocking its declassification and release. And there is some expectation that part of their objection to its release is their approval of exports of super computers to China. China has some 600 as result of Clinton administration policy and many of those computers have been used for nuclear testing."..."
Media Research Center/Washington Times 5/19/1999 Brent Baker "...While Washington Times readers woke up to the headline "Chung tells of China cash connections," the three morning shows did not utter a syllable about his troubling allegations -- though even the New York Times put its story above the fold along with a color picture of Chung that network producers could not have missed. Nonetheless, "Good Morning America" viewers were treated to features about the Gulf Coast as the show broadcast from Biloxi, Miss. The ABC program managed to squeeze in an item about how a Massachusetts chain of furniture stores flew all 1,300 of its employees to Bermuda for a one-day beach party. "Today" devoted most of the show to live segments with Matt Lauer on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea. Yet "Today," which ignored Mr. Chung, found time for Couric to talk with Latin singer Ricky Martin. "This Morning" allocated an interview segment in its prime 8am half hour to whether Star Wars movie toys are worth collecting. Last week ended with an ominous New York Times story on Friday about how "China is close to deploying a nuclear missile with a warhead whose design draws on stolen American secrets." Network reaction: "Today" gave it twelve seconds even though the show had Lauer live from the Great Wall in China. "Good Morning America" allocated a piddling ten seconds and "This Morning" skipped it altogether. Friday night: Not a word on ABC, CBS or NBC -- shows which had room for pieces on the baby rescued from the well in Kansas, record snowfall on a mountain in Washington state and people waiting in line to buy "Star Wars" movie tickets...."
Fox News 5/19/99 Matt Gross Freeper systs "...How is it that the news media is already suggesting that this Australian may get the death penalty while at the same time they are not even broadcasting or publishing anything about the Chinese spy who gave away our nuclear secrets?..."
National Review 5/8/99 Patricia Wen Boston Globe "...A 4-year-old Wellesley boy's loyal attachment to public TV's Barney ended up making him the surprised recipient this spring of a fund-raising pitch and ''agenda survey'' from the Democratic National Committee. Sam Black got this mail because his mother, Jody Black, included his name with hers last fall when she sent a donation to WGBH, the public TV station in Boston, never suspecting the station would then swap names with the committee...."
The Guardian (UK) via Drudge 5/21/99 Martin Kettle "....An angry Bill Clinton has told Tony Blair this week that he should 'get control' of people who could be encouraging press reports of splits between London and Washington on the Kosovo campaign. Reports of the unusually difficult 90-minute telephone call between the two allies surfaced yesterday in some US newspapers and have been confirmed by the Guardian...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/21/99 Vol 4 No 88 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) Soundbites advocating the Senate's gun control bill beat opponents by 3-to-1 on ABC, 2-to-1 on CBS and 3-to-2 on NBC, but unlike ABC at least CBS and NBC relayed how Republicans say the answer is "not more laws but enforcing current ones." NBC gave a Democrat time to say a Hillary Senate run would "make a difference ...on issues that she cares about -- children, families."....." 3) FNC's Carl Cameron interviewed Chris Cox and learned that "the threat to the United States is not years, but just months away." 4) The Tom Selleck-Rosie O'Donnell gun control spat: Guest actor hit with O'Donnell's vitriol. FNC raised how O'Donnell is a paid spokesperson for a huge gun dealer. Plus, we have video clips..."
Investor's Business Daily 5/25/99 "...Now that TV news producers and anchors have proof of one of the most explosive foreign-policy scandals ever, will they give Chinagate the round-the-clock coverage they gave Iran- Contra? Judging from their disinterest to date, don't bet on it. Big Three newscasters went into full feeding-frenzy mode when a Republican administration freed hostages in Beirut and armed anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua. White House correspondents teed off on President Reagan. In just one press conference, he was hit with: ''How has this damaged your presidency?'' ''How can you not know?'' ''Doesn't it look suspicious?'' ''Why don't you just come clean and be done with it?'' President Clinton was spared such a barrage at his March press conference. But Clinton could be asked all four questions just as easily...."
Investor's Business Daily 5/25/99 "...In 1987, whole newscasts were devoted to Iran-Contra. Not so with Chinagate. In fact, there's been a virtual TV blackout on the scandal, as IBD reported in the May 10 National Issue. The most recent example is Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's May 9 admission that lab secrets were indeed stolen on Clinton's watch. Evening news coverage? Not a word...."
Investor's Business Daily 5/25/99 "...The double standard shows up in White House interviews, too. Take the grilling that CBS News anchor Dan Rather gave then-Vice President George Bush in 1988. Referring to Iran-Contra, Rather complained: ''You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world. How could you sign on to such a policy?'' But when Rather interviewed Clinton on March 31 - just weeks after the Chinese spying story broke - he didn't touch the scandal. Not one question...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/24/99 Vol Four No 89 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) Fox's Carl Cameron related Sunday that documents "connect China's illegal campaign contributions to...Clinton with specific cases of Beijing's acquisition of U.S. military technology." 2) The Sunday interview shows focused on the Cox Report, but it only generated 58 seconds on the only broadcast show in the evening. Nothing on a Democrat calling for Reno's resignation. 3) Newsweek's Eleanor Clift complained about how the fuss over espionage reflected a plot to "distract from what was a terrific week" for Clinton and Gore on gun control. 4) NBC's Andrea Mitchell held Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton equally culpable. Tom Brokaw asked Cox about connections between donations and espionage, but the question never aired. 5) Charlie Trie pled guilty Friday to fundraising charges, but CBS ignored it. ABC gave it 11 seconds, NBC 18. FNC revealed a relative of We Ho Lee is suspected of giving China stealth info...."
Washington Times 5/21/99 Greg Pierce / Inside Politics "...Brent Bozell, whose Media Research Center tracks liberal bias in the media, says ABC, CBS and NBC "are simply refusing to report" charges of Chinese nuclear espionage on their evening news broadcasts. "It's not that they don't have the story," Mr. Bozell told Fox News, which he said has reported the scandal well, as has CNN. But the "Big Three" broadcast networks are suppressing the story, Mr. Bozell said, while charges of Chinese theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos are "being investigated for the networks by the L.A. Times, the New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, all of whom are splattering this on the front pages on a daily basis." Mr. Bozell suggested news networks are reluctant to report on espionage by China's communist regime because of the media's "almost violent anti-conservatism." ..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/25/99 Vol Four No 90 "...1) ABC and CBS, but not NBC, previewed the Cox Report Monday night but avoided the donation angle. Dan Rather complained: "With 20 years worth of blame for both Republicans and Democrats to go around, some in Congress are now singling out" Janet Reno. 2) FBI wiretaps, FNC's Carl Cameron disclosed, "indicate that President Clinton and China's President Jiang Zemin had agreed on how to spin the story if it got out." Blame "princelings." 3) Eleven weeks into the scandal ABC's Good Morning America finally aired its first interview about Chinese espionage...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/26/99 Vol Four No 91 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) Of the broadcast nets, only ABC led with the Cox Report and only FNC raised specific complaints about how Clinton policy made things worse. CBS relayed how China blames America's "right wing." 2) Pushing aside Cox NBC and CBS led with guns. NBC focused on the nation's post-Columbine mood swing against guns as represented by Rosie O'Donnell, Sharon Stone and a woman who called a Boston talk show, but NBC ignored many more pro-gun callers to WRKO. 3) In their newsier first hour on Tuesday ABC's GMA devoted nearly three times more time and NBC's Today twice as much time to a wrestler's death than to espionage. CBS aired its first espionage interview segment, but actor William Shatner got more time. 4) Investor's Business Daily illustrated the media double standard in Chinagate versus Iran-Contra...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/27/99 Vol Four No 93 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) Cox Report forgotten by CBS and NBC Wednesday night. Only ABC aired a related story. NBC focused on highway repair and hearing aide use. CBS watchers learned about a coin counting machine. 2) An ethics investigation will check allegations that a Defense Dept. staffer "faced reprisals...for offering key testimony to the Cox committee's investigation," FNC's Carl Cameron disclosed. 3) FNC's Eric Burns explored how "conservatives suggest that the story [Chinagate] is not being covered for reasons of politics... that there is a liberal bias at the big three networks." 4) Dan Rather slobbered all over Hillary Clinton on 60 Minutes II, urging her to run for President and gushing: "Once a political lightning rod, today she is political lightning." ..."
Media Reserch Center 5/27/99 L. Brent Bozell III "....Now that the Cox committee has produced a 700-page report, the verdict is in. The network "news" media are, overall, less than impressed. The Big Three each filed an obligatory story that night, but nothing more. More amazingly, only ABC led with it. CBS and NBC piled stories about gun control in front of it; teens packing heat beats the Chinese armed with multiple-warhead nukes. Actually, name a subject in the news, and the networks probably devoted more time to it.... It gets worse when you consider the dismissive tone of the stories, too. The night before the report, Dan Rather claimed: "With twenty years worth of blame for both Republicans and Democrats to go around, some in Congress are now singling out Attorney General Janet Reno for what they see as her failure to investigate the long-leaked nuclear secrets." Sorry, Dan, both parties did not open up the nuclear labs, and Republican administrations did not blithely ignore warnings of espionage for four years. The most atrocious attack came from Time's daily Web site update, where reporter Tony Karon flippantly began: "Where have you gone, Joe McCarthy, oh, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you....Yes folks, Republican efforts to warn Americans of the danger of fuzzy liberals in charge of the nation's political system - and its nuclear secrets - are about to go into overdrive." Karon added that "if the new 'Who lost China?' campaign is to have its own Alger Hiss, the prime candidate appears to be Attorney General Janet Reno."....The broadcast networks are beyond shame. But let's offer a couple of claps for the cable news networks, which actually gave several hours of air time to the Cox report, and the politicians of both parties who assembled it. Even so, the blue ribbon for Clinton-coddling spin goes to MSNBC's Brian Williams for this gem: "I heard someone ask rhetorically today that, 'Look. This is only gonna matter if God forbid, there is one dark day that sees the use, the all-out use of thermonuclear weapons on this planet, and so why worry?'" In the final analysis, Cox didn't fare much better than Burton on the boob tube. This only proves that Republicans can try nice, or try nasty. They can bleat about bipartisanship, or rain fire on the ramparts. Either way, the Democrats run the TV networks, and neither approach wins the day as long as they control the pictures...."
Washington Weekly 11/17/97 "...The most shocking and devastating revelation made by Bob Woodward's story Friday is that after Chairman Thompson announced two weeks ago that he was suspending his public hearings, the FBI obtained intelligence showing that the Ministry of State Security in Beijing -- the Chinese equivalent of the CIA -- boasted it had been successful in "thwarting" the congressional inquiry. How could Chinese agents be able to "thwart" an inquiry by the U.S. congress? The answer is not hard to find. One need only look at those who irrationally attacked Chairman Fred Thompson for his opening statement, where he revealed that there was a Chinese plot to influence the election. His statement was deliberately non-partisan, so there would be no partisan reasons to counterattack. But the interests of the Chinese intelligence agency would be served. Senator John Glenn said: "I think I have seen everything the chairman has seen, and I recall nothing to document allegations that China had done anything illegal." After the FBI offered to show the classified evidence to any Senator who wished to see it, Senator Glenn fell strangely silent. Even more shocking was Senator Glenn's offer to negotiate an immunity agreement on behalf of John Huang. How did John Glenn end up representing a Communist agent whom Senate staffers had been unable to locate? .....Chairman Thompson's landmark opening statement included a reference to the U.S. media. He referred to intelligence showing Chinese agents "attempting to communicate Beijing's views through media channels in the United States." It comes as no surprise, then, that network and cable news anchors took the position of Senator Glenn in ridiculing Thompson's allegation....... And there is at least one FBI counterintelligence agent who is so outraged by the cover-up of his superiors that he is now leaking to Bob Woodward....."
Email 5/28/99 from Carl Cameron FoxNews "...Thanks so much for the kind and supportive Email about our work on the China espionage scandal. Your feedback is very important and makes a huge difference. In the Spring of 1998 (long before the nuclear espionage story broke) FOX was aggressively reporting on Loral and Hughes and the impact of Clinton Administration export policy on China's ability to obtain U-S technology. It's tough sometimes to keep digging on a story that the rest of the media has already begun to back off on...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 5/28/99 Vol Four No 94 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) CNN and FNC noted how Carter condemned Clinton, but not ABC, CBS or NBC. No Chinagate on ABC or NBC. CBS made time for 20 anti- police protestors. An anti-gun control parent got a soundbite. 2) FNC: "The China nuclear spy scandal just keeps on getting more serious." Carl Cameron revealed an investigation of spying at two more labs under Clinton and an FBI official says to Reno: "Bull." 3) "Many of the [Cox] report's scary findings are open to question," insisted CBS News reporter Eric Engberg in a "Reality Check" he ended by scoffing at how China only has a few missiles. 4) MSNBC's Brian Williams relayed: "This is only gonna matter if God forbid, there is one very dark day that sees the use, the all out use of thermonuclear weapons on this planet and so why worry?" 5) Fred Barnes pointed out how Dan Rather was "slobbering all over Hillary Clinton" which demonstrates "liberal bias in the press.... what if it had been the wife of some Republican President?"..."
CNN Headline News 5/29/99 Freeper tsister "...About mid-way through the on-line audio version of Headline News, after the weather, there is a story about Saddam Hussein's eldest son. He (the son), is calling for the killing of American soldiers overseas. It sounded serious, even coming from CNN, but as you will see, it's deep into the broadcast. (I heard it on the television this morning, also.) ...."
5/28/99 Jay Severin MSNBC "...Do you know the biggest part of the China-has-stolen-our-secrets story? The fact that, incredibly, it was a one day story. This is odd, because Americans used to worry a lot about our enemies, and what they could do to us. And we'd get really upset if somebody allowed our top-secret stuff to fall into enemy hands. Just ask the Rosenbergs. BUT EARLIER THIS week we learned that the Chinese have purchased or stolen and shared with our other enemies a number of U.S. military secrets - giving them the ability to launch nuclear strikes against our cities - and we're like, "China? Secrets? Whatever." .....You might expect the most massive case of espionage in human history to create something of a stir. In this case, the monumental revelation followed "How to Score the Best National Park Campsites for Your Vacation" feature on the evening news. I guess since nobody's likely to nuke us before the weekend, why get upset? Since nobody seems to care much about our survival, they sure aren't going to care about the reasons why this is not a bigger story. Not to be boring - after all, the weather is so lovely - but here are two reasons why: We have no opposition party. We have no responsible news media. Generally speaking, in a democracy it is the job and the natural inclination of the opposing party to keep the other party honest, so to speak. Granted, in the case of Bill Clinton, such a goal would be virtually impossible.... As for the news media, the China story will mark the first moment at which establishment journalism (major newspapers and television networks) officially became house organs for the Democrat National Committee...."
Media Research Center CyberAlert ('Extra') 6/1/99 Brent Baker "...Now up on the MRC home page, thanks to Webmaster Sean Henry, a MRC MagazineWatch report by Tim Graham on the latest editions of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News titled, "News Magazines: Cox Report Close to 'Hysteria' and Fuels Extremists.'" Tim based his analysis on the editions of the magazines posted on their Web sites. The report begins: After months of scattered reports on Chinese espionage, the June 6 issues of the weekly news magazines weighed in on China, but not to fill in all the gaps for their readers. Instead, each emphasized how the Cox Report went too far and how our relationship with China is too important to be sidetracked. Time and U.S. News & World Report put China on the cover. None of the magazine included a word about the potential impact of the scandal on the Gore presidential campaign, but all three contained the same themes: 1) The Cox Report is overstated and inaccurate.... 2) Sino-U.S. relations are too important to be ruined by "extremists" in Washington and Beijing.... 3) Two of the magazines highlighted two other themes: Every recent administration is responsible for Chinese espionage, and Republicans are hunting for "scapegoats" to blame for Chinese espionage...."
American Spectator 5/28/99 "....But now comes the Cox Report and things are not so funny. Worse still, there is the fear that after losing nuclear technology to China the administration's Talleyrands, Albright and Berger, ably assisted by the President, will provoke a new Cold War. What makes the Cox Report a particularly melancholy occasion for me is that many of its revelations were earlier published in The American Spectator. Just as the Starr Report confirmed the Troopergate stories of Clinton's reckless libido, the Cox Report confirms accounts in the Spectator about this administration's illegal technology transfers to the Chinese and the Chinese's wide-spread espionage....Reading about the Cox Report's findings is frustrating business for me. News of Clinton's close relationship with the shadowy Indonesian banking family in control of the Lippo group was reported by Jim Adams in the Spectator years ago. Michael Ledeen began reporting on dangerous technology transfers in the early 1990's. Though it was not original reporting, Ken Timmerman reported one year ago that the Loral Corporation and Hughes Electronics had illegally given the Chinese sensitive intelligence on how to improve their missiles. In reporting that was original, Timmerman explained how the China Aerospace Technology Import-Export Company (CATIC) was throughout the 1990's gobbling up U.S. technology. In October 1998 he exposed 40 California companies involved in CATIC's commercial and spying network. Timmerman's reports began in March of 1995. In an astonishing account that should have caught many a government official's eye, Timmerman reported on how the Chinese bought an entire plant in Columbus, Ohio, where our B-1 bombers and C-17 heavy transport aircraft had been produced. He described how a Chinese procurement team was allowed to videotape assembly line equipment in the plant's secured area. In subsequent articles he has reported how the Chinese have, under Clinton's watch, repeatedly purchased U.S. defense production equipment at auction, often illegally. The administration has only prosecuted one case and even in that case it has not been able to recover the illegally exported equipment....."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/2/99 Vol Four No 96 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) ABC, CBS and NBC stuck to airline prices and health news on Tuesday night, but FNC outlined how China obtained "better bombs through espionage, better missiles through illicit commerce" and though the Chinese arsenal is small, "it only takes one" missile. 2) CNN's Howard Kurtz used a magazine's "Red Scare" cover to illustrate how another media outlet agreed the threat from China had been exaggerated, but actually the magazine found: "The Cox Report is out, and it is frightening." 3) In contrast to CNN, FNC Fox Newswatch found that "on television Chinagate has not been covered very much." And a FNC panelist admitted her error in using false numbers to undercut the MRC. 4) "NBC News hosed me," Boston talk radio host Howie Carr asserted in recalling how 28 of 32 callers took a pro-gun view but NBC aired a clip of just one favoring gun control. "Juanita Broaddrick notwithstanding, NBC stands for Nothing But Clinton."...."
INSIGHT Magazine 6/21/99 Michael Rust "...Monica is gone and we don't even miss her. More than a year of media saturation of the sex and lies scandal involving President Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky ended with a whimper earlier this year with the Senate acquittal of the president.. . . . It's possible that carnage at home and abroad is harder to deal with than the pundit-ready questions posed by Oval Office hijinks. "Doing commentary on the war [in Kosovo] is much harder than commentary on Lewinsky," Larry Pryor, editor of Online Journalism Review at the University of Southern California, tells Insight. "It's very hard to be a trenchant commentator on something as complicated and nuanced as the war."..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/4/99 Vol Four No 98 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) NBC Nightly News never followed up on the Cox Report since its last story nine days ago, but Thursday night the show focused on the dying panda: "More than just another animal in a zoo, a national symbol of a Cold War that started to end with him." 2) Confirming the Cox Report's warning, FNC's Carl Cameron learned China is not only about to test a ground based missile but also a long range submarine missile very similar to the Trident II. 3) Investor's Business Daily revealed that Los Alamos has made conventional weapons technical data vulnerable by letting a private company put it all on CDs, but only FNC cared. IBD added: "During the Clinton administration, the number of Chinese nationals working at Los Alamos has catapulted 411%."..."
NewsMax.com 6/4/99 "...Reacting to Spike Lee's suggestion two weeks ago that NRA President Charlton Heston should be shot, Georgia Congressman Bob Barr has made a formal request that the movie maker be held officially accountable. Inside Cover has exclusively obtained a copy of a letter written by Barr regarding Lee's comment, which was sent to Navy Secretary Richard Danzig on Thursday. In it, the congressman asks the U.S. Navy to deep-six a seven figure deal it cut with the shoot-from-the-lip filmmaker earlier this year. Barr told Danzig: "According to press reports, the United States Navy has chosen to contract with filmmaker Spike Lee to direct the filming of a series of recruiting commercials. "It is bad enough that Spike Lee has a history of promoting racial division at every opportunity. However, his recent public comment that Charlton Heston should be shot for defending the Second Amendment is beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. "I request the Navy immediately cancel any contract with Spike Lee. Surely, in a nation with such a diverse array of talented directors and producers, the United States Navy can do better than choosing a divisive hate monger such as Spike Lee to direct its recruiting commercials." ... But Lee's "Shoot Heston" remark, along with his lucrative Navy deal, has drawn little media outrage to date. But for the efforts of New York talk radio host Steve Malzberg, who focused on Lee's remarks after the New York Post covered them deep inside their May 22 edition, the story would have likely disappeared. Malzberg's news judgement was vindicated when House Majority Leader Dick Armey took notice last week and sent out a press release denouncing Spike Lee's comments. Thus far Rep. Barr, a longtime defender of the Second Amendment and frequent ally of the National Rifle Association, is the only member of Congress to call on the Navy to remove the incendiary film maker from the taxpayers' payroll...."
WorldNetDaily 6/3/99 Tanya K. Metaksa "....Now when one Hollywood celebrity suggests that a Hollywood icon should be "shot" there are no editorials, no gnashing of teeth, just deafeningly cold silence. Has Spike Lee forgotten his civil rights history? As president of the Screen Actor's Guild, Charlton Heston led the Hollywood contingent of no more than 30 (including those that came from New York) to the now famous 1963 March on Washington. Remember most "parlor liberals" didn't participate in "the March." If Spike Lee knew anything about Charlton Heston he would have read his book, "In the Arena," and know it ends with an excerpt from Dr. King's famous speech. But America's civil rights history also has its birthplace in the struggle to own firearms..... But, there is the rest of the story. Because of this "racial incident" the Ku Klux Klan in 1927 lobbied for the passage of Michigan's first gun control law, which required citizens to acquire purchase permits after mandatory inspections prior to acquiring a gun. Guess who this law was aimed at? ....In self-defense the Monroe chapter of the NAACP decided to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. In 1957, 60 members of the Monroe chapter of the NAACP affiliated with the National Rifle Association of America. They received firearms training. And, when the Klan motored in for another night of tyranny, they came face to face with the Second Amendment. The terrorists failed that night because one right prevailed. You see, Spike Lee, the Second Amendment is colorblind. You may think it funny to suggest that someone who has been and remains in the forefront of our civil rights struggles should be shot. But I don't. I didn't think it was funny when Ice-T and Time Warner recorded a song called "Cop Killer," and neither did Charlton Heston. He stood before the Time Warner Board of Directors at their annual meeting and read to them the disgusting lyrics that advocated killing cops. You may not agree with Charlton Heston, but you know where he stands: fighting for freedom....."
Capitol Hill Blue 6/8/99 "...A weekend obscene temper tantrum by Cable News Network reporter Chris Black has members of the White House press corps shaking their heads. Black, rattled by an anti-Clinton protester during taping of a "stand up" on Sunday, turned to the protester and screamed "fuck you!" Witnesses to the event said Black's obscenity was clearly heard by a crowd of tourists and their children outside the White House fence. "It was disgusting," says Andrea Dobbins, a St. Louis area tourist who was visiting Washington with her husband and two preteen children. "I couldn't believe a member of news media would act so unprofessional in front of people, especially when children are present." Veteran members of the White House press corps say Black's outburst is a typical temper tantrum by the high-strung CNN Correspondent. "She's a hothead, there's no doubt about that," says one network correspondent. "If her talent was a big as her mouth, she'd be anchoring NBC Nightly News."...Black's outburst was triggered by an anti-Clinton protester who belongs to the Internet's Free Republican bulletin board. Accounts of the incident, along with a follow-up shouting match Black had with another protester on Monday, kept the popular bulletin board buzzing on Monday and Tuesday. "As Chris Black turned to walk away, I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Hey Chris Black, I thought you were a lady until I heard what you screamed at a protester and tourists yesterday,' " reported Free Republic poster Anglewood. "Boy, did I ever unleash a fury! She raised her left arm, must have changed her mind and turned around. She yelled and pointed at me and gestured for me to come meet her. For a minute, I thought I was being invited inside the compound, but she moved at warp speed still gesturing to me and yelled, "Come over here and let me tell you what that son-of-a-bitch did to me!" Anglewood said Black was obviously agitated and claimed the protester on Sunday had ruined her live shot. But news crews who cover the White House say veterans know how to ignore protesters and go on about their business...."
Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/8/99 Vol Four No 101 Freeper Brian Mosely "...1) A couple of hot days in New York City naturally prompted CBS to worry: "Researchers warn in the next century global warming could make these dog days a lot more common." The researcher: EDF. 2) CBS's Bob Schieffer and Dan Rather agreed that Chinese spying is serious and the Cox Report is important, but in explaining why it's not a bigger issue with the public neither acknowledged how little time and priority their shows have given it...."
Curt Weldon Website 6/8/99 "... Secondarily, Mr. Speaker, we have just learned that later on this year China will be testing the newest version of their long-range ICBM missile with a range of 13,000 kilometers that can be launched from a submarine that has the potential for a MIRV or a multiple reentry capability. This rocket, this long-range ICBM, the JL-2, is beyond anything they have had in the past, and it is almost a replica of the trident class ICBMs that we have used in this Nation. We did not think China would have this capability until several years down the road. We now have word they will test that missile, that ICBM, this year. Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious issue. The American people need to understand what is happening to their country. They need to understand the blame game cannot stop by firing lower level employees who are only following directions. The blame game cannot stop by saying it was industries' fault...."
Media Research Center CyberAlert 6/9/99 Brent Baker Freeper Normally a Lurker "...1) All but FNC skipped Chinagate developments Tuesday night. NBC's Robert Hager highlighted how "two environmental groups warned that global warming is heating the ocean, choking off marine life..." 2) Only FNC's Carl Cameron picked up on the charge that former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary personally leaked secret nuclear weapons data to a magazine in 1995 and that Clinton plans to ease export controls on super-computers...."
World Net Daily 6/9/99 Joseph Farah "...The news hounds at CNN/Time sniffed at the blood trail leading from Arkansas state prisons to the hemophiliac AIDS killing fields of Canada and found no reason to inquire about the role of former Gov. Bill Clinton. Surprised? You shouldn't be. CNN is becoming known as the Clinton News Network. And this latest report -- full of errors of omission, rather than commission -- is a perfect illustration of why. The CNN report was not without some interesting details that help us sort out the jigsaw puzzle of corruption that permitted the contaminated prison blood to be sold on the open market in Canada and overseas. It reported, for instance, that the Arkansas state prison system was considered so bad through the 1970s that it was actually declared unconstitutional by federal courts..... What the Time-CNN report failed to mention even one time was the very thing that makes the Blood Trail story so volatile -- the governor of Arkansas at the time of this scandal was a man named Bill Clinton. Believe it or not, his name was never mentioned in the report. And Clinton's links with the blood scandal go deeper than just his role as chief executive of the state and overseer of the prison system...."
World Net Daily 6/9/99 Joseph Farah "...It was Bill Clinton's administration that awarded the contract to Health Management Associates to provide medical care to the state's prisoners. The president of the company was, naturally, a long-time friend and political ally of Clinton and was later appointed by him to the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. Later, he was among the senior members of Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial re-election team. As part of the deal HMA struck with Arkansas, in addition to treating the prisoners, the company collected their blood and sold it. Because of the exploding AIDS crisis, U.S. regulations didn't permit the sale of prisoners' blood within the country. But HMA found a willing buyer in Montreal, which brokered a deal with Connaught, a Toronto blood-fractionator, which didn't know the source of the supplies. The Red Cross distributed the blood throughout Canada. Sales continued until 1983, when HMA revealed that some of the plasma might be contaminated with the AIDS virus and hepatitis. The blood was also peddled overseas. In fact, the Arkansas prison blood continued to be sold until 1994, according to the CNN report, more than a decade after it was discovered to be a dangerous -- often lethal -- practice. Arkansas, that bastion of progressive thinking that gave us Bill Clinton, was indeed the last state in the union to stop selling prison blood....."
World Net Daily 6/9/99 Joseph Farah "...Also missing from the CNN report was any mention of Michael Galster, the medical professional and author who blew the lid off this story with his novel, "Blood Trail." He charges HMA officials knew the blood was tainted as they sold it to Canada and a half-dozen other foreign countries. He also alleges that Clinton knew of the scheme and thinks he can prove the president benefited from it financially. Galster says Clinton organized a payoff plan to various officials, including a judge, to make sure the blood sales continued. He claims millions were made from the conspiracy because between 5,000 and 8,000 units of blood were shipped every week from one prison alone. He has eyewitness reports that inmates were even drawing blood from each other with dirty needles...."
Media Research Center CyberAlert 6/10/99 Brent Baker Freeper Normally a Lurker "...1) ABC and NBC picked up Clinton's charge that House Republicans are "taking orders from the gun lobby." ABC devoted a story to how the NRA ominously lobbied to put "loopholes" in the Senate bill. 2) Energy Secretary Richardson condemned new lab security rules and a top Democrat castigated a Richardson deputy for pushing Clinton spin, but only FNC's Carl Cameron took note. He revealed FBI agents accused Justice officials of "deliberate incompetence." 3) Countering the Clinton spin holding Reagan and Bush as equally culpable, Investor's Business Daily determined "the vast majority of the leaks over the past 20 years have sprung on Clinton's watch." And that's not counting recent cases kept suppressed...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/11/99 Vol Four No 105 Freeper Brian Mosely "... 3) FNC's Carl Cameron revealed charges against several scientists could come soon and that FBI agents were "frustrated" by how Justice wouldn't let them stop Trie from destroying evidence. 4) Investor's Business Daily detailed how Clinton made it easier for China to get weapons technology. "Over the last five years, Justice requested a total of 3,657 wiretaps and/or search warrants to combat foreign spying. All of them were OK'd save one." ..."
Conservative News Service 6/11/99 L. Brent Bozell III, CNS Commentary "...Gun rights defenders often wonder how the media can be so hostile to the Second Amendment to the Constitution, while they so hallow the First Amendment. But do they really revere freedom of expression? Liberal media stars are starting to think it's time to "modernize" our classical understanding of free speech. Democracy, they say, can't function when wealthy corporations and individuals can buy more speech than the average American.....Former PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers has just returned to the taxpayer-funded airwaves for what must be his 100th special plugging "campaign finance reform," otherwise known as "How to Shut Up Conservatives with Money." Titled "Free Speech for Sale," Moyers began by lauding the First Amendment as "a great idea. It means government can't keep you from getting your two cents worth into the public debate. But what the Framers of our government didn't reckon with is that two cents doesn't buy much free speech these days. You can say anything you want today, but if you really want to be heard today, we're talking big money."
Notice that Moyers acknowledges each of us has the right to speak. But he's trying to create a new right: the right "to be heard." Now this sounds especially absurd coming from Moyers, whose own "private empire" has given us another 60-minute special without a word from conservatives who oppose his lobby-gagging lust. Moyers preaches the First Amendment means "government can't keep you from getting your two cents worth" in the public debate, but I guess it's okay if the government just takes your two cents to skip the debate and promote his personal agenda on more than 300 PBS stations across America....."
New York Post 6/13/99 Phil Mushnick "...But it doesn't much matter what Bob Costas thinks. Not anymore. Not since he has been identified, condemned and ridiculed as a sports ''traditionalist,'' a ''purist.'' ''How have we arrived at the point where a regard for common decency, humility and what we used to call class has come to be thought of as conservative and old-fashioned?'' he said. ''Why does that qualify someone as being hopelessly out of step?'' ...Odd how the Spurs are now identified as the NBA's best team. How can that possibly be? The team is woefully short on showoffs, taunters and those who would place their own sense of macho above the best interests of their team. They don't talk trash, yet ''trash talk is a crucial element of basketball.'' The Spurs are very difficult for media apologists and panderers to explain. Those who for years have winked at rotten behavior as displays of ''enthusiasm for the game'' are stuck. Could it be that the Spurs don't play with enthusiasm? Or is it that their enthusiasm for the game prevents any one player from demonstrating his enthusiasm for himself? Regardless, the Spurs will pay for this. Their lack of enthusiasm for the game renders them commercially unacceptable. They seem to be a team led and comprised of gentlemen. There's little chance that an advertising agency will be moved to attach any ''American dream'' images to the Spurs. After all, how can any American kid possibly be a Spur fan? What's there to root for? Good guys? What's there to sell? The grace and modesty of David Robinson? You're gonna sell that to the same kids who have made pro wrestling the top-rated show on cable TV? Forget it. Consider the desensitization process that has so terribly afflicted our sports, our sportsmen and our sports fans. ...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/16/99 Vol Four No 108 "…1) The ABC and NBC evening shows ignored the report on the nuclear labs from the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board which contradicted Richardson's assurances and criticized Clinton team delays. It got 23 seconds on GMA and Today. 2) Dan Rather brooded about "prospects for passage of even limited gun control," but ABC's Linda Douglass pointed out how the "NRA's point man is...the senior Democrat, Michigan's John Dingell." 3) Despite the lack of network interest, a poll found 55 percent of the public "closely" followed the Chinese espionage story. 4) Dan Rather revealed on Larry King Live that while his show's first feed on Monday ran a Gore soundbite which made a false claim, CBS didn't tell viewers Gore was wrong. 5) Newsweek's Howard Fineman: George W. Bush is "a Republican running without anger, which we haven't seen in a long time." …."
The Washington Times 6/18/99 Mark Levin "…Deep Throat's stenographer, Bob Woodward, has written another book about scandals--laced with the usual purported statements from scores of unnamed sources. And The Washington Post ran excerpts on its front page for three days--which has generated considerable interest among political and media elites. I recall, however, that when Gary Aldrich's book, "Unlimited Access," hit the bookstores, the mainstream media all but ignored his shocking accounts of high-level misconduct. Instead, they questioned the unnamed sources of some of his information. Tremendous latitude was granted Mr. Woodward when he wrote a book in which he recounted wide-ranging discussions with former CIA Director William Casey. The problem was that Mr. Casey was apparently in a coma when the conversations supposedly occurred. Mrs. Casey disputes that Mr. Woodward had access to her husband when he was in the hospital--and the hospital apparently has no records of Mr. Woodward's visits. When Mr. Woodward's book was published, Mr. Casey had passed away, thereby leaving us with only Mr. Woodward's version of events. Moreover, Rush Limbaugh raised a key question of journalistic ethics the other day when he asked how Mr. Woodward could justify with-holding information about the Clinton scandals from the public in order to benefit financially from its later release in a book…..Perhaps the most telling insight we gain from all of this is that journalist Woodward--like Judge Wright with her contempt citation, and NBC with the Juanita Broaddrick rape allegation--withheld their information from the public until after it could affect the outcome of Mr. Clinton's impeachment trial. That, Mr. Woodward, is the rest of the story…."
Original Sources, http://www.originalsources.com 6/18/99 Mary Mostert "…"Many burial sites have been found," the fresh faced young spokesman with a British accent for one of the military groups said at the press conference. "But, bear in mind, there has been a war going on here." And, so we have people like Christiane Amanpour announcing what has taken place as an ethnic Albanian returns to the remains of his home, finding, he says, that 26 of his cousins have been killed and the home destroyed. Amanpour says the house was "torched." Perhaps my 29 years as a building contractor is showing, but the house was clearly a stone house that was stuccoed. I saw no evidence of wood. What I saw was a masonry building that appeared to have been bombed. Now, I don't know who did the bombing, but something more impressive than a match brought down that masonry building. We were shown grisly remains of humans - in fact the Albanian pointed to bits and pieces of hair and teeth and calmly announced that he could recognize his cousin from the teeth. Again, what I saw was broken bits of human parts which appeared to have been blown up. Was it the result of Serb mortars or NATO bombs?…"
Original Sources, http://www.originalsources.com 6/18/99 Mary Mostert "…One irate reader complained to Mike Reagan, "Is it really in doubt that literally thousands of Albanians are missing? Does one need to be a brain surgeon to deduce whose bodies are buried in those graves? I agree that the networks, especially CNN is happy to show disturbing pictures before they have all the facts but this story is so obviously transplanted Serb propaganda I can't understand how Mary presents it as factual. Why can't Mary understand that Albanians were slaughtered? Men, women and children shot, burned, and beaten. Unfortunately Mary's treatment of the Kosovo conflict reminds me not only of the apologists for Hitler prior to WWII, but also the modern idiots who claim the holocaust didn't occur. Today's story is just one more in Mary's continuing string of stories that attempt so hard to paint Clinton as the bad guy she has lost sight of the real crimes against humanity." Well, actually, as editor of the Michael Reagan Information Interchange, I simply posted a view, as I often do, from a source near Kosovo, this time in Slovakia - not Yugoslavia - entitled "The X-Files: Whose Mass Graves?" which pointed out that the "mass graves" are clearly marked with some kind of sign, perhaps names. Why does everyone assume that all the people in those graves are Albanians? NATO claims it has killed 10,000 Yugoslavian soldiers. Where are THEIR graves? The Yugoslav Army and the KLA have been blasting each other since shortly after the bombing started. How many of the "mass graves" are the result of those battles? We know of at least two instances when NATO killed scores of Albanian refugees. What mass grave are they buried in? …."
Original Sources, http://www.originalsources.com 6/18/99 Mary Mostert "…So, folks, you are going to be regaled with lots of stories in the next few weeks designed to convince you that Bill Clinton is a good guy who is telling you the truth about those evil Serbs. I don't pretend to know exactly who has been killing whom on the ground in Kosovo. All I know for sure is that Bill Clinton's policy has led America to try very hard to kill as many Serbs as possible because they wouldn't agree to turn their sovereignty over to NATO and hand mineral rich Kosovo over to the Albanians. And, as the War Crimes Tribunal investigator noted, "If you have a certain kind of policy, excesses take place…."
Etherzone 6/14/99 Normann Liebmann "…Bill Clinton has committed enough felonious acts to get a Corleane Olive Oil Company franchise, worked enough sexual depravity to make the walls in the Oval Office sweat like the Marquis De Sade's rumpus room, and has perpetrated more treason than Benedict Arnold could run off on a Xerox machine primed on methamphetamines. Clinton's crimes are epidemic, but the press knows there's no point in their dialing 911. They are 911. The media is America's lifeguard, scanning the horizon with its back to the ocean. The true extent and gravity of Clinton's villainies don't get around because the mediacrats feel, if they mention it, the first thing you know it will be all over the neighborhood. Thus they have allowed the nation to sicken because of their homage to one man's depravity. Every newspaper tossed in an American driveway is just another Don't Get Well card. In this war to defend American culture, just list them as Missing in Action. They are conspicuous - but not "present."…. The media allows adverse news about Bubba to emerge in a controlled trickle. Still, the reek from the White House is indistinguishable from an Arkansas lake. Clinton has discerned, with shameful ease, the media is a slow, effortlessly intimidated child, a judgment that serves him faithfully. The press that was the Sorcerer's Apprentice eagerly became the Sorcerer's Accomplice. To explain Clinton's smooth manipulation of them, the media characterizes him as a yokel "prince of foxes." That's bullshit. He is unscrupulous; they are cowardly and self-serving. It is fair to say journalists have allowed America to become what it is - dangerously uninformed, and existing in informational sub-twilight, the largesse of a zombie press. No day passes without the media "cutting some slack" for the sociopath President, who is "managed and manipulated" by a vicious much-manicured harridan frau. It is apparent, as Clinton degrades his office, he erodes the media's credibility….. The following items are obvious to everyone but the media: Women don't like being raped - even by presidents. High-tech and high treason is not the same thing…."
Washington Weekly 6/20/99 ROBERT STOWE ENGLAND "...Some observers are dismayed that the Cox Report revelations on Hughes and Loral have not sparked more media coverage and criticism. "Why is there no outcry?" asks Ledeen, who then answers his own question. "Because a large part of the media and the Democratic Party have resolved never to give any credence to any criticisms of the Clinton Administration. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen," he says. Criticisms of Hughes and Loral, Ledeen explains, are seen by some as surrogate attacks on Clinton....."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/21/99 Vol Four No 110 "...1) CNN's Wolf Blitzer landed an exclusive interview with BillClinton, but avoided Chinagate. Instead, he wondered: "When didyou learn that the First Lady was a New York Yankees fan?" 2) Nightly News ignored it, but Tim Russert brought Warren Rudmanon Meet the Press to discuss his report on nuclear lab security..."
Washington Weekly 6/21/99 J Peter Mulhern "...If you read the New York Times you could easily get the idea the NATO won a great victory in Kosovo. The entire establishment is busy congratulating itself and Bill Clinton for facing up to Slobodan Milosevic and making the Balkans into a showplace of multicultural harmony. There are times, and this is one, when one wonders whether our governing elite can really be as juvenile and stupid as it appears. The war for Kosovo was lost before it started. Milosevic proved that he could defy the combined power of the entire Western World for the better part of three months during which he could perpetrate a humanitarian disaster and permanently change the status quo in Kosovo. Flaccid leadership made this not only possible but inevitable. Bill Clinton, by contrast, proved that by incompetently applying overwhelming power he could succeed in accelerating a humanitarian disaster and getting his country and its allies bogged down in a quagmire. Hooray for the home team....The cost/benefit analysis on Clinton's war is simple. The costs are substantial and continue to mount. We killed many people, greatly complicated our relations with Russia and China, acquired an open-ended military commitment that serves no geopolitical purpose and spent a great deal of money and materiel. The benefits are nonexistent. We achieved absolutely nothing of value. How can any sane person consider this a victory?..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/23/99 Vol Four No 112 "...1) An "unprecedented" combined hearing of four Senate committees to hear from Rudman and Richardson, but only CNN offered any live coverage. ABC's World News Tonight ignored the hearing as it did the release of Rudman's report last week....2) "Bill Clinton heard himself cheered as a winner," noted Sam Donaldson from Aviano AFB. In the refugee camps CBS found he "got a hero's welcome." NBC relayed he was greeted "like a liberator." 3) FNC's Carl Cameron caught George W. Bush in a mistake: Bush confused Slovakia with Slovenia...."
WorldNetDaily.com 6/23/99 Henry Lamb "...Two primary targets are now in the cross hairs of the global tax-mongers: carbon and currency exchange. Carbon taxes are being designed to modify social behavior while the tax on currency exchange is designed to increase U.N. revenue from about $11 billion per year to $1.5 trillion per year. A revenue stream, independent of the voluntary contributions of member states, is all that prevents the United Nations from imposing, and enforcing, its vision of global governance. Momentum is building for global taxation schemes to provide that independent revenue stream. More than two-thirds of the American people support the idea of a global tax on foreign currency exchange, and a whopping 79 percent want a global tax on carbon. These numbers were collected by the ATI Foundation, and reported by the Washington-based Commission to Fund the United Nations. The numbers likely reflect the pollster's skill at asking misleading questions, rather than a true reflection of the American attitude toward global taxation. Nevertheless, support for various forms of global taxation is growing, pushed by well-funded organizations such as the Commission to Fund the United Nations; the United Nations Association U.S.A., Friends of the Earth; and a host of other environmental organizations...."
NewsMax.com 6/24/99 Julia Malone "...With Vice President Al Gore's sudden epiphany that his boss's behavior with with Monica Lewinsky was "unforgivable" -- and his wife Tipper said to be outraged by Bill Clinton's symbolic semen stain on the Oval Office, now might be a good time for the Second Couple to remember that Sexgate has an even darker side. Bill Clinton's alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick still haunts Washington like no other scandal in living memory. In fact, the prospect that America might have elected, then re-elected, a rapist to its highest office terrifies even the hardbitten newsies of the Washington press corps. Why? Because they failed to do their jobs in 1992, and dismissed the second hand accounts they'd heard about Broaddrick's assault.....NewsMax.com is proud to present highlights of the panel discussion the mainstream media did not want you to see or hear, "The Juanita Broaddrick Charges: Too Hot for the Press to Handle?" We thank panel moderator, Cox News reporter Julia Malone for making this transcript available to NewsMax.com. The Juanita Broaddrick Charges: Too Hot for the Press to Handle? National Press Club Forum Washington, D.C., March 30, 1999 SUMMARY: A panel of journalists split on whether news media bias or "scandal fatigue" killed the coverage of the charge that Bill Clinton raped nursing home executive Juanita Broaddrick 21 years ago. Five weeks after NBC's Feb. 24 edition of "Dateline" aired its interview with Mrs. Broaddrick, the subject had disappeared from the news media. Four panelists at the National Press Club forum agreed that her charges were credible and that the issue was both serious and newsworthy. Half the panel faulted news organizations, the others concluded that the charges were too old to pursue...... ANN MCFEATTERS: I was listening to "Imus in the Morning" this morning, and he was desperately trying to gin up outrage on this very issue against Clinton. He was talking to his fabled brother out in the West...He was saying, "Fred, why aren't you infuriated about this? Why aren't you writing Senator Pete Domenici and why aren't you talking to everybody you can think of?" And Fred said, "I don't know what to do. What's the point? So here you have a situation where, as Bill Bennett says, there is a "death of outrage" on this president in regard to sex. There is a death of outrage because people don't know what to do. He's been impeached. It went to the Senate. The Senate said he could stay in office for two more years. He's a lame duck. We don't know at this point how to prove this charge....You could go down to Arkansas and re-interview the people, but what would it prove? Six out of 10 Americans already believe the charge is probably true. BILL EATON: A little history on this story: It first surfaced in 1992 as a rumor in the presidential campaign of that year. At least several reporters were informed about it. And since it came up in the last hours of that campaign, it was not pursued...."
Drudge 6/27/99 "...A stunned Conant quit last month when her exhaustive and detailed profile of Brill was pulled at the last minute from the July issue of VANITY FAIR. Back in April, when Conant handed in the manuscript of her profile, Graydon Carter sent a fax to the writer calling the Brill expose a "great piece." "Are we being too tough on him? Oh, hell, - no we're not," Carter wrote in the fax. But Carter would later change his mind -- and would order the Conant piece killed. "We can't do this to a competitor," Carter is said to have told an associate..... But to save face, and to avoid the appearance that he was not going out of his way to protect media friends like Barry Diller [an investor in Steve Brill's magazine], Carter would quickly announce that he had reassigned the profile to VANITY FAIR writer James Wolcott...... "
The Center For Security Policy 6/25/99 "...In today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus -- the Administration's preferred outlet for its heavily spun damage-control efforts on the China/nuclear scandal -- reports that: "The top Energy Department official in charge of the Nation's nuclear weapons complex, Victor H. Reis, may quit or be fired in a dispute with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, sources said yesterday." One of Pincus' unidentified sources at DoE is quoted as saying: "It is no secret that Secretary Richardson has not been satisfied with the emphasis given counterintelligence and security at the labs, and Vic Reis has been the person in charge for the last six years." (Emphasis added.) In other words, as Wonderland's Duchess might have put it, "Off with his head." If this statement were not so pernicious, it would be hysterical. In fact, for at least the past two years, responsibility for "counterintelligence and security at the labs" -- and elsewhere in the nuclear weapons complex -- has actually been vested in somebody else, Rose Gottemoeller. Ms. Gottemoeller is a proponent of radical anti-nuclear proposals who, thanks to Secretary Richardson's machinations, was stealthily elevated earlier this year to the status of Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nonproliferation and National Security....."
The Center For Security Policy 6/25/99 "...It has been Ms. Gottemoeller, not Vic Reis, who has had responsibility for such scandals as: the declassification of Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data in violation of the Atomic Energy Act and job action against a senior DoE bureaucrat who had the temerity to alert Congress to this breach of security and the law the demotion of Notra Trulock ...the effective firing of Lieutenant Colonel Ed McCallum...."
The Center For Security Policy 6/25/99 "...Instead of holding accountable those actually responsible for the various aspects of this travesty, he [Richardson] appears determined to use the demands for "heads to roll" to purge those who have opposed past and present Clinton political appointees' efforts to destroy the nuclear weapons program and complex. .... Still, there is little doubt but that, had it not been for his [Vic Reis] efforts, the damage done to date by the Clinton-O'Leary policy of "denuclearization" would have been even worse than has actually transpired. ...Reports reaching the Center suggest that the nuclear lab directors and other senior professionals in the weapons complex are also unwilling to tow the Administration's line on DoE reorganization....Perhaps the Secretary will have to fire all of them as well in order to find toadies who will support his position, seemingly born of nothing more than personal egotism and the reflexive, if petty, turf-protectionism of any bureaucrat, i.e, that no further improvement to the Department of Energy is necessary....."
CNS 6/24/99 L. Brent Bozell III "....The rich irony is that while Woodward may be giving us a first draft of how the Clinton insiders are spinning for history, in his books and on the talk show circuit, Woodward has performed the same service for the Clintons. In a 1996 PBS special positing the ridiculous notion that the press was too tough on Clinton, Woodward noted Clinton "believes that the Washington press corps is so out of touch that it is absolutely inconceivable that reporters will understand the issues that people are really dealing with in their lives, and Clinton feels a profound alienation from the Washington culture here. And I happen to agree with him." ..... How times have changed since the Watergate era. After 20 years of throwing bombs at Republican presidents, the baby boomer liberals now have spotted the enemy in the mirror, and now it's acceptable for liberal Ron Zieglers to snow the public. The independent counsel law is dead. Investigative reporting is disreputable. Congressional oversight is dismissed as partisan witch-hunting. ..... It's another day, another double standard for the national media. The same anchormen and pundits who regularly beat their breasts over the anonymously-sourced snippets of Matt Drudge are once more rolling out the red carpet for a man with the same modus operandi in his reporting, but who comes from a decidedly different direction...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/25/99 Vol Four No 113 " 1) A DOD analyst said he was forced to delete a warning about a transfer to China, but only FNC cared. CBS's Bob Schieffer didn't cite gun control in noting how "Congress has been busy with symbolic things." He named the Ten Commandments and flag burning. 2) On CNN's Crossfire Dan Rather claimed that conservatives see liberal bias in him only because he's "an independent reporter." The "on the right" co-host concluded that CBS News is not biased....."
The Digital Collegian (Penn State) 6/25/99 Martin Austermuhle "....In "1984," George Orwell wrote: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Many thought Orwell was referring to totalitarian political systems and their crude censorship and brainwashing machinery. In reality, he was addressing the highly decentralized and effective systems of media manipulation in the "free" Western nations. While totalitarian governments are well-known for their suppression of truth, Western democracies have perfected the art of hiding facts and reports that may lead to truth, creating an atmosphere in which their mistakes and misdirected policies go unnoticed. Dictatorships may be able to stop people from reading the truth, but our business-led democracies prevent us from realizing the truth is out there, presenting instead half-truths and buzzwords that aid in the development of an unaware, uninterested populace. This whole notion is rather hard to swallow, considering we have been raised to believe in freedom and objectivity in the media. The censorship and suppression in our media comes not from some arcane machinery that surgically removes the truth and replaces it with state propaganda, but rather a filtering process created by the economic and political elite working through the free market. Certain ideas are promoted, while others are simply ignored and thus thought to not exist....."
American Spectator (Web Site) 6/25/99 John Corry "...Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security by Bill Gertz Regnery / 299 pages / $27.95 Distorting Defense: Network News and National Security by Stephen P. Aubin Praeger / 262 pages / $59.95 Reviewed by John Corry ....President Clinton's most important legacy will not be his serio-comic sex scandals, but his dead serious disarmament of the United States and his self-serving appeasement of powerful and determined enemies....The administration's policies have endangered not only the United States, but the peace and security of the entire world. And this grim prospect has come about, according to Gertz, primarily for two reasons. The administration, suspicious of the military to begin with, placed economic gains ahead of security needs. Meanwhile it put its faith in treaties, promises, and the supposed good intentions of others. Their words, not their deeds, were what counted, and realistic assessments of their potential military threats were ignored so as not to endanger "constructive engagements" and "strategic partnerships." Rather than penalizing China or Russia, say, for violating international agreements, the administration would amend the agreements. Rather than telling the public about the continuing arms buildups by China and Russia, it would pretend the buildups did not exist. Policy was tailored not for the real world, but for a world of the administration's own choosing. The White House demonstrated an unwillingness, or inability, to deal with difficult issues. Worse, it practiced outright deceit.....Distorting Defense: Network News and National Security, by Stephen P. Aubin, is a kind of companion book to Betrayal. Aubin, who holds a doctorate in national security affairs, analyzes television coverage of defense issues and finds it uninformed. One reason for this, he writes in his intelligent book, is that too often the White House, and not the Pentagon, provides the focus for coverage. Aubin also notes the ease with which the networks tend to label both persons and things as "conservative," "right-wing," or "hard-line," and their reluctance to call anyone "liberal" or "left wing." Aubin, though scrupulously nonpartisan, dryly notes that the "conservatives" are usually depicted as "bad guys." ...."
WorldNetDaily 6/28/99 Geoff Metcalf "...I participated in a conference over the weekend, which included Adm. Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maj. Gen. Jack Singlaub, constitutional champion, John de la Brown, former member of Parliament, and a group of other distinguished experts. During one of the breaks, an audience member approached me with one of those questions to which there is no simple answer. It has been a re-occurring topic on my radio talk show: "Why doesn't the main stream media report important significant news?" I have asked that question myself ... often. .....Last week, Senator Inhofe noted, "On March 15, I began my speech by asking the American people to listen as I told them 'a story of espionage, conspiracy, deception, and cover-up -- a story with life and death implications for millions of Americans -- a story about national security and a President and an administration that deliberately chose to put national security at risk, while telling the people everything was fine.' In the three months since I made these statements, none has been refuted." So why isn't ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the others all over this stuff like white on rice? Why has the same industry that was relentless in exploiting charges against Judge Clarence Thomas and Sen. Bob Packwood, failed to follow up on credible rape allegations against an elected official with a documented history of sexual impropriety and chronic lying....I really don't believe the failures of American reportage is organized, manipulated, and managed -- at least not directly...Management of the mainstream media are my contemporaries. We went to college in the '60s. A lot of the boomer news managers suffer from the same moral, philosophic, and ethical flaws of this administration that would gag a maggot. Although Bill Clinton may be the epitome of moral, ethical, and narcissistic excesses, in varying degrees those who decide what to report -- and not report -- share a kindred spirit. It has been widely reported that most of the beltway media types voted for Clinton. The personal support for the president arguably has tainted professional judgment. Support for the president and defense of the president kinda validates their own closely guarded sense of self worth. Maybe ... . Last week Senator Inhofe said, "I fully realize that the majority of Americans will not believe me. They have continued to believe our president even after he has demonstrated over and over that he has no regard for the truth." Why does he say that? Because the only critical voices are positioned as partisan. Gutless politicians who KNOW and are privately appalled by the conduct of their "leader" maintain the code of silence. They protect and give sustenance to the criminal for fear of being tainted by his crimes. In so doing, they are actually compounding their own crimes. ....Although the news nabobs have been AWOL, the Cox Report and, more recently, the Rudman Report have revealed a data dump of information on how the Clinton administration has eviscerated national security in order to follow its delinquent foreign policies and egocentric domestic political agendas. ...Inhofe notes that "on the one hand, there is the mind-boggling story of how the Clinton administration deliberately changed almost 50 years of bipartisan security policies -- relaxing export restrictions, signing waivers to allow technology transfers, ignoring China's violation of arms control agreements, and its theft of our nuclear secrets, opening up even more nuclear and high technology floodgates to China and others -- thus harming U.S. national security." That decision was Clinton's Rubicon. AND it should have been the red flag (or starting flag) for the media defenders of the indefensible. The deliberate and arrogant policy decision to remove oversight from both the Defense Department and State Department and transfer authority to his Commerce Department bagman SHOULD have fired up ANY alleged newsperson. Even a self-absorbed fraud like Jerry Rivers (a.k.a. Geraldo Rivera) could have smelled the stink of that decision. .....Why does the mainstream ignore prime grist for their mill? Because they can ... for now. However, unless or until the socialist darlings succeed in killing the Bill of Rights, there is a sea change happening. It may seem self-serving to some of you for me to say this, but I am repeating what is becoming a refrain. Talk radio and the Internet is making a difference. The significant, compelling (and damaging) news, which is being routinely and consistently ignored by the mainstream, is finding its way to the American people. The media monopoly is either going to have to fill the vacuum they created, or allow the Internet and talk radio to flourish unchallenged. Ultimately (to the media mavens), money talks and BS walks....Until the mainstream acknowledges their diminishing return is a direct function of lousy news judgment and an abandonment of objectivity, Talk radio, WorldNetDaily, and other online services offering what is ignored by the networks -- will continue to grow...."
Media Research Center CyberAlert 6/28/99 Brent Baker "....Summaries: 1) Clinton admitted at Friday's press conference that he misspoke in denying knowledge of espionage during his term, but only FNC and NBC cared. Not a syllable on ABC, CBS or CNN Friday night. 2) Clinton as victim. A reporter wondered if he's "ever reflected on why, as Mrs. Clinton I think has sometimes noted, throughout your career you've always seemed to generate such antagonism." 3) The New York Times revealed "White House officials were informed that China might have stolen American nuclear secrets nearly a year earlier" than they admitted. Zilch on Sunday night on CBS or ABC which speculated about a Bill Clinton Senate run....
Media Research Center CyberAlert 6/28/99 Brent Baker "....At Clinton's late afternoon press conference on June 25 FNC's Wendell Goler, who asked him back on March 19 about spying during his term, pressed: "Let me ask you once again do you still maintain that you were not told anything about these Chinese efforts to spy at the nation's nuclear labs during your administration?" Clinton answered by stressing how spying by China has been ongoing for twenty years, but then he got to commenting how his March 19 reply: "What I said was that I didn't suspect any actual breaches of security had occurred during my tenure. Since then we have learned of the off-loading of the computer by Mr. Lee, from the secured computers into his personal computer. That's something we know now that I didn't know then. But I think my choice of wording was poor. What I should have said was I did not know of any specific instance of espionage because I think we've been suspicious all along. And I have to acknowledge I think I used a poor word there. We have been suspicious all along generally. We did not have any specific instance as we now do of the off-loading of the computer..." Actually, on March 19 Clinton did not say "that I didn't suspect any actual breaches of national security." He answered: "Can I tell you there has been no espionage at the labs since I've been President? I can tell you that no one has reported to me that they suspect such a thing has occurred." And in response to another question he maintained: "To the best of my knowledge, no one has said anything to me about any espionage which occurred by the Chinese against the labs, during my presidency." ....Now to last Friday. Clinton's grudging admission that he misled the American people as "my choice of wording was poor." In fact, he was again misleading people by suggesting that the "off- loading of the computer" is the only specific instance during his watch. But as Paul Sperry pointed out in the June 9 Investor's Business Daily: "The declassified version of the House [Cox] report identifies 11 cases of Chinese espionage since the late 1970s. Eight took place during President Clinton's years in office....In other words, the vast majority of the leaks over the past 20 years have sprung on Clinton's watch....The House report doesn't disclose the full extent of Chinese espionage in the Clinton years. Citing 'national security' reasons, the White House censored roughly 375 pages, including several recent cases." So, the networks had plenty of angles to pursue Friday night, but they bunted: ABC's John Cochran, CBS's Scott Pelley and CNN's John King all ignored China. FNC's Wendell Goler included Clinton's answer in his Fox Report story and NBC's Claire Shipman gave it 24 seconds in a piece about how "Bill Clinton laid out a bold and ambitious agenda for just 18 months left in office today."
Matt Man Drudge 6/29/99 "...Publishing Row was rocked on Monday after this report webposted snips of a controversial VANITY FAIR expose on Steven Brill -- an expose that was spiked and determined to be too hot for VANITY FAIR readers...... "Mr. Drudge, it is urgent that you immediately return my call... regarding your unauthorized publication," a lawyer for VANITY FAIR demanded on Monday...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/29/99 Vol Four No 115 "..." 1) All but FNC led Monday with the surplus announced by Clinton which Dan Rather credited to the "zooming, booming U.S. economy." Only FNC noted that the Starr/Hubbell plea deal could be bad news for Hillary Clinton since Hubbell admitted "covering up" for her. 2) ABC promoted a UN report: "As increasingly restrictive gun laws are enacted in major industrial countries, gun-makers around the globe are flocking to the biggest and least regulated gun market in the world -- the United States." 3) "China is making final preparations to test fire a new mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that the CIA believes will incorporate stolen U.S. missile and warhead secrets," The Washington Times revealed to network apathy.....Not a word on the Monday morning shows about Sunday's New York Times story on how "Senior White House officials were informed that China might have stolen American nuclear secrets nearly a year earlier than the Clinton administration originally disclosed." ....In Monday's Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz brought fresh warnings about how "China is making final preparations to test fire a new mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that the CIA believes will incorporate stolen U.S. missile and warhead secrets." But that didn't generate any network interest without a syllable about it Monday morning or night on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, nor on FNC which already covered the basic story weeks ago.... Contrast Gertz's revelation with how CBS News assured us there's nothing to worry about. Back on the May 27 CBS Evening News reporter Eric Engberg dismissed the Cox Report as full of exaggerated fears: "As the release of the Cox Report again demonstrated Washington's love of a good spy story, the consensus gelled: Chinese agents have stolen something. But after that many of the report's scary findings are open to question...Maybe when a missiles lands in Los Angeles the networks will decide this might be an important issue to explore instead of dismissing or ignoring. -- Brent Baker "
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/30/99 Vol Four No 116 "...1) ABC and NBC focused on Medicare beneficiaries, not taxpayers. ABC's John Cochran hit the Clinton plan from the left, arguing it doesn't transfer enough money to the recipients. 2) Katie Couric endorsed Clinton's plan: "It sounds like a no- brainer. Seniors spend billions of dollars on prescription drugs every year, often putting them in terrible financial situations." 3) FNC's Carl Cameron surprised the Energy Dept. counter- intelligence chief with information. Cameron also uniquely revealed a probe at Defense for abuse of a whistleblower....."
Washington Times 6/27/99 Jack Kemp "..."Milosevic's capitulation to NATO demands?" "NATO proved right?" My goodness, what delusions are emanating from inside the Washington Beltway; what fabrications are being perpetrated on the American people. The truth of this war is the exact opposite of the establishment's portrayal. It was an unnecessary, and in my opinion illegal and unconstitutional, war from the beginning. It failed on every score to achieve the goals articulated to justify it, exacerbated the very problems it sought to remedy and created new problems that will plague America and the Balkans for years to come. It was, in short, a debacle, an "international Waco," which no amount of "spinning" by NATO and the media can erase. We could have had the same, or perhaps even a better deal at Rambouillet if we had been willing to, in Winston Churchill's words, "jaw jaw instead of war war!" President Clinton, spurred on by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in particular, led NATO to start an unprovoked and unjustified war out of pique because the Yugoslavian government, as would any other sovereign nation, refused to consent to two provisions of the Rambouillet proposal that were insisted on by the Atlantic Alliance: (1) that Belgrade allow a foreign military alliance (NATO) to occupy every square inch of its sovereign territory, billet its forces wherever it desired and receive immunity before the fact against "any claims of any sort" that might arise out of alliance activities (including criminal acts by NATO personnel); and (2) that Belgrade concede to a referendum after three years that would almost certainly have guaranteed independence for Kosovo and thus wrench it out of the Yugoslav Federation. Far from capitulating to these NATO demands, which constituted an unambiguous assault on Yugoslavian sovereignty, Belgrade withstood 79 days of brutal bombing, while the Milosevic government ruthlessly exploited the opportunity to engage in killing and brutality by pillaging and conducting wholesale displacement and deportation of Kosovar Albanians, only a fraction of whom are ever likely to return to their homes. Far from stopping a humanitarian disaster, the NATO bombing provoked one. The Yugoslavian Parliament finally agreed to withdraw most of its troops from Kosovo only after NATO agreed to a peace accord that explicitly reaffirms Yugoslavian sovereignty and conspicuously omits both of the two unacceptable demands from Rambouillet....."
Drudgereport.com/Weiss 6/28/99 "....There was something chillingly vindictive in President Clinton's commentary on the Serbs at last Friday's not-really-a-news-conference in Washington. You couldn't miss it, as he justified his decision to deny assistance to Serbia, whose civilian infrastructure lies shattered by Nato bombing (the Serb military, by contrast, seems to have come through the recent unpleasantness relatively unscathed). Those buckets of money we're shipping overseas even now are strictly off-limits to the people we bombed into compliance. Off-limits, that is, until they say they're sorry. "They are going to have to come to grips with what Milosevic ordered in Kosovo," Mr. Clinton sniped, with that peculiar schoolyard bully's smirk of his (there's something about him that seems to come to life only when he's got someone small and weak on the ropes). Evidently, he's managed to forget that before Nato's bombs began to rain down on Belgrade, most Serbs were growing increasingly hostile to Milosevic..... In one of his weirder flights of rhetoric, Mr. Clinton added that the Serbs are "going to have to decide whether they think it's OK that all those tens of thousands of people were killed, and all those hundreds of thousands of people were run out of their homes and all those little girls were raped and all those little boys were murdered." The head-waggling, glittery self-righteousness of the man was indescribable. It didn't seem to trouble the Beltway journalists gathered reverently at his feet, but it bothered the heck out of me...."
Yaya123 reports 6/29/99 on Rivera "...The biggest hoot of all! Rivera showing Larry Klayman video of Jane Sherbourne's Judicial Watch testimony. Does this mean Rivera respects Klayman? ....Rivera started out big and bold, his overall motive of course, to protect Hillary. His showing White House pal/lawyer Jane, is an obvious attempt to discredit Woodward's account of what Sherbourne told him, as she now wants to deny what she said, through her Klayman testimony. Woodward said he had 150 pages of handwritten notes and tapes to prove that his account of what Sherbourne told him was accurate, and her lawyers won't let him release it. He plainly said, Sherbourne is lying in her Klayman testimony and he can prove it. Rivera said, "I hang around with Bob Bennett, we go to boxing matches together, I know he's smart, too smart to breach lawyer client privilege. Then Rivera starts reading the famous quote, and represents it as a private conversation between the president and Bennett. Woodward immediately corrects him by saying, "this is another time when you aren't careful, read on further, you will see this is a conversation between Bennett and Kantor, not Bennett and Clinton. (The quote is when Bennett says, No one is going to believe this crap about it not being sex.) I swear to goodness, Rivera seems to shrink before the camera as time and time again Woodward catches him in intentional misrepresentations of the truth...."
Geraldo Live Jim Lakely 6/29/99 "...Geraldo told Woodward that he doubted that he could have gotten all that inside skinny without breaking the attorney client privledge between Clinton and Bob Bennett. Woodward assured him that he did not - that he was able to get that information by talking to people (like Mickey Cantor) who were privvy to that intimate information but were not serving as Clinton's lawyer. When Geraldo still voiced his doubts, this script followed Woodward: "[This book] is so carefully reported that you wouldn't recognize it." Geraldo: "I'm not sure I understand that [comment]." Lemme give you a hint, Geraldo. It has something to do with the fact that it is well known, especially around the fraternity of REAL reporters in Washington, that you wouldn't know good reporting if it dropped in front of your face and started to wiggle. Of course, Geraldo is too stupid (and egotistical) to have comprehended this subtle but stinging dig..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 6/30/99 Vol Four No 116 "...Maybe the Energy Department should hire FNC's Carl Cameron. Tuesday night he showed how he knew about testimony from a counter-intelligence agent that the agent's boss, the Energy Department's counter-intelligence chief, wasn't even aware of. And Cameron added unique TV play for a story on the wires Tuesday and in the Washington Times Wednesday about how a Defense official was transferred pending the outcome of a probe about how the supervisor improperly tried to access the computer files of a whistleblower testifying at that moment on Capitol Hill. In a piece featured on both Special Report with Brit Hume and the Fox Report, Cameron revealed what went on behind the scenes at a House Government Reform Committee hearing last week: "Inadvertently on Capitol Hill last week several lawmakers at a closed door meeting found themselves hearing new allegations of security breaches at Energy Department nuclear labs. Democrats and Republicans say the secret testimony of Energy Department counter-intelligence agent Bob Hensen (sp?) caught them completely off-guard. Lawmakers are mum on the classified details which sources say involve weapons labs, like Los Alamos, over the last five years and may have been part of China's nuclear espionage. "The Energy Department's top spy catcher, who admits security cannot be guaranteed, said he was unaware of his agent's testimony until Fox News told him." Ed Curran: "I'm surprised at your comment. As director of counter-intelligence I think I have a responsibility to know what was said in closed hearings. I have not been informed of Mr. Hensen's comments to anybody concerning security breaches in the past. I would certainly be more than interested in finding out though." Cameron went on to explain that when House members realized what Hansen would disclose he was removed from a panel of officials testifying about reprisals for their efforts to expose security shortcomings and stop dangerous technology transfers. This was the June 24 hearing that all but FNC ignored...."
USA Today 7/2/99 Tony Mauro "...On the eve of the Fourth of July weekend, a new nationwide opinion poll shows a sharp erosion of public support for press freedom and an unchanged level of enthusiasm for outlawing desecration of the American flag. The poll, set for release Friday by the Freedom Forum, a pro-First Amendment foundation, indicates that 53% of respondents think the press has too much freedom in this country, up from 38% in 1997. Seventy-four percent of respondents think people should not be allowed to burn the American flag..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7/1/99 Vol Four No 177 "...The national media in Washington don't care, but an Alabama editorial writer is out in front on the fresh revelations of an Energy agent: "Whistleblower's Tale May Detail Another Spy Case."....In a column in Wednesday's (June 30) Mobile Register,"Whistleblower's Tale May Detail Another Spy Case," Hillyer outlined what happened in Washington, DC last week, which all the DC electronic media but FNC have skipped, and what it might mean: The more Bobby Henson talked, the more his interviewers blanched. Should we get ready for the next spy scandal? Bobby Henson is the twice-fired nuclear physicist who first alerted his boss, Notra Trulock, to possible espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. Trulock, in turn, alerted the world. On June 18 The Wall Street Journal ran a 1,100 word story about how Henson had finally gotten his job back, courtesy of publicity about the spying he had so bravely identified. Five days later, members and staff of the House Committee on Government Reform were debriefing Henson about testimony he would give the next day. He was a scheduled witness in the committee's hearing about federal whistleblowers who had been punished, rather than praised, for their efforts. By the time he was finished, the whole scenario had changed. It seems he had more to talk about than mere mistreatment at his job. The next day, the hearing began as planned, with four other federal workers telling of being harassed or demoted for trying to wan about national security lapses. But when Henson's turn arrived, the hearing suddenly became classified. It was moved to a secure room where reporters were disallowed, as were any staff ithout the highest security clearance. What Henson had started to say the night before involved yet more security breaches, reportedly by the Chinese and the Russians. The committee followed up with another classified meeting on Monday. This could be big...." Interrupt Excerpt Indeed it could, but you'll probably have to order a subscription by mail to the Mobile Register or watch Fox NewsChannel to hear any more about it...."
Washington Post 7/1/99 William B Ruger Sr. "...When was the last time the media portrayed the responsible use of recreational firearms? You wouldn't know it from reading the newspaper or watching television, but according to the National Safety Council, the firearms accident rate has declined 20 percent during the past decade, plummeting to a 90-year low. In 1998, only one percent of accidental deaths were attributable to firearms accidents. There is a subconscious anti-gun bias on the part of major media. Certainly, our society has changed since I founded Sturm, Ruger & Co, but I can assure you that my reaction to a "gang-banger" on the news is precisely the same as that of every law-abiding American -- profound outrage. The antisocial elements of our society seem to hold the rest of us hostage. The media constantly portray carnage and gore, often in agonizingly slow motion, for no discernible reason. The same goes for incredibly violent video games that some young people play for hours on end. Such portrayals have their staunch defenders, but as a firearms manufacturer, I would implore them to stop using violence to make a killing. Let's not pretend it's anything else. The incessant desensitizing of our young people to mindless violence is beyond measure and beyond comprehension...."
NY Daily News Richard Huff 8/1/98 "The same month that CNN was forced to apologize for a controversial report that claimed the U.S. military used nerve gas on American defectors during the Vietnam War its audience tumbled 13 percent in prime time, according to Nielsen's cable figures for July. Indeed, CNN and its sister service Headline News were the only news networks on cable to decline in audience when compared to last July.While CNN remains the largest of the cable news networks, its declines stand in stark contrast to the increases posted by such channels as MSNBC, CNBC and Fox News Channel.In July, CNBC's prime-time audience grew 57 percent to 376,000 homes, MSNBC was up 144 percent to 134,000 homes and FNC was up 250 percent to 70,000 homes."
WorldNetDaily 7/7/99 Jon Dougherty "…after last Sunday's hit piece in the Los Angeles Times against GOP frontrunner and Texas Governor George W. Bush, I feel compelled to defend him against what I view as a quintessential example of just how frightened, hypocritical and biased the liberal media really is. The article openly questioned Mr. Bush's military service record during the Vietnam War, suggesting that because of who he was -- the son of former President George Bush, a Republican representative in Washington from Texas at the time -- he somehow received preferential treatment to become a Texas Air Guard fighter pilot….. First, the Times' treatment of the controversy surrounding President Clinton's shameful dodging of the draft at the time Bush was climbing the ranks bordered on insanity. The Times wrote, "In 1969, Arkansas Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton offered to join a Reserve Officers Training Corps program, even though he had received an induction notice that made him ineligible to do so. His draft maneuvers got him a deferral but brought him harsh criticism when they were revealed during his 1992 run for president." Oh, please. Not only is this obvious fluff but it is factually wrong. Clinton never completed his Rhodes scholarship, he repeatedly lied to his Draft Board to make sure he never had to serve one day in the military, let alone Vietnam, and he broke his promise to return for ROTC training (he just never showed up). In addition, he eventually wrote his board a scathing letter in which he whined about being eligible for the draft and spoke of his "loathing" of the military in general. In short, Clinton never intended to spend a day in a military uniform and, as has been his trademark throughout his political career, sought only to delay and thus defer his obligation -- which he did. While there is no evidence to suggest that either Bush or Clinton were going to be drafted at all, clearly there is a difference between a man who volunteers for any service during a war and a man who lies, cheats, and bashes in order to usurp his obligation. To me that contrast is stark and manifest…."
WorldNetDaily 7/7/99 Jon Dougherty "…What is ironic is that throughout the report the Times repeatedly said that no enlistment or promotion rules had been violated and no established procedures were broken in order to give the junior Bush his spot. That in and of itself should lead any rational person to ask, "Why is this worthy of the front page, and where's the story here?" The answer is there simply is no story. The mainstream liberal press is just scared to death of losing the White House in 2000 and, to be fair, after eight years of Bill and Hillary Clinton they ought to be worried. Even if Bush did receive special treatment to get in the Guard, it is obvious he worked hard to make his appointment worthwhile, that he sought to fly jets in combat over Vietnam, and that he served the nation's military with honor and distinction. Clinton, on the other hand, has never served any office he has held with honor and distinction. His denigration of the office of the presidency is the stuff legends are made of and, barring revisionism, will be remembered as the most corrupt administration in U.S. history…."
WorldNetDaily 7/7/99 Jon Dougherty "…The blatant irony and hypocrisy behind the Times' motive, however, didn't even register with the editorial staff. It was just a few years ago when they and most of the other establishment liberal press were admonishing Americans for making such a big deal out of Clinton's lack of military service. In fact back then, it wasn't supposed to matter even that Clinton lied repeatedly to avoid the draft and avoid military service altogether…"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jul1999/kos-j06_prn.shtml 7/6/99 Barry Grey "…In recent days scattered reports have emerged in the American media of the inflated and misleading character of claims by US officials of Serb atrocities against the Kosovan Albanians. On June 28 the Detroit Free Press carried an article by foreign correspondent Lori Montgomery, datelined Prizren, which bore the headline, "Rapes not a policy in Kosovo: Assaults were individual acts by Serbs, evidence indicates." ….That evening NBC Nightly News carried a segment by foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell on the same theme. Mitchell characterized the war-time reports of Kosovan deaths as a "gross exaggeration" and said officials now estimate the civilian death toll in Kosovo since the onset of NATO bombing last March 24 to be between 3,000 and 6,000. These reports have been simply ignored by the "newspapers of record"—the New York Times and the Washington Post—which enthusiastically backed the bombing of Yugoslavia and retailed the government claims of mass murder, rape and genocide that were used to justify the war and manipulate public opinion….. Within days of the onset of NATO bombing, Clinton described the ensuing Serb attack as an attempt to wipe out the Kosovan Albanian population. In a radio address from the Oval Office on April 3 he said the "cold clear goal" of Milosovic was to "keep Kosovo's land while ridding it of its people." Twelve days later he told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that Milosovic was "determined to crush all resistance to his rule even if it means turning Kosovo into a lifeless wasteland." On May 5, in a speech at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, he added to the list of Serb crimes the setting up of concentration camps, something that never occurred. In a Memorial Day address on May 31 he compared Milosevic to Hitler, saying his government "like that of Nazi Germany rose to power in part by getting people to look down on people of a given race and ethnicity, and to believe they had... no right to live." On June 11, on the eve of the deployment of NATO troops into Kosovo, Clinton described the actions of the Serbs as "an attempt to erase the very presence of a people from their land, and to get rid of them dead or alive." Since the withdrawal of Serb forces, Clinton's rhetoric has become, if anything, more unrestrained. Even as NATO was quietly lowering its estimates of ethnic Albanian deaths, Clinton repeatedly said the evidence of death and destruction in Kosovo was "even worse than we imagined." In a June 20 interview on Russian television he said, "We were only trying to reverse ethnic cleansing and genocide." Two days later, in a speech to KFOR troops in Macedonia, he spoke of "young girls [being] raped en masse." …"
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7/13/99 Vol Four No 122 "…3) PBS's NewsHour on Monday night assessed the three cable news networks and discovered bias at just one. You guessed it: the Fox News Channel, which CNN founding CEO Reese Schonfeld maintained, wants "to be the most furthest to the right." Fox's Washington Managing Editor Brit Hume did get a chance to suggest they only look conservative because the other networks are to the left, but Schonfeld assured viewers neither MSNBC or CNN display any ideological bias…..Hume: "We're probably noticeably in our coverage to the right of the other news organizations which puts us, I think, right smack dab in the center."….As noted in the July 6 CyberAlert, in the second quarter of this year CNN captured 812,000 prime time viewers, MSNBC 285,000 and FNC 254,000. But, as Terence Smith pointed out in his NewsHour piece cited in item #3 today above, CNN is 75 million households while MSNBC is available in 49 million and FNC in 41 million, or 17 percent fewer homes than MSNBC. Take 254,000 and add 17 percent and you get 298,000, or 13,000 more viewers than watch MSNBC and a more accurate estimate of how many would watch FNC if as many could as can choose MSNBC…."
The Washington Weekly 7/12/99 Jerome Zeifman "…"Shadow," the title of Bob Woodward's newest book, is reminiscent of a radio thriller of yesteryear that opened with "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The shadow knows!" ….Shadow also unveils secrets of such other high priced lawyers as Sam Dash, David Kendall, Charles Ruff, Kenneth Starr, John Podesta, Lanny Davis, and Bernie Nussbaum. Many leaks are apparently violations of existing laws that shield confidences and work products of attorneys. Assuming that Woodward didn't get these verbatim quotes from electronic flies on White House walls, we can believe Woodward's own explanation: The interviews in the Clinton sections were conducted on journalistic ground rules of "background" or "deep background," meaning the information could be used, but the sources of the information would not be identified….. In 1998, again on a government payroll, Dash also became a leaker. As an "ethics consultant" to Ken Starr he apparently betrayed his client's confidences. He told the New Yorker that Starr's private practice "smells." Presumably, he is also a primary source for Shadow….. After reading Shadow it seems to me that a tinge of evil may lurk in Woodward's heart -- and that he is really an apologist for Clinton. In short, Shadow's main point is "other presidents have done it too." Similarly, the Washington Post (which was opposed to impeachment) reminded its readers that Thomas Jefferson (a widower) enjoyed sex with a young slave woman, who also served as his daughter's nanny….. Woodward's new best seller reveals that (like Nixon) all five of our post-Watergate presidents have been less than truthful about their own scandals. Yet Shadow veils a naked truth: No prior president, not even Nixon, is known to have embraced the evil of perjury. In reflecting further on Woodward's apology for Clinton, it also seems to me that Congress and the courts should reaffirm the rule of law both for presidents and the media….."
The New Australian 7/5/99 James Henry "…Something like 2,000 combat aircraft plus more than 232 bombers which comprised 20 air force and navy air wings have been abolished. Also gone are 207 ships including more than 121 combat ships plus of submarines and 4 carrier groups . The loss of these ships also meant that their shipyard facilities and the trained personnel needed to maintain them have been disbanded. The damage (or is it sabotage?) to the army and the nation's nuclear inventory has been equally devastating. … The US is making the same mistake today, but for different reasons. These men of the '20s and '30s were misguided idealists who literally did not grasp the nature of the totalitarian threat that was gradually taking shape in Europe and Japan. They really thought their actions were contributing to world peace and avoid another "Great War". They did not loathe their countries or despise their military. Clinton and his crew, however, are the exact opposite. They do not care a fig about their country and they loath the military. Their basic concern is their own selfish ends. If that puts at risk the security of the United States, so be it. Living in clover is all that the likes of Clinton care about. To this crowd, better to be a pampered Quisling than a patriotic sap….. But what brought them to this anti-patriotic state? Nearly forty years of 'progressive'1 ideology that left in its wake the insidious belief that America is an unjust society that does not deserve to survive. A belief that pervades the media and the three main networks in particular. Remember: 89 per cent of Washington journalists voted for Clinton and everything he stands for, including the destruction of our military….."
Washington Weekly 7/12/99 Marvin Lee "...CNN and the television networks provided the popular justification for the war in Kosovo. Without the incessant repetition of images and reports of "ethnic cleansing" -- a carefully selected hot-button device -- the American people would have seen no reason to support such a war. The Clinton administration used the television images as justification for its intervention. And during the war, CNN and the networks uncritically broadcast the deceptive war propaganda written in government offices. After the war, CNN and the networks portrayed what had been a failure as a success. But there is now suspicion that CNN may have gone beyond its usual role of propaganda outlet for the Clinton administration. It may actually have been involved in a plot to assassinate a Serbian official. CNN was given advance notice of the NATO bombing of the Serb Television station it was using for transmissions. CNN removed its staff but did, of course, not alert its Serbian hosts, some of whom perished in the ensuing attack aimed at censoring the "biased" reporting of the Serbian TV. But CNN did more than stay silent. According to the British Independent newspaper, Serbian Information Minister Aleksander Vucic received a faxed invitation from the Larry King Live show. He was asked to appear at the Serb Television station an hour early for makeup. The bombs hit about an hour before the Larry King show aired, but fortunately, or unfortunately, Minister Vucic was late and escaped assassination. CNN has offered as an excuse that the entertainment division had no idea what the news division was doing...."
WorldNetDaily 7/9/99 Larry Klayman "…The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce, a 331-page manifesto and brainchild of Associate White House Counsel Jane Sherburne and the DNC, was circulated to select reporters in a tortured effort to describe how the "right wing" conveyed "fringe" stories into mainstream American media. In essence, this document was an effort to "alert" friendly journalists that such a "conspiracy" was being promulgated by certain groups dissatisfied with the moral lapses of the Clinton White House. In short, it was an enemies list. …In December 1994, Associate White House Counsel Sherburne prepared a memorandum that outlined strategies to use against individuals and organizations perceived to be adversaries of the Clinton Administration. The memo also assigned staff members to carry out these strategies -- and specifically identified the Western Journalism Center for having investigated Foster's death. WJC was the only news organization targeted for action. ….Over the course of the investigation of WJC, nearly 20 conservative organizations -- including the Heritage Foundation, NRA and Citizens Against Government Waste -- felt the close, touch of the Clinton audit machine. Even more oddly, the media who knew of the Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce never saw any pattern developing that would signify an orchestrated White House effort -- much less actually troubled themselves to report it. Meanwhile, the WJC's offices were being broken into, with, mysteriously, nothing stolen. Their phone messages were apparently being monitored, and some of these developments happened to coincide with WJC breakthroughs in Clinton investigations. The scrutiny of the WJC by the IRS lasted nine months. WJC employees lost their jobs and livelihoods. Finally, in October 1996, Farah exposed these corrupt practices in a piece in The Wall Street Journal, and the tide began to turn. Margaret Milner-Richardson, IRS commissioner and close friend of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, abruptly resigned. The New York Post attributed her departure to political audits of conservative organizations. Some began to probe these rampant abuses, and the audit of the Western Journalism Center was "concluded" -- a verdict of "no wrongdoing" rendered in May 1997. Under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights enacted by Congress, Farah requested his case file from the IRS so he could review its contents. In keeping with the Clinton Administration standard practice, these rights were trampled in a terse refusal to turn over the documents -- the IRS frivolously citing "government privilege" as a means of keeping Mr. Farah from seeing justification for what had nearly bankrupted his organization…."
Boston Globe 7/15/99 Anne Kornbluth "…WGBH-TV, Boston's publicly funded station, has been swapping names of contributors with the Democratic Party since 1994, a party official said yesterday, handing over a total of more than 32,000 names despite clear prohibitions against tax-exempt groups engaging in political acts …. Republican House members yesterday called for a criminal investigation of the station after learning of a single account of name-swapping between WGBH and Democrats this year. An official at WGBH initially downplayed the incident, saying it was a onetime mistake committed by new employees who did not understand the rules. But last night, Jenny Backus, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said the party has been sharing donor information with the public television station for years and to a much greater extent than WGBH officials had admitted….When the Democratic Party began compiling a mailing list last February, the official in charge of the procedure - known as the ''list broker'' - approached 123 organizations. Of those, 62 groups agreed to share lists. WGBH was among them - giving an additional 20,000 names in exchange for the names of 9,800 Democratic donors, plus the station received a financial payment for the equivalent of another 10,200 names. Backus did not know last night how much the DNC paid the station…."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES 7/16/99 Barbara Saffir "…The Democratic National Committee has swapped donor lists with Washington's television station WETA and other tax-funded public broadcasting television stations for many years, The Washington Times has learned. "Our policy has been in effect for at least 20 years," said WETA spokesman Mary Stewart. "It has not been a problem for us." But it may be one now. Swapping the lists may be against the law, and one prominent Republican congressman, who has been a friend of the Public Broadcasting Service, says if it isn't against the law it may be soon…."
New York Post 7/16/99 Editorial "…
Media Research Center 7/16/99 Brent Bozell "…PBS station executives aren't any more accurate in their statements than Bill Clinton, as the Boston Globe has discovered. Despite initial denials, it turns out that several top PBS stations have exchanged or rented Democratic Party donor lists in order to solicit funds. But that seemed to disappoint Globe reporter Anne Kornblut because it puts ever soaring PBS funding in
jeopardy…."
AP Melissa Robinson 7/16/99 "…More public television stations may have been sharing donor lists with political parties through list brokers, says a spokesman for a congressman who has called a hearing on the issue for next week. …. Johnson said documents indicate that public television stations KQED in San Francisco and KCET in Los Angeles and public radio station WNYC in New York have provided their donor lists to brokers who, in turn, may have provided them to the Democratic Party or other political organizations….Already, three other television stations, WGBH-TV in Boston, WNET in New York and WETA in Washington, D.C., are under scrutiny…."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram 7/17/99 Veronica Puente "…"We dont now and we won't in the future rent or exchange lists with a partisan or political campaign committees", said Sharon Philippart, vice president of corporate communications for PBS station KERA/Channel 13 in Dallas. Philippart said station officials adopted the new policy May 18 after WGBH-TV in Boston came under fire for swapping lists with the Democratic National Committee. "We determined at that time, from that day forward, we would not rent or exchange lists," she said. "However, in the past, we have exchanged and purchased lists with the Democratic National Committee."…"
LA Times 7/17/99 Alexis Chiu, AP "…The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has asked its inspector general to investigate whether WGBH-TV in Boston broke the law by swapping the names of donors with the Democratic Party. The CPB, which distributes federal funds for public broadcasting to stations and groups such as National Public Radio and PBS, also will begin asking stations it finances to certify that they are complying with IRS regulations, said Robert Coonrod, the corporation's president. Even though sharing membership lists is a legitimate business practice done on a daily basis by countless organizations, federal tax laws prohibit public stations from sharing their lists with political organizations or candidates unless they are "available to all other candidates."…"
Boston Globe 7/17/99 Henry P Becton, Jr. President of WGBH since 1984 "…For almost 50 years, WGBH has built a legacy of public trust with audiences here in New England and across the United States. Nothing is more important to us than that trust - and now, repairing the damage done to it by WGBH's own mistakes…. In 1994, WGBH put in place a donor list policy that prohibited us from sharing our donor names with political groups - a voluntary policy that exceeded industry standards. This spring, to our dismay, we learned that some names of our valued contributors had, in fact, been shared with the Democratic National Committee, in clear violation of our policy. As soon as we learned of this transgression, we checked our records of the last two years to be sure that it was a solitary action. We now know we did not check back far enough. And that led some press reports to assume we were being misleading, when in fact we were operating on incomplete information…."
Creators Syndicate 7/15/99 L. Brent Bozell III "..WGBH is not just Boston's PBS affiliate. It is a massive commercial enterprise, a flagship of the nation's public broadcasting system. Conservatives know them best for putting out "Frontline," a liberal-tilting documentary series. But they've always denied carrying water for liberal Democrats. So when reporters discovered that WGBH was swapping direct-mail fundraising lists with the Democratic National Committee, it shredded the veil of the station's nonpartisan stance….."
Newsmax.com 7/15/99 Carl Limbacher "…It suprises no one to learn that political sympathies at the taxpayer funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting lean heavily towards the Democrats. Fifteen minutes viewing PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" makes that amply clear. But news that WGBH in Boston, one of PBS's flagship television outlets, has been sharing its donor lists with the Democratic party does more than confirm old stereotypes about journalism's liberal bias. In fact, this could be perhaps the biggest media scandal of all time. ….Think of it. We now know that at least some of those public TV beg-a-thons may have been little more than televised White House coffees…"
Newsmax.com 7/15/99 Carl Limbacher "…How did WGBH allow itself to become the Democrat's taxpayer funded boiler room operation? As Michael Dukakis, one of Boston's own, used to say--the fish stinks from the head down. In this case the fishhead in question may turn out to be Diane Blair. Diane Blair is a former political science professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. But the credential that won her a six year appointment to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a friendship with both Clintons that goes back to the '70s. Diane Blair worked as a senior campaign researcher for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential bid and became a senior advisor for the 1996 re-election effort. In September 1997 Blair herself was elected unanimously by CPB's nine member governing board to serve a one year term as its president….. Jim Blair was counsel to Tyson Foods during Clinton's governorship and as such he was in a unique position to guide Arkansas' first lady through the treacherous world of commodity investing. Blair hooked Hillary up with suspect commodities broker Red Bone and within months the miracle of the cattle futures began to unfold. In December 1992 Blair "loaned" a destitute Jim McDougal $1,000 so McDougal could pretend to buy the Clintons out of their Whitewater investment. McDougal would later tell reporters that the Tyson attorney used threats to keep him quiet about Clinton misdeeds. It was also Jim Blair who in 1994 warned the Clintons that Webb Hubbell's criminality would soon become apparent and that they should distance themselves from their old buddy before the cash their Chinese friends had been shoveling Hubbell's way began to look too much like hush money…"
Toronto Sun 7/18/99 Lorri Goldstein "...One of the problems with selective outrage against immorality is that it is immoral in and of itself. Ever since NATO's victory in Yugoslavia, we have been witnessing one of the most sustained examples of selective moral outrage and demonization of a people ever recorded in the modern era. Day after day after day after day the media are filled with stories of Serbian atrocities that left an estimated 10,000 innocent Kosovar Albanians dead - down from allegations during the war by NATO officials and U.S. President Bill Clinton that more than 100,000 had in fact been killed..... - Refugees? World-wide there are, conservatively, an estimated 13.5 million people who fit the definition of someone in genuine need of protection and/or assistance, excluding those who have been permanently resettled elsewhere. Meanwhile, the hundreds of civilians killed by NATO bombs during the 78-day air war and an estimated 100,000 Serbian (and Gypsy) refugees fleeing Kosovo in fear of retaliation by returning ethnic Albanians, are treated as a footnote to this ongoing human disaster, barely worthy of mention. But given our record of indifference to human suffering, often on a far greater scale than what occurred in Kosovo, the true motives behind our "humanitarian" bombing of Yugoslavia require scrutiny.... Whatever the motives, could we at least tone down the self-righteous chest-pounding over Yugoslavia, given that the atrocities we said we wanted to stop only began in earnest after NATO began bombing in what up to then had been a civil war, where there were atrocities on both sides. As it is, our selective moral outrage is exposing our own hypocrisy...."
Associated Press Writer 7/19/99 Anne Pandolfi "...Television news was less critical of President Clinton during the Kosovo campaign than of predecessor George Bush during the Gulf War, according to a study. Six in 10 on-air comments on the Kosovo air campaign contained praise for Clinton's efforts, said the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonpartisan research organization that has analyzed television, print, and radio coverage for more than 10 years...."
Accuracy In Media 7/19/99 Joseph Goulden "...How much store should Americans put in the media's protestations that political bias has nothing to do with what comes out of newsrooms?. ....
Accuracy In Media 7/19/99 Joseph Goulden "...Richard Harwood, former assistant managing editor and ombudsman, The Washington Post, Op Ed column, 28 October 1990: "You are not 'entitled' to a letter to the editor,to an op-ed piece or even to a paid advertisement; if we don't like it, we don't print it. to ask for 'equal time' on the evening news or in the morning newspaper is, very often, to bay at the moon. You have no 'right' to fair treatment, no 'right' to be quoted accurately or in context or even quoted at all in news reports, broadcasts, or commentaries....If your reputation is soiled in a front-page story under a four-column hadline, it is most unlikely to be cleansed in the same spot (if it is cleansed at all)."
Accuracy In Media 7/19/99 Joseph Goulden "...Evan Thomas, Washington bureau chief, Newsweek Magazine, on Inside Washington, 11 May 1996: Commenting on Speaker Newt Gingrich's charge that the media are biased,, Thomas stated, "This is true. There is liberal bias. About 85 percent of the reporters who cover the White House vote Democratic. They have for a long time. Particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editors and the so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias. There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for." ..."
SF Chronicle 7/17/99 Jonathan Curiel "...KQED-TV found itself in the middle of a growing political storm yesterday when it revealed that its donor lists have been used by California Senator Barbara Boxer and the Democratic National Committee. The disclosure added to the anger of some Republican lawmakers who have been investigating the practice of ``list brokering'' by public television stations...."
7/20/99 Barbara J. Saffir THE WASHINGTON TIMES "...Public television and radio stations have swapped their membership lists with groups that support abortion, gun control and other politically charged causes.
Handgun Control Inc., Planned Parenthood and Zero Population Growth are among the many advocacy groups that traded lists with the stations, interviews with officials and documents obtained by The Washington Times show. Public broadcasting executives may be called upon to address the troubling topic today when they testify at an emergency meeting before a House Commerce subcommittee.... The records also indicate that several stations have traded donor lists with groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, Legal Aid Society of San Mateo, the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund...."
Reuters 7/20/99 "…"The idea of a public broadcasting stations cozying up to a political party — any political party — in America is outrageous,'' said subcommittee chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican. He said the scandal had undermined public faith in PBS, had tarnished the public broadcast system and was a "crime, a sin, a shame.'' "We're going to make this illegal before we are through,'' he added…."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES 7/21/99 Barbara Saffir "...The president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting acknowledged yesterday that as many as 30 of the nation's 75 largest public television stations traded donor lists with the Democratic National Committee but said none will be punished for doing it. Robert Coonrod also told members at an emergency hearing of the House Commerce Committee's telecommunications, trade and consumer protection subcommittee that stations swapped lists with seven little-known Republican groups, which one lifelong GOP member said she had never heard of before..... "If a station makes donor lists available to a political party, that is wrong -- however, it is not illegal," Mr. Coonrod said, although he acknowledged that he is "neither an attorney nor an expert in the IRS code."....The independently owned stations set their own policies, but Mr. Coonrod said he plans to withhold funding from those that fail to comply with Internal Revenue Service regulations. The IRS generally bans the tax-exempt nonprofit stations from political activity except in extremely limited circumstances. Lawmakers have threatened to cut federal funding for public broadcasting if the CPB does not find a way to halt the political trades. They do not plan to block list swaps with groups such as Planned Parenthood and Handgun Control Inc. About 15 percent of public broadcasting funds come from the federal government, which the CPB distributes to the stations via the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). ..."
AP 7/21/99 Melissa Robinson "...Testifying at a politically charged congressional hearing, Robert Coonrod, the corporation's president, said a recent survey found that 53 of 75 television stations in large markets used third-party brokers to exchange membership lists with other nonprofit organizations. Of those, he said, fewer than 30 stations appear to have exchanged names with political organizations aligned with either the Democratic or Republican parties..... In addition to the stations that exchanged membership information, about 30 also received lists from political organizations.. ."
The Union Leader. Manchester, NH 7/22/99 Angela Baggetta "...A report in yesterday's Boston Globe stating that New Hampshire Public Television swapped donor lists with those held by Republican party organizations is inaacurate, national and local public television officials said yesterday. .... On a national level, the CPB's Inspector General is undertaking an examination of the list policies of every public broadcasting station in the country, CPN Vice President for Television Operations Coug Weiss said yesterday. Approximately 1,000 stations across the country will be involved in the study, and a report on the Inspector General's findings should be back with the House Commerce subcommittee in 30 days, he said. According to Weiss, "there isn't any list-swapping going on. Stations do not call up a political organization and say 'hey, wanna swap lists?'"..... "
WorldNet Daily 7/22/99 Jeff Jacoby "...PRESS REPORTS AND THE TONGUE-LASHINGS of assorted politicians notwithstanding, WGBH didn't do anything wrong. Neither did WNET, WETA, or KQED. The public-television giants in Boston, New York, Washington, and San Francisco have been catching all kinds of hell in the wake of reports that they swapped direct-mail fund-raising lists with political organizations. All four stations have traded names with the Democratic National Committee; at WETA the practice has been going on for at least twenty years. More than just these stations are involved. On Tuesday, the chief of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting estimated that 30 others have obtained names from political groups. No one has compiled a definitive list of the ideological organizations with which the stations have exchanged donor information, but it seems safe to assume that it's a long one. KQED has acknowledged swapping data with Handgun Control Inc. and Planned Parenthood. In 1997 it leased its lists to the campaign of California Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat. Other politicians and other stations have made similar deals. New Hampshire public television, for example, shared names with Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign.... What Republicans-and Democrats-ought to be talking about is not whether sharing lists of contributors is incompatible with the subsidy that PBS gets from the government, but whether any justification exists to preserve that subsidy. Once a welfare recipient gets a job and can support herself, she goes off the dole. Taxpayers spend $350 million a year on what amounts to welfare for public broadcasting. If, after all these years, public TV has developed the savvy to raise the money it needs from willing donors, customers, and underwriters, shouldn't it, too, go off the dole? ..."
World Net Daily 7/21/99 Jerome Zeifman "...There are some who look forward to economic superiority through the establishment of a world order led by NATO and the United Nations. They would do well to heed a warning given by Edmund Burke in the 18th century. Although supporting the ascendancy of a British empire on which the sun would never set, he argued that the people of Ireland, the American colonies, and India had God-given rights that neither King George nor Parliament could destroy. As the founder of modern conservatism, Burke warned English mercantilists that economic control of the colonies could not be maintained "by the might of armies, but by the majesty of the law."..... The grandeur of justice is being replaced by the glamour of the main stream media -- with moral judgments determined by public opinion polls...."
The New American 8/2/99 Admiral Thomas Moorer (USN Ret) 7/23/99 "...The United States appears to be sleep-walking on a course to sure destruction, and America's leaders, who have plotted this course, appear to be completely oblivious to the mortal danger they are leading us into. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the imminent giveaway of the U.S. Canal in Panama. In just a few months, unless the American people raise a terrific outcry, this strategic waterway, so vital to our economy and national security, will be turned over to Panama.... In reality, if we allow this suicidal course to continue, we will be transferring our strategic canal not to Panama, but to whichever power moves in to fill the vacuum. And there is no longer any cause to wonder which power that will be. Over the past several years, the People's Republic of China has made unmistakably clear its designs upon the Panama Canal. In fact, it has already moved in and begun to take control of this critically important asset.......it is one of the great untold stories that have been completely ignored by our news media. If we proceed along our present course, by the end of this year, on December 31st, Communist China will become the de facto new owners and rulers of the Panama Canal...."
Washington Weekly 7/26/99 Marvin Lee "…Recent weeks have yielded unambiguous evidence of crime and abuse of power in the White House. Yet nobody seems to care. First, Judicial Watch unearthed a Treasury report that reveals that the White House orchestrated a politically motivated IRS audit of its client, the Western Journalism Center….. Second is the July 9 testimony by Johnny Chung that his $50,000 donation to Hillary Clinton at the White House was in return for a "wish list" and was directly solicited by aides of the First Lady to repay debts she had at the DNC. Among the items on the "wish list," or quid pro quo, was a visit to the White House Mess -- a wish that was immediately granted. When one of the requests of the wish list, a meeting with the President, was not immediately granted, Mr. Chung complained and he received the goods he had paid for. There cannot be any more obvious evidence of a quid pro quo than that. This is a clear violation of several statutes -- including prohibitions against taking bribes at the White House -- and a selling of tickets to the White House Mess, which is funded by taxpayers…."
Washington Weekly 7/26/99 Marvin Lee "…Most troubling of all are the at least four groups monitored by the FBI in their attempt to physically harm Johnny Chung or his family at the time he was a witness against the President and the DNC. Two of the groups where from China and it is reasonable to assume that they were sent by Chinese intelligence. But one incident involved an Italian-American. Now, if he wasn't sent by the Chinese, then who could have sent him? What U.S. interest could have wanted this witness silent? Perhaps the answer lies in Chung's testimony that the day after the FBI traced the license plate of the Italian-American, the Justice Department removed the FBI from the protection of Chung as a witness. And one of the Chinese agents relaying threats to Chung, Robert Luu, claimed that he was close to the "number three man" at the Justice Department….Johnny Chung in his testimony to Judicial Watch also relayed how he sensed that government investigators had no interest in the evidence of crime that he gave them. It is obvious that we would not have reached the current state of lawlessness had it not been for the active cooperation of the Department of Justice and the mainstream media…."
The Hindustan Times 7/26/99 Francois Gautier "…Bernard Imhasly in his piece Role of foreign correspondents, disagrees with me because I have written that most of the foreign correspondents´ interest in India is generally for "the macabre and the negative, the folklore, the superfluous, and the politically correct". I stand by that statement! And I am surprised that he says: "Although it is true that much of (foreign) reporting on India is negative, India is hardly alone in being singled out by journalists!" Because the truth is that when it comes to Europe or the US, Western journalists become singularly tolerant. Look at Kosovo for instance: the bias of the Western media for NATO was so blatant -- that at moments it became laughable! ….Unfortunately, journalists are playing one of the most dangerous roles at the end of the 20th century. We do not report on news, we make them. We even fabricate them when there is nothing to report about. We manipulate world opinion: When the West has a certain bias -- say against the Serbs -- powerful media like the BBC or CNN, are able to turn everybody against them. But when we do like someone, even if it is for the wrong reasons, then we turn a blind eye. …"
Drudge 7/26/99 "…The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that the NEW YORK TIMES is holding back a new blockbuster report that details how a New York City bank has been slow to cooperate with various federal investigations looking into money transfers from China to individuals suspected of passing cash to the Democratic National Committee…. One congressional committee investigating the cash transfers from China is now threatening to subpoena individuals from CITIBANK to explain the lack of cooperation. China's alleged money laundering scheme has been on Gerth's radar for months. "[Gerth] filed a solid story, that was very well sourced," one TIMES insider said of the Pulitzer Prize winner. "No one really knows why it hasn't run." Or if it will ever run? …"
WorldNet Daily 7/26/99 Joseph Farah "…An official Treasury Department report, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act after three years of such filings by the Western Journalism Center, parent company of WorldNetDaily.com, states unequivocally that the audit of the center in 1996 began with a letter forwarded to the Internal Revenue Service from the White House. This is known as the smoking gun that proves the Clinton administration was actively using the IRS as its own private political attack dog. This is the stuff of police states. This is worse than anything the Nixon administration did. This is raw-boned abuse of power…. WorldNetDaily has been hammering on this story for five consecutive business days. Only two other print sources have touched it -- the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. Neither treated it as the serious, headline-making front-page news it is….Not only does the Treasury Department report make clear the audit initiated as a result of the letter from the White House, there has been a systematic cover-up of this fact for three years and it continues at the White House and IRS even today. Hello? Is anyone home out there? Do we now tacitly accept such authoritarian practices at the highest levels of government? Is this a case of once impeached, you're home free on any future charges? Or has the public and press become so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of Clinton administration corruption that proof of crime no longer even matters? …"
Drudgereport 7/26/99 "…The Committee on Government Reform, investigating the cash transfers from China, is now threatening to subpoena individuals from CITIBANK to explain the lack of cooperation. The congressional committee has continually unearthed new leads in the case -- leads the Justice Department has not pursued. Early on in the investigation, it was discovered that CITIBANK was used for the original "Chung wire" of cash from China. Investigators now want the bank records of Liu Chao Ying, a Chinese aerospace executive and lieutenant colonel in the People's Liberation Army. China's alleged money laundering scheme has been on Gerth's radar for months….."
Houston Chronicle Interactive 7/26/99 Cal Thomas "...There may be no specific date on which the Roman Empire fell, but the final gasp of broadcast journalism occurred last week during the mawkish, obsequious and completely unprofessional coverage of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law. Individuals once known as journalists morphed into alien life forms I'll call the Television People. The Television People gave us their version of Woodstock '99. It was a massive encounter group for these aging and made-up Baby Boomers who decided to work out their frustration over the mythical Camelot that never was and now, with the death of "the heir," can never be. Mislabeled "breaking news" revealed how broken the news has become. The Television People stopped the world, but they didn't want to get off..... A once-proud profession has become all tabloid, all the time. A profession mostly respected in the past, which once informed, now titillates. The most outrageous untruths and inaccuracies are tolerated, even promoted, so long as they ratify the favored myth, be it Camelot or liberalism....This handsome young man apparently didn't want to play their games. In what may have been the only realistic network portrayal of Kennedy, CNN's Jeanne Moos showed JFK Jr. as a real person full of self-deprecating humor and a true sense of self unrelated to how the Television People measure worth. Some said the music died when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper went down in a small plane 40 years ago. For sure broadcast journalism died last week. It has been replaced by the Television People."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7/27/99 Vol Four No 131 "...5) The Associated Press put words in Clinton's mouth last week so readers would have no idea Clinton made a false assertion about JFK Jr.'s visit to the White House. ....The broadcast evening shows never mentioned Clinton's false claimand while both GMA and This Morning pointed out the Nixon visit, neither castigated Clinton for his misinformation. On Today, Matt Lauer blamed the dead guy: "It could have been just that John Kennedy Jr. was being especially gracious to his host, President Clinton, and made him feel as if this was a special visit.") The August 2 Weekly Standard revealed some dissembling from the AP. An excerpt from the magazine's "Scrapbook" page: When did the White House start doing free spin for the WhiteHouse? Sonya Ross's initial AP stories duly repeated as fact Clinton's misty-eyed claim to be the first President to invite John Kennedy Jr. back to the White House. Once his prior visit tothe Nixon White House had been reported elsewhere, AP amended its dispatch -- not to report Clinton's whopper, however, but to help the White House press office obscure it. The new improved AP story read: "It was during Clinton's first term, in 1994, that Kennedy visited the White House for the first time as an adult, when Kennedy was serving on an advisory committee on schools, Clinton said." But Clinton said no such thing; this paraphrase was a lawyerly evasion, courtesy of AP.It got worse. Even this new version failed to account for JFKJr.'s visit, as an adult, to the Reagan White House in 1981. Thus, the final (unbylined) AP dispatch on the subject: "It was during Clinton's first term, in 1994, that Kennedy visited the White House inner sanctum for the first time as an adult, Clinton said. "No he didn't say it that way, either. Had Clinton phrased it as AP did for him, it would indeed have been true, in a Clintonian sort of way. Maybe AP should just start drafting the President's remarks for him...."
NRA 8/99 "...A LIST OF CELEBRITIES RECENTLY SIGNED A NATIONAL AD Imploring the NRA to care more about the safety of our nation's children. Apparently, nobody told Barry Manilow or Bruce Springsteen that the "13 children lost to gun violence every day" cited in their ad are in fact neither children nor accidents, but 85% are suicides or murders committed by gangbangers aged 15 to 19. Clearly, Meryl Streep and Moon Zappa are unaware that countless children's lives have been saved through the single most successful, most effective and widely used gun accident prevention program in America: the NRA's Eddie Eagle program. We've distributed it to 12 million kids in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Canada at a cost of almost $20 million.... The media hasn't reported how the Eddie Eagle(r) curriculum effectively teaches youngsters what to do if they encounter a firearm: STOP! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult. So Rosie O'Donnell and Tony Bennett probably don't know it's the only gun accident prevention program for kids used by 500 law enforcement agencies across the country. We doubt Madonna or Henry Winkler know that it won the National School Public Relations Association's Golden Achievement Award. Barbra Streisand and Fannie Flagg are likely unaware the National Safety Council gave the Eddie Eagle(r) program its Youth Activities Award of Merit. No one told Richard Gere or Rosemary Clooney that Eddie Eagle(r) has been officially recognized and honored by more than 35 governors and state legislatures. Jerry Seinfeld and Fred Rogers probably don't know that fatal firearm accidents among children have dropped 64% - falling 13% in Eddie's first year alone. We bet Spike Lee and Cathy Rigby are unaware that 3,500 ordinary Americans have volunteered to spread Eddie Eagle's(r) lifesaving message. It's probably news to Jack Nicholson and Brad Gooch that Eddie Eagle's(r) founder won the National Safety Council's Outstanding Community Service Award. Nobody informed Walter Cronkite and BOYS II MEN that theAmerican Legion awarded Eddie Eagle(r) its prestigious National Education Award. Nobody probably told Cher or Sting that only the Eddie Eagle(r) gun accident prevention program has won the endorsement of thousands of school systems nationwide. And probably, Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke don't know that today, fatal firearm accidents among children are the lowest in history. We won't stop until there are none. ...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7/28/99 Vol Four No 132 "...1) In the same paragraph the New York Times applied different ideological labeling standards to a liberal and a conservative. 2) The New York Times published Jeff Gerth's exclusive about how Citibank is impeding an investigation of money transfers from China, but didn't put it on page one. The networks ignored it. ..."
Chicago Tribune 7/29/99 Eric Reeves "...The ongoing catastrophe in Sudan stands as the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today... A carefully assembled set of data for the U.S. Committee for Refugees makes evident that almost 2 million people have perished in the most recent phase of Sudan's ongoing civil war. As many as 5 million refugees have been created, making the refugee problem the greatest of its kind in the world. And at the height of last summer's famine, more than 2 million more people, mainly children, were at risk of starvation. And the catastrophe continues: famine, epidemic disease, human enslavement and scorched earth warfare remain defining features of the landscape in the south, where the civil war has been so devastatingly concentrated And yet Americans remain painfully unaware of the catastrophe. How can this be?.... it bears the curse of being in Africa, where any policy success is almost surely destined to be overshadowed by Clinton's abysmal moral failure in the Rwandan genocide. Africa can contribute nothing to the "Clinton legacy" that is being cobbled together, and so--despite its vast geographic, political and cultural variability--a continent has been relegated to the extreme periphery of White House attention....And the news media--television most egregiously, but newspapers as well--have made the marginalizing of Sudan almost effortless. Not one major American newspaper, for example, reported on a resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 15 declaring the Khartoum regime's conduct of civil war in the south of Sudan to be "genocidal." Could this have been declared at any time during the past 50 years of any European or Western government without explosive news coverage? Why is Sudan's death struggle so entirely unworthy of national attention? ..."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES Ben Barber 7/30/99 "...White House spokesman David Leavy on Thursday adamantly denied a new International Public Information (IPI) system would be directed at American audiences. IPI is a secret Clinton administration program to control public information disseminated by the departments of State and Defense and intelligence agencies. It is meant to "influence foreign audiences in a way favorable to the achievement of U.S. foreign-policy objectives," according to a draft IPI charter obtained by The Washington Times. But critics claim that IPI will be used for domestic propaganda "That is totally inaccurate," Mr. Leavy said. "The IPI initiative is designed to better organize the government and the instruments we have to support our public diplomacy, military activities and economic engagement overseas. There is no impact on the domestic press."..... But a former deputy chief of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) under three presidents said he fears the IPI plan would mean U.S. propaganda aimed at foreigners would be used to influence American elections Gene Kopp, who served under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush, said the elections of President Kennedy and President Carter were directly influenced by leaks of USIA foreign public-opinion polls showing a decline in U.S. prestige abroad...."
WorldNet Daily 8/2/99 Joseph Farah "... Well, I'm still mad. For three weeks my worst suspicions about the Clinton White House have been confirmed. WorldNetDaily broke a political scandal bigger than Watergate, and the American press establishment offered up a collective yawn. I've called some of the top reporters and editors in the country to explain what we have here. When I tell them who I am (a guy who has run major metropolitan daily newspapers for years) and what my story is (that we have documentation that the White House initiated an Internal Revenue Service audit against us for political reasons), they seem genuinely interested. Then they never call back. You tell me what I should think about this. All my professional life I have actively debunked the idea that there is a press conspiracy out there actively suppressing the truth. Instead, I explain as an insider, that the real problem with the press is that everyone just thinks alike -- which leads to a lot of bad decisions and poor news judgment. But this! I can't explain this kind of tunnel vision, this kind of self-censorship, this kind of news negligence with my usual rap about the sorry state of the newsroom culture...."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES Ben Barber 7/30/99 "...According to a former government official, who insisted on anonymity, the White House created a Strategic Planning Directorate, which used the State Department and USIA to pressure American reporters into favorable coverage of the U.S. troop deployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It came into being just prior to the 1996 presidential election. "I heard them talk about it in conference telephone calls --how they had to control the media out there, the bureau chiefs, because if the Republicans picked this up [the Clinton administration] would be exposed as having no foreign policy," said the former government official. Shortly after President Clinton won re-election in 1996, the administration announced that U.S. troops would not be home by Christmas, as promised. Today, nearly three years later, some 7,000 U.S. troops remain in Bosnia....The source said that USIA officials and National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger tried to convince American editors not to publish accounts by their reporters who wrote that Bosnia was unsafe for Americans, that Muslim extremists were a threat, and that the warring sides would never be pacified. Ivo Daalder, who was a staffer on the National Security Council at the time, said discussions had no ulterior motives. .... "
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7/30/99 Vol Four No 133 "..." 1) ABC's World News Tonight gave a piddling 22 seconds to the $90,000 sanction on Clinton but allocated over four minutes to adventure vacations. CBS and NBC ran full stories but the cable networks were too busy with the Atlanta shootings. 2) The networks distorted Alan Greenspan's opposition to tax cuts, ignoring how if the alternative is more spending, "then I very strongly support tax cuts." 3) CBS's Diana Olick insisted Greenspan's "clearly opposed" to tax cuts before she re-wrote history to match the liberal line, saying Reagan's tax cut "resulted in a decade and a half of deficits." ..."
Foxnews 7/30/99 "...Stung by a fund-raising scandal involving swapping donor names with partisan political groups, the public broadcasting system Friday announced new policies to stop such practices. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, said it informed member stations that in order to get grants next year, they cannot swap or rent donor lists to political groups, or candidates...."
AP 7/30/99 "...The chairman of a House telecommunications panel said Friday that several public broadcasting stations rented donor lists from the Clinton-Gore election campaign, violating a law that prohibits nonprofit groups from participating in political activities. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., head of the House Commerce Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications, released a list he said he had obtained from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of stations that responded to a survey on donor list-swapping...."
Mediaresearch.org 7/28/99 "...1) In the same paragraph the New York Times applied different ideological labeling standards to a liberal and a conservative. 2) The New York Times published Jeff Gerth's exclusive about how Citibank is impeding an investigation of money transfers from China, but didn't put it on page one. The networks ignored it. 3) FNC's Carl Cameron outlined how Justice failed to pursue leads in the Chung and Huang cases and "political pressure" is now suppressing pursuit of Trie's charge that top Democrats "knew he was receiving illegal foreign contributions." ..."
Washington Weekly 8/2/99 Edward Zehr "...Once more Bill Clinton, a freshly issued pass from the mainstream press clutched tightly in his hand, is trying to look presidential. It seems like only yesterday he was being hammered with allegations of sexual assault by Juanita Broaddrick, and some in the media -- Lisa Myers at NBC, for example -- were taking them quite seriously. Not that this deterred NBC from suppressing the story until after the impeachment vote was safely out of the way. Clinton managed to wriggle out of yet another tight spot by dropping bombs on civilians in Serbia -- I won't call it waging war, the other side was unable to shoot back. Not that I think it was purely a "Wag-the-Dog" scenario, a phony war ginned up to get our hollow hero off the hook for a bit of domestic nastiness. Clinton had an agenda all right -- it just wasn't the one he offered the public as a pretext for splattering 2,000 civilians in Serbia like so many bugs on a windshield. Perhaps Charming Billy was just trying to accommodate his pals in the oil industry who had been so nice to him when he hit them up for campaign contributions. The Mainstream Media were ever so accommodating as well, trumpeting NATO propaganda as though it were "news analysis" that they had only just thought of themselves, and showing plenty of grisly atrocity films to keep the public properly outraged at the Serbian Devils and prevent them thinking of awkward questions to ask about what we were really supposed to accomplish by blowing up a small Balkan country that had never done us any harm. When the news about the trans-Balkan pipeline to transport Caspian Sea oil from the Black Sea to the Adriatic via Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania became known, hardly anyone mentioned it except United Press International. (Oil companies do a lot of advertising in the mainstream media). Most other news organizations primly averted their gaze and pretended not to notice. It isn't quite nice to mention the "O" word in public these days...."
Washington Weekly 8/2/99 Marvin Lee "...You know you live in a banana republic when news of corruption in government is no longer treated as news but is yawned at, shrugged off, and considered redundant. Consider these revelations from just this past week: * The Associated Press reported that the high-profile Chinagate and Whitewater cases against Clinton friends Webster Hubbell and Charlie Trie were not assigned randomly to judges as is customary, but were assigned to judges appointed by President Clinton and affiliated with his defenders....* A Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) lawsuit was filed in amended form against the White House and Loral, Inc. by Loral shareholders alleging a conspiracy to sellout U.S. national security interests for political contributions....* Fox News reported that the Justice Department is ignoring evidence and testimony given by Charlie Trie and Johnny Chung that link Democratic Party officials to the Chinese military through political contributions....* Judicial Watch pointed out that the fine of $90,000 to be paid by President Clinton for lying in court will likely be picked up by the Chinese through their donations to his Legal Defense Fund, while the whistleblower who revealed the physical evidence of his lies faces 10 years in prison if a political trial of her proceeds. Yet none of this is news because it is what we have come to expect..... "
AP Wire 8/2/99 Lynn Elber "...PBS stations will halt all exchanges of donor lists with partisan groups within a week, but when the political fallout for public broadcasting might end is difficult to predict, PBS president Ervin S. Duggan said Sunday. ``By the end of this week, no station in America will be engaged in these practices,'' Duggan told a meeting of the Television Critics Association. ``It has delayed the (federal budget) authorization process and I don't know what the outcome will be,'' he said. ``I hope we can put it behind us.'' Of the 349 public television stations nationwide, PBS has admitted that as many as 30 appear to have engaged in list rentals or exchanges with political groups...."
Media Research Center 7/30/99 Brent Baker "...After outlining on Tuesday night how the Justice Department thwarted probes or failed to pursue leads involving Johnny Chung, John Huang and Charlie Trie, FNC's Carl Cameron returned Wednesday night with a look at how two others with names not uttered much recently will also escape charges. In a piece which led the July 28 Special Report with Brit Hume, but unlike the previous story did not also appear an hour later on the Fox Report, Cameron began: "Indonesian businessman Ted Sioeng funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal Chinese contributions to the Democratic Party in 1996. He dined with the President at one glitzy fundraiser and accompanied the Vice President to another at a Buddhist temple. And though FBI and congressional investigators say they have conclusive evidence that Sioeng worked for Chinese intelligence, Fox News has learned no charges of any kind will be brought against him. "Sioeng fled a year ago to the Central American nation of Belize, refusing to cooperate with U.S. investigators. Despite owning a Chinese-language newspaper and several import-export firms in California, investigators have no plans to freeze or leverage Sioeng's U.S. assets to bring him back."..."
Media Research Center 7/30/99 Brent Baker "...Cameron then moved to Sioeng's partner.... Hsia currently faces only minor tax and election fraud charges, although she was identified by Congress as a Chinese agent." Reporter in crowd outside courthouse: "Are you an agent for the Chinese government, Ms. Hsia?" Nancy Luque, Maria Hsia's attorney: "She's certainly not an agent of the Chinese government." Cameron countered: "But even before her lawyer's denials, the Justice Department had what sources tell Fox News was conclusive evidence that, indeed, Hsia was working for China. But like similar intelligence information in the Sioeng case, investigators mishandled it and both suspects are now about to slip through the net."..."
Media Research Center 7/30/99 Brent Baker "...But that's all part of a pattern, Cameron noted in again citing a report ignored by the other networks: "According to an inspector general's report, key facts in the Justice Department's China cash investigation and specific intelligence data on Maria Hsia and Ted Sioeng's China connections was, quote, 'supplied in a fashion that belied their significance' because it was, quote, 'serendipitously included in memoranda on other subjects, or buried amid documents.' That so downplayed the evidence that, quote, 'Some officials were unaware that they had received these pieces of information.' Cameron honed in on Reno and how the FBI was afraid to share information because they knew the White House would get it: "Some Justice Department investigators suspect their bosses deliberately dropped the ball to protect the President, though the inspector general concluded it was poor judgment and not intentional. But congressional critics think Attorney General Janet Reno and her closest advisers were playing pure politics. And according to the report, when Reno's top troops wanted to share evidence with the White House, the FBI protested, even boycotted meetings, to prevent the handing over of such information, saying it was, quote, 'akin to briefing the subject of an investigation about that investigation.' ..."
Media Research Center 7/30/99 Brent Baker "...Giving a clue about who is providing him with his information, Cameron observed: "Line-level investigators and prosecutors, disgruntled with the way Department of Justice management have handled, and some say botched, this entire case, almost daily now are disclosing more information. Last night Fox reported on how the initial investigation into the Buddhist temple fundraising event was thwarted by the attorney general's office. In fact, one specific individual, the head of the Office of Public Integrity, Lee Radick (sp?), has essentially been fingered as trying to close down that investigation. And as a result, Congress plans to subpoena Mr. Radick's documents to find out whether or not he tried in some way to close things down in order to protect the President." ..."
www.newsmax.com 7/28/99 Carl Limbacher "...In an unusual move that puts the ugliest charge against President Clinton back on the front burner, Clinton's personal lawyer David Kendall has attacked Juanita Broaddrick's detailed charge that the President raped her as a "partisan rant." ....The Clinton lawyer's attempt to demean Broaddrick's rape charge suggests an abrupt change of course in White House strategy. Previously Kendall had issued only a brief, one-sentence statement on the President's behalf denying he raped Broaddrick, in the apparent belief that the less said about the matter, the better. But Kendall's decision to attack Broaddrick's charge as partisan in response to the Judicial Watch lawsuit could signal new White House fears that other women with similar charges may be ready to go public.....The mainstream press has been extraordinarily deferential to Clinton himself, asking him about Broaddrick's allegation only twice. Both times Clinton referred to Kendall's terse denial and refused to say more...."
The Tampa Tribune 7/28/99 Tribune Editorial "...The China spy scandal has caused the White House little political damage because the major TV networks, which supply most people most of their daily news, have given it scant attention. ``It was over and done with in two days,´´ says Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center. ``Either the print media are making up news, or something very bizarre is going on with the networks.´´ ...There were only five major network TV stories on the Cox Report about the China outrage, Bozell's research reveals. The three- volume spy report, released by a select committee of the U.S. House, listed a series of shocking security lapses. The public outcry was muted because about 70 percent of the public gets its news from a major TV network, and to the networks, the story was insignificant...."
Wordnetdaily 8/2/99 Geoff Metcalf "...Notwithstanding the consistent unrelenting flood of propaganda, "the U.S. public has refused to back President Clinton's foreign policy." Some of you might question, "What foreign policy?" The fact is the administration has its collective panties in a bunch in the wake of this apparent inability to sell the gospel according to Bill-Jeff... Well, the latest abuse of power under the color of authority is "using resources that are aimed at spinning the news." Thanks to the wizardry of presidential decision directives, the president can (and does) create new policies and the agencies to implement his will. Congress impotently sits in the shadows alternately clucking and quivering. Up jumps the International Public Information (IPI) system, created in April by Presidential Decision Directive 68. This potential disinformation tool isn't bad enough as a bureaucracy, so it is to be run by Morton Halperin, formerly "Senior Director for Democracy" at the National Security Council and now head of policy planning at the State Department -- an all around anti-constitutional wonk.
Wordnetdaily 8/2/99 Geoff Metcalf "...This IPI working group met for the first time last Wednesday. It is yet further evidence of the evil that unbridled ambition can wrought without sufficient checks and balances. The IPI charter, still classified top secret, reportedly synthesizes the functions of agencies like the old USIA and Radio Free Europe. Those agencies were supposed to be aimed overseas, to sell New Deal propaganda. The leaked text of the draft charter is written in typical bureaucratese-speak. However, if that fictional "reasonable person" reads between the lines of the form, the substance is clear. Under the purview of IPI overseas information (propaganda) will "be coordinated, integrated, de-conflicted and synchronized with the (IPI) to achieve a synergistic effect" at home. What the heck does that mean? Simply stated, we will have the dubious distinction of paying (with OUR tax dollars) for our own indoctrination. Cool ... and Machiavelli smiled....The Washington Times got their hands on a copy of a draft charter which states the purpose of this outfit is "to prevent and mitigate crises and to influence foreign audiences in ways favorable to the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives." Anonymous insiders report that honchos from defense, intelligence, diplomatic and other assorted alphabet soup groups gathered at the State department to review the draft charter...."
Wordnetdaily 8/2/99 Geoff Metcalf "... Presidential Decision Directive 68, which ordered the creation of the International Public Information was designed to make sure that all government agencies disseminating information abroad share a single message...... One former senior official dared complain that this charter "did not distinguish what would be done overseas and what would be done at home. ... It talks about a news war." BINGO! The devil is always in the details. The IPI charter does not distinguish between overseas information and domestic information because the intention is to slap a tighter bridle on domestic critics..... This administration has routinely and consistently proved to be corrupt, disingenuous, duplicitous, untruthful, mean-spirited, and manipulative. The same president was just fined for having lied to a judge under oath. Lying has been proven to be the one life-long axiomatic consistent of the man...."
Conservative News Service 8/3/99 L Brent Bozell III "...There's nothing quite so strange as the press corps announcing the removal of their own watchdog's teeth. On July 31, Washington Post reporter Charles Babington triumphantly reported the birth of a new Clinton era: "With the news media and Congress taking their cue from a public weary of questions about presidential scandal, President Clinton is free to devote his final 18 months in office to issues he sees as crucial to his legacy." Babington noted the way reporters have abandoned scandal questions in press conferences, and "have turned their focus to federal budget surpluses, Medicare expansions, and other topics the White House views as winners." Translation: we quit. To those accusing the media of giving a Clinton a free ride, it's official...."
Conservative News Service 8/3/99 L Brent Bozell III "...The free pass was underscored with the recent news that Clinton has established another shameful precedent: the first President to be fined by a judge for lying under oath, a $90,000 penalty. While CBS and NBC dutifully covered the story for a couple of minutes, ABC's "World News Tonight" gave it a whopping 22 seconds. The next morning, NBC's "Today" gave it 15 seconds, while ABC and CBS focused on more important matters, like the upcoming auction of Marilyn Monroe's collectibles. The news magazines were even less interested. U.S. News gave it a paragraph or two. Newsweek joked in its "Conventional Wisdom Watch" that he was "Hit with $90K fine. But polls show he's still Our Bill." Time spiked the story completely...."
Conservative News Service 8/3/99 L Brent Bozell III "...The increasing resistance to scandal news hit home when even the indictment of longtime media pinata Linda Tripp didn't draw much media interest. This time, ABC and CBS aired a story, while NBC gave it just a few seconds. Time and Newsweek ridiculed Tripp as a loser in their quippy up-front features, but only U.S. News ran a story. In the new Clinton-liberating era, even piling on Linda Tripp risks reminding people of Clinton's failings. The newsroom debate probably concludes with the question: Isn't Linda Tripp already ruined? When ABC's Web site runs a poll comparing you to Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, and Osama bin Laden, how could it get any worse? ..."
The O'Reilly Factor ~~ FOX NEWS 8/3/99 Bill O'Reilly "...One of the most frequent questions that viewers have is .... why is the Factor the only TV news program that is closely covering the China situation? My answer up to now has been .... 'I don't know.' But that's a lazy answer so I made some calls and did some thinking and I've come up with the reason. First off ... the network news chieftains believe the China story is not a big audience draw. Secondly, they believe it will anger the Clinton administration. So the calculation is ... why tee off the powers that be ... when there's no audience upside. Especially since GE, CBS, Disney, and Time-Warner ... all do business with the government. The News Corporation, which owns Fox, also does business with the U.S. government. Now I don't know about the others, but I've been encouraged to investigate any and all alleged wrongdoing. Now Talking Points believes that once President Clinton leaves office ... you will see an amazing amount of stories pop up about corruption in his administration ... Chinese related and otherwise. But for now ... the reporting is passive to say the least. But if the Republicans gain power in the year 2000 .... fasten your seat-belts. Of course this doesn't speak very well of the press .... but in today's media climate access to power is the number one priority for many news operations .... not investigative reporting. And that's the memo ..."
NRA 8/3/99 "...Immediately after last night's airing of CBS Evening News' blatantly biased "Reality Check" segment, which ignored recent scholarly research and falsely claimed that the Second Amendment is not an individual right, the National Rifle Association launched a campaign to provide CBS News with its own reality check.
** CBS FAILED to cite the 1990 Supreme Court reference to the Second Amendment in U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez that stated, "'the people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments ... refers to a class of persons who are part of the national community." Each of these rights are individual.
** CBS FAILED to report this year's federal court ruling from the Northern District of Texas, U.S. v. Emerson, in which the federal judge overturned a federal gun law on Second Amendment grounds and argued, "The rights of the Second Amendment should be as zealously guarded as the other individual liberties enshrined in the bill of rights."
** CBS FAILED to report that, in the last decade, scholars from across the political spectrum have concluded that the Second Amendment, from any method of analysis, protects an individual right, and that this view is now commonly referred to as the "Standard Model" (Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 1995).
** CBS FAILED to note that the nation's leading constitutional scholars such as Lawrence Tribe (Harvard), Akil Reed Amar (Yale), William Van Alstyne (Duke), and Sanford Levinson (Texas) ascribe to the concept of the individual Second Amendment right as the "Standard Model."
** CBS FAILED to report the conclusion of Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, of the University of Tennessee, that scholars adhering to an individual rights interpretation, "... dominate the academic literature on the Second Amendment almost completely," and that this view is "... the mainstream scholarly interpretation."
WorldNet Daily 8/5/99 Jon Dougherty "...The mainstream press groupies are ignoring startling new evidence about the federal government's assault on the Branch Davidian community in Waco, Texas, in 1993. In case you haven't heard, the evidence I'm talking about was first chronicled in the Dallas Morning News over a week ago. It seems as though the chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety -- the Texas Rangers -- has evidence that solidly refutes the federal government's version of events that took place against members of the Branch Davidian religious group. The evidence includes key interdepartmental federal law enforcement memos, thermal imaging reports, and an examination of video evidence by an analyst from the National Reconnaissance Office.... Specifically, the evidence: Establishes a belief among many within the government that if the Feds get away with what they did at Waco, the rule of law will suffer the most. Supports earlier claims made by independent reporters that FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) imagery examined by noted expert Dr. Edward F. Allard indeed shows federal agents firing automatic weapons at fleeing Davidians. Shows the FBI admitting in a report that federal automatic weapons fire during the final assault on the Davidian community originated from a position designated as "Sierra One." Shows the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms admitting in a memo that three ATF agents went on a friendly shooting trip with Davidian leader David Koresh just nine days before the initial ATF assault. Establishes that explosive canisters of a flammable nature were used repeatedly during the initial phases of the assault. There is also evidence that the initial federal judge in the case, district court Judge Walter Smith, has done everything in his power to accommodate the government's cover-up..... While all of this is going on -- the makings of a gargantuan scandal -- I have to ask where are the mainstream media crews? Where are the CNN cameras documenting every second of this ballooning scandal -- in the same manner they documented every second of the Waco showdown over six years ago? Why aren't Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw parked outside Judge Smith's courtroom, giving viewers a minute-by-minute live analysis of this enormous breaking story? Where's the "60 Minutes" crew or the "Nightline" documentary? Why are the major news web sites more interested in polling Americans about gun control and how they feel about the passing of JFK Jr. than reporting the obvious discrepancies in the federal government's version of events at Waco? It makes me sick to hear these people call themselves reporters. The major media players have been handed this story on a silver platter, but still they ignore it. Back when independent filmmakers and producers dug up all the evidence the Texas Rangers now claim to have, they were discounted as "kooks," "weirdos," "right-wing conspirators," and losers with an ax to grind against Clinton and Reno. That assessment was, of course, erroneous, but now it's beside the point. This time the vaunted Texas Rangers are making the same claims. How much more reputable can you get? ..."
Chicago SUN-TIMES 8/5/99 "...At 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the remains of 29-year-old Capt. Jennifer J. Odom, U.S. Army, arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The television cameras, usually present at such events, were nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the news media were totally absent, and the event went unrecorded. Nor was President Clinton there to feel her family's pain. Odom, along with her co-pilot and three other crew members, died July 23 when the DeHavilland RC7 reconnaissance plane she was piloting crashed into a mountain in southern Colombia. The Pentagon says there is "no evidence" that narco-guerrillas shot down the plane, but adds that the investigation is continuing...... In addition to Odom, they include her co-pilot, Capt. Jose A. Santiago, as well as Chief Warrant Officer Thomas G. Moore, Specialist T. Bruce Cluff and Specialist Ray E. Krueger. Typically, when Republican Rep. Constance Morella took the House floor Tuesday morning to praise astronaut Collins, there was no mention of her fellow Marylander whose remains had arrived at Dover only hours before. ..."
Fox News O'Reilly Factor 8/5/99 Bill O'Reilly ".... The House Committee on Government Reform... chaired by our first guest Congressman Dan Burton ... has sent four subpoenas to Janet Reno concerning her campaign finance investigation..... Ms. Reno says she cannot comment while her investigation is on-going. But journalist Robert Novak reports that an internal memo at Justice ... says Reno is keeping dormant investigations open ... so she has an excuse not to say anything about campaign finance. Reno denies that but will not comment on why inactive investigations are being kept open. She also says the memo should not have gotten out to the public. Talking points has believed for months that something is very wrong in the Justice Department ... and obstruction of justice there is not out of the question. Points is also amazed that no major newspaper even mentioned that Ms. Reno had been subpoenaed. Could there be a cover-up of the cover-up? ..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/6/99 Vol Four No 137 "...1) A bipartisan Senate committee report documented how the Clinton administration botched the Chinese espionage investigation, but ABC and NBC ignored it Thursday night.....1) Thursday night ABC's World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News skipped the bipartisan Senate Government Affairs Committee report issued by Republican Senator Fred Thompson and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman documenting how the Clinton administration bungled the investigation of Chinese espionage. CNN's The World Today, FNC's Fox Report and the CBS Evening News all ran full stories..... On the CBS Evening News Bill Plante outlined the basic findings but avoided naming names, such as Janet Reno: "The bi-partisan report paints a scathing picture of incompetence in the FBI and Department of Energy, an investigation flawed from the outset by one blunder after another."...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/6/99 Vol Four No 137 "...6) Not one word in this week's Time about the $90,000 fine on Clinton for lying. Newsweek buried it in its "Conventional Wisdom" box.... 6) Speaking of Time, not one syllable appeared in the latest edition about the $90,000 fine imposed upon Bill Clinton last Thursday by federal Judge Susan Webber Wright for dissembling in the Paula Jones case. The August 9 Newsweek ignored it except for an even arrow in the Conventional Wisdom box: "Clinton: Hit with $90K fine for Monica fibs. But polls show he's still Our Bill." Only U.S. News put it in an article, as the magazine devoted half of a six paragraph story about Linda Tripp to the judge's ruling. But as the MRC's MagazineWatch noted, while reporter Franklin Foer did note Clinton may face disbarment in Arkansas, he
concluded: "And while lawyers busied themselves preparing briefs, Judge Wright reflected the zeitgeist. She declared that '[t]he court...no doubt like many others, grows weary of this matter.'"..."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/6/99 Vol Four No 137 "...7) Geraldo, CNN, Dan Rather and Time last year touted charges of how David Hale's Whitewater testimony was tainted by payments he
received from the American Spectator. Not true, a veteran Justice investigator found, but so far no media corrections....7) Geraldo Rivera, CNN, CBS's Dan Rather, Time and Newsweek last year all touted charges, to illustrate the right-wing conspiracy, of how David Hale's Whitewater testimony was tainted by payments he received from the American Spectator's "Arkansas Project." Well, last week newspapers reported that the Justice Department's veteran ethics watchdog investigated and found no basis for the theory. Yet, so far, no update or correction from the outlets which so eagerly promoted the anti-Ken Starr charge. ..."
Wall Street Journal 8/6/99 "...Vanessa Weaver had her hearing yesterday. As we noted editorially yesterday, she's the White House aide who made 23 calls to the mysterious fundraiser John Huang and who Bill Clinton just nominated to the Ex-Im Bank. She told the committee that when she called Mr. Huang in October 1996, she didn't know he was a fugitive. Meanwhile, former White House aide Mark Middleton took the fifth Amendment before Rep. Dan Burton's committee. The questioning had to do with weather Mr. Middleton was involved with raising money from the Chinese and other foreign interests for the Democratic National Committee. By coincidence the Ex-Im Bank to which Ms. Weaver aspires counts China among its biggest clients. Somehow these Clinton friends with memory-deficit disorder don't inspire confidence in the way a relatively normal Democratic administration would. Now for a bit of news that has not been reported in the media: Vanessa Weaver's appointment to the Ex-Im bank did not go through! ...."
Washington Times 7/29/99 Ben Barber "...White House spokesman David Leavy on Thursday adamantly denied a new International Public Information (IPI) system would be directed at American audiences. IPI is a secret Clinton administration program to control public information disseminated by the departments of State and Defense and intelligence agencies...."I am concerned this could happen again under the IPI plan," said Mr. Kopp, currently a Washington lawyer. "The administration is transferring all assets, except broadcasting, to State, where they will not be separated in any way. It will be very difficult to separate what is disseminated in the United States and overseas." He said that the opportunity for abusing the system will be great. "The temptation to spin this stuff in a partisan way will be very strong -- probably irresistible," he said. "The other ominous feature is that this includes the intelligence agencies. They are in the business of misinformation. God only knows where that goes." ..."
Associated Press 8/8/99 Anne Gearan "...The Clinton administration, dismayed by the success of anti-American propaganda worldwide, is striking back with an information offensive of its own: a State Department unit that will control the flow of government news overseas, especially during crises. The new International Public Information group, or IPI, will coordinate the dissemination of news from the State Department, Pentagon and other U.S. agencies.....In the recent Kosovo war, the Pentagon, State Department and White House poured out information each day but no single agency tried to assemble it so that the United States spoke with a coordinated message overseas. The group came about partly in response to the spread of unflattering or erroneous information about the United States received abroad via electronic mail, the Internet, cellular telephones and other communications advances. ...President Clinton signed a directive April 30, in the thick of the Kosovo war, that set out plans for IPI, although the White House did not formally announce the group's existence or role. An unclassified mission statement obtained by The Associated Press described IPI's role: ``Effective use of our nation's highly developed communications and information capabilities to address misinformation and incitement, mitigate inter-ethnic conflict, promote independent media organizations and the free flow of information, and support democratic participation will advance our interests and is a critical foreign policy objective,'' the document said...."
NewsMax.com 8/8/99 "...If an American President used the "N" word and it was captured on tape, undoubtedly the news media would be all over the story. But what about a presidential brother? A controversial videotape depicts first brother Roger Clinton repeatedly and enthusiastically using that most offensive of all racial epithets while he was under investigation for suspected drug dealing during the 1980's. Here's an excerpt of Roger's clearly audible comments in a June 27, 1984 police surveillance video, as he was using cocaine and discussing a recent encounter his dealer had with a local African American teenager: "Some junior high n - - - - r kicked Steve's ass while he was trying to help his brothers out; junior high or sophmore in high school. Whatever it was, Steve had the n - - - - r down. However it was, it was Steve's fault. He had the n - - - - r down, he let him up. The n - - - - r blindsided him." The clip appears in the blockbuster 1996 documentary, "The Mena Cover-Up: Drugs, Deception and the Making of a President", distributed by Citizens for Honest Government. Another Citizens for Honest Government video, "Obstruction of Justice: The Mena Connection," is currently the subject of a defamation trial in Little Rock, Arkansas....And how come Roger's tape recorded hate speech never found its way into the mainstream press? Is it because a story about slurs hurled by someone very close to the President isn't news? Tell it to Newt Gingrich's mom, who used the "B" word on videotape to describe the First Lady in a 1994 interview with Connie Chung. Her faux pas was recycled for days on end just as Gingrich was about to assume the Speakership. Would the media have given Nixon or Reagan such a break -- had a brother of theirs been caught using the "N" word on tape? Don't bet on it. ..."
The New Australian No 129 8/9-15/99 James Henry "...Sometime in the mid-fifties Kruschev presided over a secret meeting of Warsaw Pact officials. It was there that he revealed the intention of the Soviet Union to encourage the drug trade as part of its war of subversion against the US.... However, the Sino-Soviet split saw Beijing pursue an independent drugs campaign against the US.... There is no doubt that the main motive for Clinton's bombing of Serbia was to drive his scandals out of the media. However, the end of the campaign witnessed a curious turn of events which would have probably escaped a great deal of attention if they had remained in isolation. Let's take a look at a few facts that the Clinton networks have chosen to ignore. Germany's Federal Criminal Agency reports that Albania is the center of Europe's heroin trade and also acts as a conduit to the US. Of particular interest is that the trade is under the virtual control of the KLA leadership, formerly considered by the State Department to be a terrorist organisation, until Clinton decided otherwise. Not only does the leadership have strong links to Islamic terrorists it is also noted for (surprise, surprise) its anti-Western pro-Beijing views....Not only is Clinton's decision in danger of turning Kosovo into a drug lord's mandate it might also create a beachhead in Europe for Middle East terrorists. ....We now come to Colombia which produces 66 percent of the heroine and about 80 percent of the cocaine that enters the US. For 30 years Marxist-Leninist guerillas have been waging a vicious war to turn the country into a Marxist totalitarian state. These Guerrilla's have now formed an alliance with the drug lords, enabling them to use drug money while waging their own drug war against the capitalist US. Clinton's response to these drug-running terrorists was to unofficially send Peter Romero to meet with them and formulate a peace plan. The so-called peace plan involved handing half the country over to the communist guerrillas and allowing them to keep both their arms and the drugs trade. What kind of treaty would hand over half a country to a pack of Marxist totalitarians...What gives here? Is Clinton planning on doing to Colombia what a Democrat-controlled Congress did to South Vietnam? A few CIA and the State Department officials have already arrived at that conclusion. As for Romero, Clinton's nominee for Assistant Secretary of State, believe it or not, the best that can be said of him is that he has criminal-like lack of judgement....".
WorldNetDaily 8/9/99 Geoff Metcalf "...There have always been media wars mitigated and exacerbated by personal egos, cash flow, circulation et al. However, there was also diversity of opinion, pursuit of truth, and desire to expose the good, the bad, and the ugly. Times have changed. The focus has shifted from substance to form....The decidedly left-leaning prejudice is more a function of personal prejudice from senior news management types. The news bosses of today were the college students of the '60s. Many of these 40 and 50-something executives are loath to report facts, which so obviously and startlingly contradict not only their preconceived opinions, but also their own personal (albeit tainted), value system.... Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, the TWA Flight 800 tragedy, the long "mysterious death list", the 29-Palms survey, Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Chinagate, Wag the Dog, Executive Orders, Presidential Decision Directives, Bimbos and victims du jour, Danny Williams, Juanita Broaddrick, Jane Does 1 through 101, yada, yada, yada ... ... What have you seen, and not seen, from mainstream reportage on any of the above?... We have learned Janet Reno has been using the Department of Justice to cover up for the president. We have learned the FBI lies, and doesn't even do it well anymore. We have learned Gennifer Flowers was telling the sordid truth, and the president wasn't. Linda Tripp was telling the truth, and the president was lying. Even members of his own party acknowledge that this president is not only a liar, but he lies when he doesn't even have to ... it is such a refined talent he has cultivated that to him lies come instinctively. ...According to Fox News, Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary GAVE highly classified data (and a diagram) of the W-87 warhead the Chinese were vilified for "stealing." When her staff tried to protest and pointed out the document was classified, Hazel just crossed out the word "classified" and gave it to a U.S. News staff reporter. If anyone other than an S.O.B. (supporter of Bill) had committed such a gross breach they would have been severely punished. The gross mishandling of classified information by this administration is not uncommon; it is practically standing operating procedure. And still, the pretentious mainstream media apparently finds more newsworthiness in a relatively minor motor vehicle accident involving an ex-presidential mistress, than it does in a Cabinet officer compromising national security. They will go in nauseating detail about scurrilous detail of sexual depravity, but national security, treason, abuse of power under the color of authority??? ... nada! ...."
"The Morning Magazine" with Larry Merino (KIEV-Los Angeles) 8/99/99 Freeper Truthkeeper "…I heard a very revealing interview with Bill O'Reilly this morning on the above-named show that still has me reeling and I felt it was important enough to share it with the rest of you good folks at Free Republic. Bill covered so much ground, I hope I can recall everything he said. O'Reilly said there will be "some major, MAJOR developments" in these stories "this week and next week" and he'll be reporting them even though "his ratings suffer" whenever he does. He said "The American People" do not care about this stuff, but hey - so what - he'll STILL report on them "because they are the most important stories in American right now." (I had an intense urge to kiss this man!) He said he knows his ratings take a dive because they track this, and whenever he runs one of these stories, most people switch the channel. He is absolutely amazed and stupified that he is the ONLY reporter on television pursuing this stuff. (So are we, Bill...so are we.) …"
"The Morning Magazine" with Larry Merino (KIEV-Los Angeles) 8/99/99 Freeper Truthkeeper "…O'Reilly said he has been getting literally HUNDREDS of e-mails and calls from D.O.J. insiders saying that Reno has not been doing her job in these matters (putting it mildly); when asked directly by a caller if he felt Reno & Clinton committed treason, O'Reilly said he did not have enough evidence of the Clinton connection - yet - to make that charge, but that he was really disturbed about Reno's actions in that regard. He said the listeners could draw their own conclusions, that he was simply "presenting the FACTS." He said the issue was "Is China our enemy?" because Reno was certainly giving "aid and comfort" to somebody by killing these investigations. He said he has evidence of at least six occasions where Reno DIRECTLY INTERVENED to stop investigations; three pertaining to the Buddhist nuns/temple story, and three in the Los Alamos case…."
"The Morning Magazine" with Larry Merino (KIEV-Los Angeles) 8/99/99 Freeper Truthkeeper "…When a caller asked what the deal was with Louis Freeh, O'Reilly said they get plenty of calls from the F.B.I. (them, too!) and that it's clear Freeh does not like Reno or Clinton, but that he's a political appointee and has to "look out for number one" unless he wants to end up like Charles LaBella. This was a fantastic interview with O'Reilly. I like him even more now than I did before. He didn't ask for our support, but we MUST give it to him and FoxNews or this stuff will just go away again. …."
WorldNetDaily.com 8/13/99 Joseph Farah "...UPI Radio News died recently after a slow, agonizing death struggle. United Press International as a whole is hardly breathing. That leaves essentially one main source of news distribution for 99 percent of the U.S. establishment media -- the Associated Press. Thank goodness more and more people are not relying on the establishment press for their news. There is, indeed, a media revolution under way. You may not notice it if you are still getting the bulk of your information from Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings -- or even The New York Times. But millions are turning to the New Media. What is the New Media? It's hard to put your finger on it. But certainly the central component is the Internet...."
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/11/99 Vol Four No 140 "..." 1)Today's two-part interview with Ken Starr began with the statement: "Your critics have portrayed you as a pious, sex-crazed out-of-control prosecutor who will do anything to get the president." Energy Secretary Richardson did two Tuesday morning TV interviews, but drew no espionage questions. 2)CNN'S Bob Franken and CNBC Geraldo sub David Gregory analyzed Starr's decision to wrap up before the 2000 election. Will the "vicious political vendetta" go away or will Hillary be "smeared"? ..."
World Net Daily 8/10/99 Jon E Dougherty "...Make no mistake about it: The mainstream media is this country's worst enemy on the issue of the Second Amendment. And after another recent spate of shootings -- perpetrated not by guns alone but by deranged, psychopathic losers using guns -- the spin machine has been ratcheted up to full steam. A piece in this week's Time magazine by author Roger Rosenblatt says it all: "Get rid of the damned things!" and superficially it looks like little more than another media attempt to convince Americans that our society has outgrown the U.S. Constitution. Rosenblatt uses some familiar socialist anti-gun themes, such as never assigning blame to the criminals and social misfits who commit heinous acts and offering only one solution, the total banning of guns..... Granted, Americans should be concerned about all this gun violence. But the media is turning the debate over guns into a matter of national conscience, not simply a matter of the rule of law -- probably because liberals have discovered they cannot satisfactorily refute the simple meaning of our right to keep and bear arms. Understand one thing: These people are helping Uncle Sam come after our guns. They don't understand that if we lose our ability to defend all constitutional rights, the next one to go will be freedom of speech. God help this country then, because we all know what will happen next...."
Investors Business Daily 5/19/99 "..."There's no good reason for a child to own an AK-47,'' President Clinton said last week while pushing his kiddie gun control bill. Just as there's no good reason for a U.S. president to entertain the head of a communist entity that sells AK-47s to kids, right? Don't expect an answer from Clinton. He did just that on Feb. 6, 1996. His fund-raising pal, Charlie Trie, had invited Beijing arms dealer Wang Jun to one of Clinton's famous fund- raising ''coffees'' in the White House Map Room. Wang is the son of China's former vice president. He also runs Polytechnologies, an arms dealership owned by Poly Group, which is owned directly by China's People's Liberation Army. In May 1996, agents of Wang's dealership and another Chinese arms company, Norinco, were arrested for trying to smuggle AK- 47s into the U.S. for sale to drug gangs...."
NewsMax.com 8/12/99 Carl Limbacher "...The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has been fully briefed on what Gennifer Flowers had to say Friday about President Clinton and cocaine. Inside Cover contacted Kurtz Wednesday morning to share Flowers' recorded account of Clinton's cocaine use, after the Post writer ignored the issue in a lengthy screed about completely unsubstantiated rumors that George W. Bush had used the drug. On Wednesday the Post writer seemed to be trying to legitimize the unsourced Bush rumors with a report headlined, "Drug Use: A Campaign Issue in the Making." Despite Kurtz's inability to produce a single account from anyone saying that they'd either seen or heard of Bush using cocaine, Post editors felt Kurtz' story was newsworthy enough to warrant primetime exposure on page A02. ....Though the topic has been in play for lttle more than a month, the press has now queried Bush directly on the as yet unfounded charge more frequently than President Clinton has been challenged on the "R" question..... The Washington Post, along with the rest of the mainstream media, has assiduously avoided asking Clinton the "C" question, despite published accounts from four people who claim to have either seen him use cocaine or report circumstances where Clinton's use of the drug was plainly obvious. A fifth, former Little Rock drug dealer Sharline Wilson, gave her sworn eyewitness account of Clinton's cocaine use to a federal grand jury in 1990. Kurtz wrote, "An admission of having tried cocaine, the focus of major federal anti-drug initiatives and much inner-city violence, could be more problematic" than a confession about using marijuana. The President has admitted to illegal marijuana use in England after first telling reporters who asked about drugs, "I've never broken the laws of my country." After Clinton's classic marijuana obfuscation, mainstream reporters dropped further inquiries about Clinton's drug use. In a bit of unintended irony, the Post writer noted, "Questions about the personal lives of candidates.....are often triggered by specific allegations, such as when Gennifer Flowers charged in 1992 that she had a long-running affair with candidate Bill Clinton." What about Flowers' specific allegation, just delivered on Friday, regarding Clinton's cocaine use? Hasn't that news reached the Washington Post yet? Inside Cover played the following tape recorded exchange into Mr. Kurtz answering machine Wednesday morning: INSIDE COVER: Ms. Flowers, Sally Perdue says that Bill Clinton used drugs in her presence, specifically cocaine. Did you ever see Bill Clinton use drugs in your presence? FLOWERS: Yes. He smoked marijuana in my presence and offered me the opportunity to snort cocaine if I wanted to. I wasn't into that. Bill clearly let me know that he did cocaine. And I know people that knew he did cocaine. He did tell me that when he would use a substantial amount of cocaine that his head would itch so badly that he would become self conscious at parties where he was doing this. Because all he wanted to do while people were talking to him is stand around and scratch his head...."
Original Sources (www.originalsources.com) 8/16/99 Mary Mostert "...Reading yesterday's Los Angeles Times and Washington Post made me wonder where its headlines writers have been been during the last couple of months. "Anti-Serb Crime Patterns Point to 'Ethnic Cleansing'" the LA Times announced. "Kosovo Hostility Aimed at NATO," the Washington Post headline said. Two of the largest news sources in America are just NOW discovering that Ethnic Cleansing of Serbs has been going on in Kosovo, every since the Serb police and military withdrew? Where have they been.? The ethnic cleaning is almost complete, and they are just waking up to the story? For the past two month the supposedly "totally inaccurate" Serbian news sources have been chronicling DAILY the ethnic cleansing - giving names, dates, places, - of the Serbs being killed. Two months later the LA Times headline reads: "Kosovo: Slayings, property destruction suggest systematic purge by Albanians. 'Organized forces' are blamed" "Suggest?" Who does the LA Times THINK has been driving the entire non-Albanian population out of Kosovo? The Easter Bunny? ..."
Washington Weekley 8/14/99 Edward Zehr "...In an effort to wreak vengeance upon the woman who called attention to his felonious behavior, President Clinton has misused the power of his office to pressure the government of the corrupt state of Maryland into initiating a malicious prosecution of the whistle-blower, Linda Tripp. At least that is the interpretation any reasonable person would apply to the facts as they are known at present. Given the legal difficulties involved and the renewed scandalous publicity for Clinton that is likely to result should the case go to trial, it seems certain that the indictment is intended to harass and punish Tripp by causing her mental anguish and legal expense. The prospects for a successful prosecution of the case are nil. The indictment is itself a crime, being an egregious violation of a federal civil rights statute that prohibits interference with a federal witness. The reaction of the mainstream press to the indictment has been typical. Most news organizations have largely ignored it, a few editorials and op-ed pieces have thoughtfully considered the issues involved, and a number of die-hard Clinton supporters have made abject fools of themselves with their fawning adulation of their psychopathic hero and their compulsion to spit venom at anyone who takes offense at his scandalous, criminal behavior...."
Original Sources.com 8/19/99 Mary Mostert "…"Do I think they are being planted? I KNOW they are being planted! They are ridiculous and they are absurd and the people of America are sick and tired of this kind of politics and I'm not participating!" Presidential Candidate George W. Bush was talking about a question about whether or not he had ever used cocaine. And who is the most interested in ASKING this question and discussing what George W.'s angry refusal to answer it means? Why no other than the liberals, like those on the Geraldo Rivera show who produced show after show making the point that Bill Clinton's "private life" which involved drugs (according to his biographers) and lots of illicit sex is "nobody's business." Even Hillary Clinton's biographers, Peter and Timothy Flaherty, authors of "The First Lady - A Comprehensive View of Hillary Rodham Clinton talked of a major cocaine connection: "Dan Lasater employed Clinton's brother, Roger, and claimed he once have him $8,000 to pay off drug debts. Lasater was more than the average S&L crook....He served ashtrays full of cocaine at parties in his mansion, stocked cocaine on his corporate jet (a plane used by the Clintons on more than one occasion) and later told the FBI that he had distributed cocaine on more than 180 occasions…. At the same time Clinton was lobbying the state legislature on Lasater's behalf, the police were investigating his drug activities….. Lasater was pardoned by Governor Clinton in 1991." That's a year before he was elected President…..Now the totally unsubstantiated rumor someone started, probably a political enemy, is being discussed on nationwide TV AS IF IT WAS A REAL STORY! A USA Today reporter on the Geraldo Rivera show yesterdy said: "Our poll at USA Today showed that there is a high acceptance of trying marijauna at one time for candidates. But acceptance among voters drops off as you go up the drug food chain into cocaine, heroin, and so on. There is a political problem if you have these drugs in your past with some voters. But how many voters we just don't know because this is the first year where a couple of candidates, Gore and Bradley admitted trying marijuana in their youth. But, cocaine and heroin would have more of an impact." …."
WorldNetDaily 8/18/99 "…Gertz told WorldNetDaily that without the New Media the facts about how President Clinton ravaged America's national security revealed in "Betrayal," "would never have gotten the exposure they did." Gertz credits the release of information from the book on the Internet prior to its publication as a major factor in making it an instant best-seller. "I was shut out from all the major newspapers. Not one, except for The Wall Street Journal, reviewed "Betrayal." Yet because of the Internet and talk radio, the book became a best-seller." Klayman, whose relentless filing of Chinagate lawsuits against the government also helped expose the national security scandal, notes that, "Increasingly today's political battles are being fought with tomorrow's technology. The Internet, electronic mail and other tools of cyberspace are taking on an ever-greater role and importance. That's why we need to not only keep up with the latest technology, but use it effectively." The conference will examine how the New Media can be used as a tool for spearheading journalistic, political, ethical and legal reform….."
: ***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/20/99 Vol Four No 145 "…" 1) The nets jumped on the Bush drug issue. NBC's Brian Williams called it "the question that will not go away," though it is reporters who are making it an issue. The ABC and NBC evening shows never ran stories on Juanita Broaddrick's rape charge. 2) All three morning shows looked at Bush and drugs. It led Today and GMA had George Stephanopoulos as its solo analyst as Charlie Gibson suggested Bush be asked if he ever committed a felony. 3) On FNC Gennifer Flowers demonstrated how Clinton scratched his head when he was high on cocaine…"
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/18/99 Vol Four No 144 "… 2) "In a stinging draft report," USA Today revealed Monday, the GAO disclosed that "the Defense Department has ‘created risks to national security' by failing to conduct thorough security background investigations." But only FNC found it worth a story. 3) A federal judge ordered the government to pay a $625,000 fine because the Clinton administration failed to comply with his order to produce documents, but ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC ignored him. 4) Not a syllable yet on network television about Clinton's decision last week to pardon 16 Puerto Rican terrorists…..
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/18/99 Vol Four No 144 "… 2) An upcoming General Accounting Office (GAO) report will document how Clinton administration indifference to security issues extends beyond the Energy Department to the Defense Department, USA Today disclosed on Monday, but the networks weren't interested. ABC's Good Morning America gave the revelation a few seconds in a Monday morning news brief and, MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth informed me, it got a full story from James Rosen on FNC's Fox Report Monday night. But not a word on the other evening or morning shows, not even CNN's Inside Politics…..Nine out of every 10 security investigations reviewed by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, were found to have been incomplete, according to government officials familiar with the preliminary report. The officials say the GAO reviewed 531 background investigations and found that 488, or 92%, did not fully meet federal investigative standards. In 59 cases, or 12%, the Defense Department failed to follow leads on potentially serious issues involving criminal histories, alcohol and drug use, and financial problems, the GAO reported……"
***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 8/18/99 Vol Four No 144 "… 3) A federal judge last week ordered the U.S. government to pay a $625,000 fine because the Clinton administration's Interior Department failed to comply with his order to produce documents for an Indian group suing over mismanagement of trust funds. Judge Royce Lamberth, the August 11 Washington Post reported, "said he regretted that he could not hold the officials and lawyers personally responsible for the costs, adding, ‘The court is aware of the unfortunate consequences of today's ruling on American taxpayers.'" Network coverage? FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume delivered a full story by Julie Kirtz, but the MRC team of analysts saw nothing, not even a few seconds on a morning show, on any ABC, CBS, CNN or NBC news show... "
Original Sources 8/18/99 Mary Mostert "…. O'Reilly: We got a tremendous rating last night with the Johnny Chung interview. Plenty of people watched it and we got reaction from all over. But, many of the letters say, ‘Why is the Fox News Channel the only one that is reporting this? Why isn’t this breaking out? Do you have any theories on this?
Chairman Dan Burton:Yes, I do. And my theory is there is a real bias in the media. ABA, NBC, CBS, CNN - they’ve followed this for awhile and it’s old news to them. But, the fact is people are lying, they are covering up. The Justice Department is blocking for the President and I think Chuck LaBella and Louis Freeh made the case for an independent counsel and nobody is paying any attention to this, except you, and I think you are doing the Lord’s work. The American people ought to be glad you people are on.
O'Reilly:I see this as more of a government corruption situation than a campaign finance situation. When you have the party in power using that power to amass a tremendous amount of money, some of which came from overseas, you can do a lot to win an election than you could do legally! So the whole system of Democracy, if this is allowed to take place, crumbles! Because the people in power have a tremendous advantage.
Chairman Dan Burton: They talk about Campaign Finance Reform when in fact they broke numerous campaign finance laws that are already in existence. And, they have $1.8 million that was illegally obtained from foreign sources that they have not yet returned.
O'Reilly:Do you think that your Committee is every going to be able to get anything done on this?
Chairman Dan Burton:I am committed to getting to the bottom of it. As long as I’m Chairman we will pursue it. I know I will be chastised and castigated by those in the media who are saying, ‘Oh, you are wasting money, this is all over with. But, I’m going to tell you the American people have a right to know if their campaigns are being corrupted and if their campaigns are violating the law and if people are breaking the law in getting elected to the presidency or any other office.
O'Reilly:Alright, Congressman, we’ll keep you posted on our investigation, which is on-going. We thank you very much…."
The Washington Weekly 4/6/98 Michael Levine Laura Kavanau-Levine "…As an ex-DEA agent I found the complete lack of coverage by mainstream media of what I saw during last month's congressional hearings into CIA Drug Trafficking both depressing and frightening. I sat gape-mouthed as I heard the CIA Inspector General testify that there has existed a secret agreement between CIA and the Justice Department, wherein "during the years 1982 to 1995, CIA did not have to report the drug trafficking by its assets to the Justice Department." To a trained DEA agent this literally means that the CIA had been granted a license to obstruct justice in our so-called war on drugs; a license that lasted, so the CIA claims, from 1982 to 1995, a time during which Americans paid almost $150 billion in taxes to "fight" drugs….. This might also explain Janet Reno's recent and unprecedented move in blocking the release of a Justice Department investigation into CIA drug trafficking…..One of the most distressing things for me as a 25-year-veteran of this business to listen to was when Congresswoman Waters said that the hearings were not about CIA officers being indicted and going to jail. "That is not going to happen," she said. Almost in the same breath she spoke of a recent case in Miami wherein a Venezuelan National Guard general was caught by Customs agents smuggling more than a ton of cocaine into the US. Despite named CIA officers being involved in the plot, as Congresswoman Waters stated, the Justice Department will not tell her anything about the case because of "secrecy laws." No wonder chairman Goss was snickering. She could not have played more neatly into CIA hands than to surrender before the battle was engaged…"
Yahoo News 8/20/99 Eddie Evans Rueters "…Fresh from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the media pack is back in full cry, pursuing George W. Bush over the question of cocaine use more than 25 years ago despite the apparent indifference of most voters. While the mainstream media insist that the public needs to know, critics charge that media standards have been worsening since Gary Hart left the presidential race over a decade ago because of evidence of an affair with model Donna Rice….. ``The coverage of Bush and cocaine matches the mood of the post-Monica media world. And this time the press can't blame the Internet or tabloids. It seems to be very much mainstream,'' Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz said. A poll by Time magazine and CNN found that 84 percent of respondents believed that if Bush used cocaine in his 20s, it did not disqualify him from being president Fifty-eight percent of Americans questioned said they thought reporters should drop the issue, against 36 percent who said they should pursue it…..``If there is a shred of evidence other than Bush's refusal to answer the questions, I certainly haven't seen it,'' Kurtz said. Larry Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said some reporters had told him the cocaine rumors were planted by the campaigns of Republican hopefuls Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer….."
United Press International 8/20/99 "…The possibility that Gov. George W.Bush used cocaine in his younger days does not appear to be hurting his changes in the upcoming presidential race. A Time/CNN poll released today said 84 percent of 942 adults surveyed earlier this week felt that even if Bush did use cocaine when he was in his 20s - something Bush will neither confirm nor deny - it does not disquality him from serving as president. The pollsters said the percentage of people who feel Bush is qualified to be president regardless of his[possible]past drug experiences compares to just 60 percent who felt that way in a June 9-10 poll. The poll also concluded that if the election were held today,Bush would win with 54 percent of the vote compared to Vice President Al Gore's projected 37 percent….The poll said 36 percent of those surveyed thought the media should pursue the story,while 58 percent felt reporters should not.Fifty percent thought Bush was handling the story well,while 29 percent felt his performance was poor. …."