2) "White
House Gave DNC Top-Secret Intelligence: Information Used to Rescind Dinner
Invitation," announced an April 8 Washington Post headline. Reporter
Bob Woodward began Tuesday's front page story:
"The White
House supplied top-secret intelligence information to the Democratic
National Committee to block a Latvian businessman with alleged ties to
organized crime from attending a $250,000-a-person fundraising dinner with
President Clinton, according to government officials and other sources.
"The effort
was successful, and the businessman, Grigori Loutchansky, who had been
formally invited to attend the DNC fundraising dinner in 1995, was
abruptly disinvited.
"In the
course of the episode, political operatives in the White House and the DNC
gained access to and disseminated information gathered by some of the
nation's most sensitive intelligence-gathering methods. Many did not have
the required high-security clearances to receive such information."
TV network
Coverage? Virtually none Tuesday morning or night. CNN's Inside Politics
aired a full story from Wolf Blitzer, but otherwise:
-- NBC's Today:
Nothing, not even during Matt Lauer's Close-up segment interview with Tim
Russert about "The do-nothing Congress."
-- ABC's Good
Morning America: a brief mention from news anchor Elizabeth Vargas during
just the 7:30am news update.
-- NBC Nightly
News: Not a syllable.
-- ABC's World
News Tonight: Not a word on the Post story, but Peter Jennings took about
20 seconds to report that a House committee issued subpoenas for Mack
McLarty, Erskine Bowles, Bruce Lindsey, and George Stephanopoulos.
-- CBS Evening
News: Dan Rather read a brief item on the Post discovery: "President
Clinton has denied a published report that White House officials turned
over secret intelligence information to the Democratic Party
organization..." Rather ended by noting that "late today, the
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Porter Goss,
accused the President of in effect stonewalling repeated questions about
this until the story hit the headlines today."
3) The press
blames Israel's violation of the Oslo accords for the current spate of
violence, but as syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer noted in the
April 4 Washington Post, it's the PLO which has failed to follow the
agreement:
"Oslo
clearly requires the renunciation of violence. Oslo II, Article XV: 'Both
sides shall take measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism,
crime and hostilities directed against each other.' Yet Arafat's aides
admit that his own Fatah faction organized the anti-Israel rioting of the
last 14 days. Oslo is equally unequivocal that the PLO must change its
charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel. In 3 and a half years,
Arafat has not done that."
But the networks
portray the Palestinians as the victims, specifically in how Israel is
building housing in "Arab East Jerusalem." As Krauthammer
observed, Oslo does not bar the housing. Three recent examples of the
network spin:
-- MRC news
analyst Clay Waters noticed the "Palestinians are justified"
twist to Walter Rodgers' March 30 World Today story on CNN:
"The agenda
at the White House may have been restarting the Middle East peace process.
But in the Middle East there was no spirit of reconciliation. Only cries
for revenge. This as Palestinians paraded through the streets, shouting,
'We were not born to lead lives of humiliation.' This humiliation is felt
deeply here. Witness these Israeli-Arabs marching in solidarity with
Palestinians, both commemorating Land Day, marking decades of Israeli
confiscation of Arab lands. Walter Rodgers, CNN, Jerusalem."
-- On Monday's
(April 7) World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings painted Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, fresh from a visit to the White House, as the
impediment to peace:
"The final
status of Jerusalem is the most difficult and the most controversial issue
that divides the Israelis and the Palestinians, but Mr. Netanyahu was
unyielding in remarks he made earlier today."
Netanyahu:
"I want to assure you today we will never allow Jerusalem to be
re-divided again, ever, never."
ABC reporter Jim
Wooten then presented a one-sided story on Israel's Jerusalem housing
policy. Wooten's story began:
"Since 1967,
a succession of Israeli governments has settled 170,000 Jews in East
Jerusalem, most of them on land taken from Palestinians. Now, 150,000
Palestinians are crowded onto constantly shrinking acreage and badly
needed new housing for Palestinians has long been discouraged by Israeli
bureaucracy or bulldozers. One more large Jewish settlement on this green
hill would produce a decisive Jewish majority in East Jerusalem which is
why the Israeli's decision to build there has so enraged the
Palestinians..."
-- On Tuesday's
(April 8) CBS Evening News Bob Simon filed from Hebron, site of violent
clashes. He suggested Arafat is not connected to the violence:
"Netanyahu's
words in Washington were all about Palestinian terror. The trouble is, he
can't control his extremists any more than Arafat can control his. It's
all a question of creating the right atmosphere, and right now the
atmosphere is ripe for murder..."
After showing
video of battles on the streets, Simon continued:
"The
casualties were overwhelmingly Palestinian. Three dead by days end, more
than a hundred hospitalized. Shabrile Rajuv [OK, I have no idea how to
spell his name. This is what it sounded like], the head of Palestinian
security forces, is getting tired of going to funerals. When he heard that
Netanyahu vowed again today to continue building that Jewish housing
project in Arab East Jerusalem, he called it a declaration of war."
What do you call
the PLO's call for the destruction of Israel?
As for Arafat's
inability to control violence, the April 14 New Republic noted that the
U.S. "Reproached Arafat for modulating his crackdown on Hamas and
Islamic Jihad. By the end of February, American officials had grown
alarmed by Arafat's release from jail of what they called 'really bad
guys.' And then Arafat set free Ibrahim Maqadmeh, the architect of last
year's suicide bombings."
Krauthammer also
observed that unlike the intifada of ten years ago, now 98 percent of
Palestinians in the Gaza and West Bank live under the Palestinian
Authority, so the rioters are protesting policies outside of where they
live. And, on the housing front, these three network stories failed to
point out that 75 percent of the land was Jewish-owned.
4) Among the
Pulitzer Prize winners announced on Monday: the award for editorial
writing went to Michael Gartner, Editor of the Daily Tribune in Ames Iowa.
Gartner served on the Pulitzer Prize board from 1982 to 1992 and was
President of NBC News during the Dateline NBC/GM truck explosion fiasco.
Tuesday's Los Angeles Times reported that he won for his "common
sense editorials about issues deeply affecting the lives of people in his
community."
I don't know
about his writing about local issues, but Gartner's columns which ran in
USA Today until late last year provided plenty of liberal pontificating
for the MRC's Notable Quotables newsletter. Here's some of Gartner's
"common sense" dispensed in USA Today over the past few years:
-- From September
27, 1994: "Hillary Clinton, like Eleanor Roosevelt, had already done
a great service. Unlike Barbara Bush, she got involved. She has taken
stands. She has been a leader. It's too bad, of course, that there is not
health care legislation this year, but that is Congress's failure, not
Hillary Clinton's. Her role has been a success. She awakened the nation.
She educated the nation. She enlightened the nation....For when a nation
gets two leaders for the price of one -- a Franklin and Eleanor, a Bill
and Hillary -- it can tackle twice as many problems, find twice as many
solutions, make twice as much progress."
-- From August
15, 1995: "The Republicans say they are for the poor as well as the
rich. So how come they want to offer no aid and comfort -- and care --
when the poor are put upon? How come they want to eliminate federal
welfare programs and leave the poor and the sick and the unlucky at the
mercy of the states -- some of which don't have a great record of caring
for people who don't make political contributions. Why do they want to let
states take away aid to provide for abortions in case of rape and incest?
So only the rich won't have to bear children of violent strangers or
crazed uncles? Do the Republicans perhaps have a double standard -- not of
men and women, but of rich and poor?"
-- From October
17, 1995: "It's nice, of course, if we have a President we like. But
there's more to governing than likability. We learned that from the
likable Ronald Reagan, who charmed us with stories as he amassed huge
deficits and spent billions on goofy defense plans. No, the record is more
important. And Bill Clinton's record is just short of terrific."
-- From June 11,
1996: "How can anyone argue that Bill Clinton has not been a good
President? Business should love him. The country has been in a controlled
boom since he bludgeoned through by one vote his first economic
package....Workers should love him. There are more jobs than
ever....Minorities should love him. He has a terrific record of appointing
women and minorities to judgeships and high federal posts. He has put
civil rights back on the table after 12 years of Republican neglect....
"No, it
makes you wonder what the President and his wife could have accomplished
these four years if they had not been consumed by these scandals, these
lawsuits and these clippings. By almost any measure, the past four years
have been spectacular for many Americans. Still, if Bill Clinton had been
a full-time President, if Hillary Clinton had been a full-time First
Lady...
"Would the
poor be a little richer? Would the old be a little healthier? Would the
young be a little smarter? Would the nation be a little more prosperous?
Would the world be a little less troubled? You wonder. And you wonder if
he wonders."
-- From September
17, 1996: "For most people in this country, life is awfully good. So
Clinton doesn't need to raise any issues. He just needs to point to his
record and promise more of the same. The people who don't have a great
life right now -- the 39 million people below the poverty level, the 40
million people with no health insurance, the 6.2 million people earning at
or below the minimum wage -- are the people who really do have the issues.
But Dole isn't about to reach out to them, and they aren't about to vote
for Dole or the Republicans. That would make their plight worse, if that's
possible."
I forgot how much
colorful material Gartner used to provide. Too bad USA Today dropped his
column.
