All Nets Jump on Distortion That Low Income Left Out of Tax Cut --5/30/2003

1. All Nets Jump on Distortion That Low Income Left Out of Tax Cut Prompted by a left-wing group's charge that low income parents will not get a child credit payment, ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN and NBC on Thursday night, with little or no regard for how those parents already pay no income tax, all treated the complaint as an indictment of the supposed unfairness of the income tax cut. Peter Jennings asserted: "One group of taxpayers was cut out of this legislation at the last minute, and that was low-income working families with children." CBS anchor Jane Clayson fretted: "The tax cut the President just signed will not help many who need help the most." In what CNBC's Brian Williams called an "embarrassing omission," lower income families "get left out while critics say many who do not need a tax cut get one anyway."

2. Terry Moran: White House Chose "to Leave These Children Behind" Neither NBC's David Gregory or ABC's Terry Moran seem to understand that those being denied the child credit don't pay income taxes. At Thursday's White House press briefing, Gregory ignorantly told Ari Fleischer: "But when it came to, now, a large group of people who stand to get more of the government's money -- their money, as the President says -- they're left behind in this." Fleischer had to explain the obvious, that it isn't "your money" when you get more back than you put in. Moran obnoxiously proposed that Fleischer agree with his summation of the situation: "I just want to make sure that you are saying that the White House agreed to make the choice to leave these children behind."

3. NYT Serves as Conduit for Liberal Agenda, CNN's Brown Impressed All the distorted network reporting about how parents making $10,000 to $26,000 don't qualify for the increase in the child credit were spawned by a Thursday front page New York Times story which was little more than a conduit for a press release from the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Seeing the story, CNN's Aaron Brown gushed: "Here's why the New York Times is a great newspaper." The CBPP Web site reflects how they successfully used the Times to advance their political agenda as they put out a report one day and then the next they quoted the Times story on it as an authoritative, independent source.

4. Mention of Lewinsky Irritates Walters: "Let's Move On!" Don't count on seeing Barbara Walters raising with Senator Hillary Clinton any subject which the former First Lady would like to avoid. Though an ABC promo spot for ABC's June 8 special dedicated to publicizing Clinton's new book promises that "nothing's off limits" and on Thursday's The View Walters reported that when she sits down with Mrs. Clinton next week she'll "ask the really tough questions," the instant The View's Joy Behar mentioned Monica Lewinsky, an annoyed Walter raised her hands and made a pained facial expression as she demanded: "Oh, let's drop, let's move on!"

All Nets Jump on Distortion That Low
Income Left Out of Tax Cut

Prompted on a front page New York Times story that was little more than a press release for the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN and NBC on Thursday night all treated as an indictment of the supposed unfairness of the income tax cut how parents earning between $10,000 and $26,000, who don't pay income taxes, won't get the increased child care credit from $600 to $1,000 against their income tax payments. But CNBC, NBC and CNN never clued viewers in on how those in that income range pay little, if any, income tax while ABC and CBS only mentioned that little fact late in their stories -- after delivering profiles of supposed victims who will not get the tax break.

All but one network story ignored how those making more than $110,000 don't get the higher child credit either and none pointed out how the tax cut bill eliminates another three million families from having to pay any income tax at all.

ABC and CBS cited the CBPP as authoritative, but failed to tag the group as liberal. See item #3 below for more on the New York Times story, including the specifics of the income earners involved in this made-up controversy who may in some cases have income taxes withheld from their paychecks, but who get more back from the federal government through the EITC and child credit than they pay in, and so are more akin to welfare recipients than taxpayers.

ABC's Peter Jennings opened the May 29 World News Tonight by lamenting how "it turns out that a whole lot of people in the country who could use the money are not going to get it." Linda Douglass misleadingly claimed, leading into a look at a victim, that "one group of taxpayers was cut out of this legislation at the last minute, and that was low-income working families with children. Rhonda Williams is an office messenger raising two children alone. She thought she would be getting some extra money from a tax cut bill. She was wrong."

"The tax cut the President just signed will not help many who need help the most," CBS Evening News anchor Jane Clayson fretted before Bill Plante profiled a woman who "earns just above the minimum wage, the kind of taxpayer the President says he wants to help. But she won't be getting that refund check the President says is in the mail. An eleventh hour change in the tax bill prevents millions of low-income working Americans...from receiving an extra $400 child tax credit." Plante picked this soundbite from the woman to feature: "I just think it's ridiculous. I can't believe that they would give money to the rich when the poor need it so much. I can't understand it."

Spoken like a member of the Washington press corps.

Like ABC, NBC made the subject its top story as Tom Brokaw led the NBC Nightly News by insisting that in what "could be an embarrassing omission in his tax cut package, families making between $10,000 and $26,000 a year come up short." CNBC anchor Brian Williams employed similar language: "We learned today there is an embarrassing omission in what is now the law of the land. Families making between $10,000 and $26,000 a year get left out while critics say many who do not need a tax cut get one anyway."

How you "need a tax cut" when you don't pay taxes was a conundrum Williams did not address.

In the subsequent story run by both NBC and CNBC Campbell Brown euphemistically referred to how "children's advocate groups, who estimate about 11.5 million kids will be denied the benefit, today voiced outrage at the administration and Congress."

Earlier, CNN's Inside Politics led with the news created by the liberal group. Judy Woodruff intoned: "We begin with an unexpected hitch in the President's campaign-friendly message about tax cuts. A day after he signed the bill into law, it is now clear that child care tax credits won't be going to as many families as some thought." Kate Snow's story, which never mentioned how few, if any, of these people pay income tax, also ran later in the evening on NewsNight with Aaron Brown.

In all of those stories, only two reporters made any reference to the reality that those in the below $26,000 low-income level with kids don't pay income taxes. ABC's Linda Douglass, late in her story, gave it a clause: "Many low-income families do not pay income taxes but are entitled to a portion of the child credit." CBS's Bill Plante got to it in the very last sentence of his distorted story: "But the White House, in addition to passing the buck to Congress, also points out that many of the families who will miss out on the $400 child tax credit already pay little or no income tax."

So, in other words, there's no story here. Or there wouldn't be for any media outlet more interested in conveying reality than in serving as advocates for a left-wing group's crusade against tax cuts.

Now, a full rundown of the May 29 stories fueled by a left- wing group's polemical point which the New York Times put on its front page.

-- ABC's World News Tonight. The opening teaser from Peter Jennings: "On World News Tonight, the tax cut surprise. Some of the people who need it most will benefit the least."

Jennings, in Washington, DC, topped his broadcast: "Good evening, everyone. We're going to begin here in Washington tonight because now that the President's tax cut has become law and people thought the dust of debate had settled here, it turns out that a whole lot of people in the country who could use the money are not going to get it. ABC's Linda Douglass is on Capitol Hill. Linda, it turns out that the Americans in question do not make enough money to qualify."

Douglass began her distorted and misleading story, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: "That is what they are beginning to realize now, Peter. One group of taxpayers was cut out of this legislation at the last minute, and that was low- income working families with children. Rhonda Williams is an office messenger raising two children alone. She thought she would be getting some extra money from a tax cut bill. She was wrong."
Rhonda Williams: "I thought I was going to get the money to save so my kids can go to college, have them go to a nice college, because now I'm not making that much money."
Douglass: "Under the new law, parents with children are supposed to benefit right away from a big increase in the child tax credit. Middle class families will soon get a $400 check for each child under the age of 17. And the Senate voted to increase payments to lower-income parents earning between $10,000 and $26,000 a year. Republicans dropped that provision in last-minute negotiations."
Robert Greenstein, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: "A married family with two children that makes $20,000 a year now is completely left out of this tax bill. It won't get a thing."
After having failed to label Greenstein, Douglass continued: "Families with 12 million children will not qualify for an increase in the tax credit this year. The White House has no regrets."
Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary: "There's a whole other larger group of Americans, tens of millions, who still pay income taxes who now will pay less income taxes as a result of this tax relief. And that's why, in the President's judgment, this is fair to all Americans."
Douglass finally got to the reality which undermined the entire premise of her piece: "Many low-income families do not pay income taxes but are entitled to a portion of the child credit. Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln says families in her state would have used that money to stimulate the economy by buying appliances and clothes."
Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): "Forty-eight percent of the people of our state have an adjusted gross income of less than $20,000, so they're not going to get much of anything in the way of these child credits out of this bill."
Douglass concluded: "Now, this tax bill also phases in tax relief for married couples who are in the lower incomes more slowly than it does for other married couples, Peter. And the Republicans say they were simply forced to limit the tax cut to $350 billion, and they had to find some way to make room for the President's top priority, the tax cut on dividends."

Jennings then turned to Terry Moran at the White House for more on the White House's reaction and Moran noted how "spokesman Ari Fleischer said since these workers do not pay federal income taxes, though they pay other federal taxes, it's okay that they don't get the tax cut."

-- CBS Evening News. "Millions of U.S. taxpayers won't get the rebate they're expecting," fill-in anchor Jane Clayson declared in teasing the newscast.

But unlike ABC, CNN and NBC, CBS did not lead with the liberal press release. Clayson segued to the story through a poll which assumed tax cuts and deficit reduction are in conflict: "Now to taxes and the economy. In a new CBS News poll, less than a third of those surveyed favored tax cuts as a way to improve the economy while more than half support reducing the federal deficit."

On screen: "Which would be better for the economy? Tax cuts: 32% Reducing deficit: 55%"

Clayson picked up: "And as Bill Plante reports from the White House, it turns out the tax cut the President just signed will not help many who need help the most."

Bill Plante began by finding a victim and suggesting that President Bush lied: "Carlesha Remmy [sp a guess] earns just above the minimum wage, the kind of taxpayer the President says he wants to help. But she won't be getting that refund check the President says is in the mail. An eleventh hour change in the tax bill prevents millions of low-income working Americans like Remmy from receiving an extra $400 child tax credit."
Carlesha Remmy: "I definitely could have used the money for rent, for food, for pampers."
Plante: "Remmy is one of millions of taxpayers who are not eligible for the additional child tax credit because tax writers, looking for ways to keep the tax bill from going higher than $350 billion, dropped the proposal to raise the amount of money which could be refunded to low-income earners. As a result, families with higher incomes up to $110,000 will get the increased child tax credit, but many families with incomes between about $10,500 and $26,600 will get nothing."
David Harris, Children's Research and Education Institute: "We're very disappointed that there's room in this tax cut to give $1,000 to all of these families when the vast majority of these families go to work every day and are playing by the rules."

(NBC also ran a soundbite from the same guy with the "Children's Research and Education Institute," but in a Yahoo! and Google search I could not find any such group.)

Plante refused to properly label the liberal group behind his tendentious story: "The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that there are 12 million children who would have benefitted from an increased refund. The White House concedes there are low-income families who won't benefit but argues that it wasn't the President's fault."
Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary: "Well, as the President has said, he doesn't get everything that he wants. And if this provision had been included, the President would have signed it."
Plante: "Carlesha Remmy doesn't care who's to blame."
Remmy: "I just think it's ridiculous. I can't believe that they would give money to the rich when the poor need it so much. I can't understand it."
Plante concluded by finally getting to how people like Remmy don't pay income taxes: "But the White House, in addition to passing the buck to Congress, also points out that many of the families who will miss out on the $400 child tax credit already pay little or no income tax."

-- NBC Nightly News. Tom Brokaw declared in his opening tease: "Cut out. Why millions of lower-income families may not be getting the help they expected from President Bush's new tax cut."

From Washington, DC, Brokaw started his broadcast: "Good evening. This is the eve of one of President Bush's most ambitious trips abroad to Europe and the Middle East, but here at home, more confirmation the American economy is growing at an anemic rate and what could be an embarrassing omission in his tax cut package. Families making between $10,000 and $26,000 a year come up short. We begin with that story tonight from NBC's Campbell Brown who's at the White House."

What should be "embarrassing" to Brokaw is the skewed news judgment he employed to turn a left-wing polemical claim, that is without foundation, into the lead story on a network news broadcast.
Brown began, as transcribed by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: "At the signing ceremony yesterday, the President lauded the tax cut bill for how much it will help families. An increase in the child tax credit from $600 to $1,000, the President promising the check is in the mail."
George W. Bush on Wednesday: "-$400 per child to 25 million eligible families, and those checks will begin arriving in July."
Brown failed to point out how people in the particular income range pay little, if any, income tax already so giving them a larger child credit would amount to a welfare payment to them: "But not for families making minimum wage. Those with an income in the range of about $10,000 per year to just under $27,000 won't get a check. Children's advocate groups, who estimate about 11.5 million kids will be denied the benefit, today voiced outrage at the administration and Congress."
David Harris, Children's Research and Education Institute: "If all these other kids were included, we could have included these children, and we wonder why it happened and isn't there somebody who could do something about this?"
Brown: "Why did it happen? It was a last-minute deal reached behind closed doors between the President's team and leading Republicans. The Senate insisted the tax cut be no bigger than $350 billion. Something had to be taken out of the bill. The child credit for minimum wage families was eliminated. Today White House officials defended the decision, saying it was part of the deal making."
Fleischer: "Well, there were many decisions that were made that represented compromises in order to get something done."
Brown scolded Democrats too: "So where were the Democrats who staunchly opposed the tax cut from the beginning, arguing the bill was a giveaway for the wealthy? Democrats also knew the child credit for lower income families was being axed from the bill, and only spoke up about it in response to a New York Times report today."
Tom Daschle, Senate Minority Leader: "We weren't in the room. We weren't part of the negotiations. We had no idea until the bill was reported out, and then we did raise it."
Brown concluded: "Senate Republicans say additional child tax credits were never part of the President's tax cut, they were added on later. White House officials, worried about how this will reflect on the President, say he would have supported additional credits, but he won't agree to a change now if it means giving up any other part of his plan. Campbell Brown, NBC News, the White House."

-- CNBC's The News with Brian Williams ran the same Brown story. Here's how Brian Williams introduced it: "Now to the story that led this broadcast last night: the President's tax cuts. Today was supposed to be a victory lap, in effect, having signed the bill into law, but we learned today there is an embarrassing omission in what is now the law of the land. Families making between $10,000 and $26,000 a year get left out while critics say many who do not need a tax cut get one anyway."

-- CNN's Inside Politics and NewsNight. The announcer previewed Inside Politics with this hype: "The check may not be in the mail. This family is looking forward to the new child tax credit. But, surprise. Millions of low-income families won't get it."

Judy Woodruff opened her show: "We begin with an unexpected hitch in the President's campaign-friendly message about tax cuts. A day after he signed the bill into law, it is now clear that child care tax credits won't be going to as many families as some thought. That is because of an 11th-hour change in the legislation that even some lawmakers were not aware of. Our congressional correspondent Kate Snow looks at who was left out."

In a story which also ran on NewsNight, Snow contrasted two sets of kids, but in what should be considered embarrassingly shoddy reporting, she never noted how the parents of one set already live income tax free and, in many cases, already receive a child credit which exceeds their income tax payments:
"Call it a tale of two day care centers. At Miniland in Dale City, Virginia, many of these kids' parents are looking forward to a check in the mail this summer, $400 per child. But that's also because their parents make enough money to qualify for an increase in the child tax credit just signed into law.
"Contrast that with St. Joseph's Day Care in Washington. Most of these kids' parents will not get a check. According to the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a married couple with three kids making less than $26,625 will see no increase in their child tax credit from the tax bill the President just signed. The center says nearly 12 million kids would get no increase in the child tax credit at all.
"Senator Blanche Lincoln pushed to change that last week and she got a provision into the Senate tax bill covering all those families. But as Congress struggled to fit a lot of tax cuts into the $350 billion cap the Senate insisted on, something had to go. It wasn't a secret, but in conversations with CNN last Friday, Republican staffers never mentioned the change. In fact, staffers said all families making less than $110,000 a year would get checks."
Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: "They knew that it would not be very attractive to the American public that the families with kids at $15,000 and $20,000 were dumped out, when there were such big benefits going to people at income levels so high, you can barely imagine it."
Snow: "Republicans say they had little choice in order to get a tax bill passed. They emphasize, this group will be helped by other elements of the President's tax cut."
Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary: "As the President said, he doesn't get everything that he wants. And if this provision had been included, the President would have signed it."
Snow concluded: "But the provision to cover those lower-income families wasn't in the President's original bill. If the President had gotten exactly what he wanted in the first place, these kids' families would still be left without a check from Uncle Sam. Kate Snow, CNN, Capitol Hill."

Woodruff followed up by piling on: "Democrats already are pouncing on the child care tax credit controversy. Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry issued a statement saying: 'George Bush promised to leave no child behind. And with a stroke of his pen yesterday, he did just that to 12 million children. We need a President who has the leadership to put our children's future ahead of tax cuts for the few.'"

CBPP couldn't have dreamed of better promotion, especially from its office's neighbor. CBPP's address: 820 1st Street NE, #510, Washington, DC 20002. That building, behind Union Station, also houses CNN's Washington bureau where Woodruff and Snow work.

Terry Moran: White House Chose "to Leave
These Children Behind"

White House reporters pounded away on Thursday at Press Secretary Ari Fleischer over how parents at lower income levels who do not pay income taxes will not receive the increase child credit from $600 to $1,000 when it would mean they would get more from the government than they paid in income tax deductions from their paychecks, but neither NBC's David Gregory or ABC's Terry Moran seemed to understand that basic dynamic.

Gregory ignorantly told Fleischer: "But when it came to, now, a large group of people who stand to get more of the government's money -- their money, as the President says -- they're left behind in this." Fleisher had to explain the obvious, that "if you owe $400 in income taxes, and let's say you would get a $500 child tax credit, if you only owe $400 in income taxes, you get the $400 forgiven, you actually get $100 back of other people's money."

Moran obnoxiously proposed that Fleischer agree with his summation of the situation: "I just want to make sure that you are saying that the White House agreed to make the choice to leave these children behind."

Those two May 29 exchanges in full. Since the cable news networks did not carry the press briefing, I watched it on the White House Web site. But since their camera focused only on Fleischer, I had to employ voice software -- my memory -- to identify the voices and I recognized the voices as belonging to Gregory and Moran.

NBC's David Gregory: "Ari, isn't the issue here that the White House, playing such a strong role in this conference negotiation, certainly saw to it that two things happened, that taxes on dividends for the investor class got reduced -- nobody was left behind there -- and that the acceleration of the rate cuts for the highest earners in America, those also got accelerated on the President's timetable. So that was taken care of. But when it came to, now, a large group of people who stand to get more of the government's money -- their money, as the President says -- they're left behind in this."
Fleischer had to explain tax basics 101: "Keep in mind that when you say their money, if you owe $400 in income taxes, and let's say you would get a $500 child tax credit, if you only owe $400 in income taxes, you get the $400 forgiven, you actually get $100 back of other people's money. So by actually forgiving all income taxes and then giving people money above and beyond that, it's not the same as the way other people on the income scale are treated."

ABC's Terry Moran soon demanded: "Is it fair to say that the White House, not members of Congress, not Senators, but the White House at the end of the day thought that to make progress, the benefit for these 11.9 million children should go in order to, in part, save the dividend benefit for investors?"
Fleischer: "Keep in mind, investors are across-the-board in terms of income groups, include many senior citizens, whose only source of income is their investment, because they don't have an income since they retired. And that's aimed at creating jobs. And so there are a variety of economic factors that go into the tax bill in terms of giving it the oomph to create jobs, which is what this is about. And I think economists can argue, they will differ about which provisions help create more jobs. And that's a debate that will go on."
Moran countered: "No, but you had to make a choice, and I just want to make sure that you are saying that the White House agreed to make the choice to leave these children behind."

More like ABC and all the networks made a choice to leave honest and balanced reporting behind.

For transcripts of White House briefings and video of them: www.whitehouse.gov

NYT Serves as Conduit for Liberal Agenda,
CNN's Brown Impressed

All the distorted network reporting (see items #1 and #2 above) about how parents making $10,000 to $26,000 don't qualify for the increase in the child credit were spawned by a Thursday front page New York Times story which was little more than a conduit for a press release (or a public relations guy's phone call tipping the Times reporter) from the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a story which though it went into great detail about the specifics of the income range in question and how the 2001 tax cut bill governs the amount of a credit those people can receive, never made the most relevant point: That virtually no parent, with kids 17 or younger, who earns under $26,000 pays any net federal income tax.

Nonetheless, the Times' liberal agenda promotion impressed CNN's Aaron Brown who, MRC's analyst Ken Shepherd noticed, on Wednesday night's NewsNight reverentially previewed the story in the next day's Times: "Here's why The New York Times is a great newspaper, ladies and gentlemen, because they actually read the tax cut bill, don't you know? 'Tax Law Bars Child Credit for Some Families.' It turns out people that make about the minimum wage, between ten and a half thousand dollars and 20,000 actually don't get a child tax credit in the bill."

The CBPP Web site reflects how they successfully used the New York Times to advance their political agenda.

On Wednesday, May 28 the CBPP posted an article titled: "How the New Tax Law Alters the Child Tax Credit and How Low-Income Families Are Affected." See: www.cbpp.org

The Thursday, May 29 New York Times then featured a front page story headlined, "Tax Law Omits Child Credit in Low-Income Brackets."

Following that, the CBPP then approvingly quoted the New York Times story on the subject, as if CBPP had nothing to do with it. A May 29 CBPP posting was titled: "Was There Enough Room in the Tax Bill for The Low-income Child Tax Credit Provision?" The article by Isaac Shapiro and Robert Greenstein began:
"The tax bill that President Bush signed May 28 dropped a child tax credit provision included in the Senate version of the bill that would have assisted close to 12 million children in low-income working families, many of whom receive no benefit from the final legislation. A front page story in the New York Times on May 29 highlighted the absence of this provision."

For CBPP's May 29 posting: www.cbpp.org

An excerpt from the May 29 New York Times story by David Firestone who at least, unlike ABC and CBS (see item #1 above), properly tagged CBPP as liberal:

A last-minute revision by House and Senate leaders in the tax bill that President Bush signed today will prevent millions of minimum-wage families from receiving the increased child credit that is in the measure, say Congressional officials and outside groups.

Most taxpayers will receive a $400-a-child check in the mail this summer as a result of the law, which raises the child tax credit, to $1,000 from $600. It had been clear from the beginning that the wealthiest families would not receive the credit, which is intended to phase out at high incomes.

But after studying the bill approved on Friday, liberal and child advocacy groups discovered that a different group of families would also not benefit from the $400 increase -- families who make just above the minimum wage.

Because of the formula for calculating the credit, most families with incomes from $10,500 to $26,625 will not benefit. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group, says those families include 11.9 million children, or one of every six children under 17....

Families with incomes lower than $10,500 will also not receive the refund checks. But under the 2001 tax revision, they would not have been eligible for either the $600 or the $1,000 credits because they do not pay federal taxes. Proposals to give them the credits failed on the House and Senate floors on party-line votes.

The Senate provision that did pass was intended to help those families making $10,500 to $26,625 who do pay federal taxes and could have taken all or part of the $600 credit....

But Democrats and children's advocacy groups said the Republican demand for large cuts in the dividend tax, which they said benefits primarily wealthy taxpayers, pushed away the credit from low income families....

The gap in the number of families who receive the child credit occurs because of how the formula was arranged in 2001. Congress decided then to give refunds of the credit to low income families, but just to a maximum of 10 percent of the amount they made over $10,000, or a refund of $600, whichever was lower. The $10,000 amount was indexed to inflation and is now $10,500.

When the credit was raised to $1,000, many families could not qualify for the extra amount, because the 10 percent maximum still limited them....

END of Excerpt

For the Times story in full: www.nytimes.com

A Tax Foundation report showing that the lower the income for parents the greater percentage tax cut they got from the 2001 bill and will from the acceleration signed this week, included this explanation as to why they didn't look at the lower income level so hyped in the Times story: "Families earning below $35,000 are not included because the tax cuts enacted in 2001 effectively eliminated their entire income tax liability."

For that report and table: www.taxfoundation.org

Mention of Lewinsky Irritates Walters:
"Let's Move On!"

Don't count on seeing Barbara Walters raising with Senator Hillary Clinton any subject which the former First Lady would like to avoid. Though an ABC promo spot for ABC's June 8 special dedicated to publicizing Clinton's new book promises that "nothing's off limits" and on Thursday's The View Walters reported that when she sits down with Mrs. Clinton next week she'll "ask the really tough questions," the instant The View's Joy Behar mentioned Monica Lewinsky, an annoyed Walter raised her hands and made a pained facial expression as she demanded: "Oh, let's drop, let's move on!"

As quoted in the May 29 CyberAlert, a current ABC promo hypes the interview special: "Sunday June 8th: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barbara Walters. The interview we've all been waiting for and the book that tells all. Sunday June 8th. Nothing's off limits."

On Thursday's The View, the daytime ABC show created by Walters who pops in a couple of times a week to take part in the gab session amongst the four of five women hosts, Walters recounted how on Wednesday she traveled in Illinois to capture video of Hillary Clinton in her home town, a session which followed Walters interviewing Clinton last week while the two walked on Washington's Mall wit the Capitol in the background.

As taken down by MRC analyst Jessica Anderson, on the May 29 The View Walters gushed over Clinton's small town upbringing and then promised she get to the "tough" questions in their next session: "This was the first part of it [the interview]. We went back to her hometown, which is in Park Ridge, Illinois, near Chicago, on the tree-lined street where she had the most kind of, you know, stable, secure childhood."
Meredith Vieira: "Normal."
Walters: "Normal. Father, a staunch Republican; Hillary, a staunch Republican. And then we sat down -- this is the first part of the interview. It's going to be shown, the whole interview, in an hour, a week from Sunday, June 8th, from seven to eight o'clock. Okay, and then next week we sit down and ask the really tough questions, alright?"

The conversation continued and quickly got into penis size.
Vieira: "So did you get to you-know-who in this one? No?"
Walters: "Well, we got to him, we got to her husband, since we talked about how she met him at Yale and she's either the greatest actress in the whole world or this is really, you know, you understand why the marriage works when you see how she talks about him."
Joy Behar: "Maybe she's both, like the rest of Americans, American women, you know? We're actresses and we're for real at the same time with our husbands [audience laughs and applauds]. Everybody's got a little of both."
Walters: "And you know what attracted her the most -- I'll give one thing away -- when she first met him? His hands."
Star Jones: "You said that, Joy."
Vieira: "Oh, big hands, big hands."
Behar: "Yeah, he's got a big head, too. I love that."
Jones: "Yeah, Joy likes his hands and his head."
Behar: "His hair and his head -- it's huge."
Vieira: "But he doesn't have big feet. I met him, he did not have big feet, but he had big hands. I thought that was interesting."

At this point, Behar raised Lewinsky, which clearly irritated Walters.
Behar, joking: "Wait, let's call Monica and see if-" [Audience laughs and applauds]
Walters pompously reviewed her own work and found it wonderful: "That's so awful! I really protest that! I think it's going to be just a terrific interview."
Vieira: "So you liked her."
Walters: "I did, and she's very, then we had a lot of time to just, sort of, talk privately on the way home. We talked a little bit about Star [Jones], who's a friend, and she's going to come on the show one day, which we'll like, but you know, most of what this interview is about is how she felt about things, and that's, to me, very interesting -- how did you feel about this and how did you feel about that? So I hope you'll all watch it a week from Sunday...."

The discussion steered into how we know much more today than in the past about the private lives of public figures. Re-joining the conversation, Walters opined: "It's a different time, and Hillary Clinton is probably -- look, today she's a Senator -- is one of the most accomplished and controversial First Ladies in our history."

Vieira soon brought up a newspaper report: "Did you see -- now, I don't know if this is true, it's in the New York Post today, Page Six -- a friend of Ken Starr's is saying that he now wants to have dinner -- you know, Ken Starr's the one who tried to get rid of Clinton, essentially, led the investigation -- he now wants to have dinner with Clinton and his wife, Hillary, according to the friend that's quoted."

The gaggle spent a while debating whether they would be able to "bury the hatchet" themselves in a similar situation when, in Vieira's words, somebody "had so vilified you and gone after you."

Behar made the error of raising a Clinton scandal and got slapped down by Walters: "I mean, on the other hand, it would show that the Clintons are, you know, that they're over the Whitewater and the -- the Whitewater they never really got them on."
Vieira: "That was years and years of litigation."
Walters: "They never got them-"
Behar: "That's not true, that's not true. They got them on the fact that Monica was in the White House."
Walters raised her hands and made a pained facial expression as she sighed in disgust: "Oh, let's drop, let's move on!"
Behar: "No! Wait a second! I'm not defending Ken Starr, but his position was that Clinton lied under oath and that's why he was after him, so they did get him for that. I mean, it's not like they didn't get him on anything. They got him on that."
Walters, channeled a Clintonista talking point: "No, but the investigations that went on for years and years and years and years about every aspect-"
Jones: "Was Whitewater."
Behar: "Well, the Whitewater turned out to be nothing but just a rafting cruise, or something [audience laughs]."

ABC's Web site for The View, with pictures of all the regulars: abc.abcnews.go.com

This isn't the first time that Walters has become outraged at the mention of Lewinsky's name. As noted in the September 16, 2002 CyberAlert, Walters scolded a colleague on The View for daring to ask the audience on Friday whether they would let their daughters be an intern in Bill Clinton's office. "So unfair, that's so unfair," Walters chided, urging Joy Behar: "Let it go already." See: www.mediaresearch.org

So much for "nothing's off limits."

-- Brent Baker