CyberAlert -- 05/31/1996 -- Israeli Newt

Five items today:

1) To the networks, Binyamin Netanyahu is the Newt Gingrich of the Middle East, one scary right-wing guy bent on ending "the peace process."

2) Bias has already begun in coverage of Saturday's Children's Defense Fund march in Washington as the media sanitize the real agenda and praise organizer Marian Wright Edelman.

3) The liberal commentator on 60 Minutes, Molly Ivins, has enlisted a former network producer to write her commentaries.

4) KVI Radio has fired talk show host Mike Siegel.

5) A little humor: Howie Carr's "Top 10 List of Bill Clinton's Stirring Military Sayings."

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Dan Rather opening the CBS Evening News Thursday night (May 30): "Serious questions about the future of Middle East peace as Lebanese terrorists attack an Israeli army convey and the Israeli government appears headed for a major shift to the hard line right."
Thursday night NBC also referred to the new "right wing" government as ABC's Peter Jennings noted "the Arab world and the United States will have to deal with a much more conservative, much more religious Israeli establishment."
Two terms not heard in reference to the "peace process" or Shimon Peres: "left wing" or "liberal."

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Saturday's children's march sponsored by Marian Wright Edelman's far-left Children's Defense Fund has already generated glowing media coverage. On the Thursday night CBS Evening News (May 30) reporter Wyatt Andrews began a piece by noting the fear expressed by some teens at a youth center (of gunfire, too adult little supervision) and how Edelman is solving the problem: "But the fear they express, and the troubling state of kids in general is the reason that this woman, Marian Wright Edelman has convinced some 3,000 organizations and some 100,000 children to converge on Washington this weekend for a march she calls Stand for Children." After a soundbite of Edelman, a dismayed Andrews declared: "A massive rally for children sounds like one of the least controversial ideas in history, and yet conservative critics believe this march is just a backdrop masking a liberal agenda." Following a soundbite from the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector, Andrews put on Edelman to say that "It is not fair for government to take from poor children's nutrition and child care and health care in order to not just balance the budget, but in order to give a tax cut to the non-needy."
Nonetheless, Andrews concluded by dismissing the real agenda: "Despite their politics their politics, they agree on the problems. One in five children in poverty, almost one of every three children born to an unwed mother, fifteen children every day killed with a gun. So," returning to the youth center, "George, Alberto and George's best friend, Alex Smith, will all march this Saturday."
The June 3 Time's lead story is headlined "The Children's Crusade, A '60s-style campaign aims to put kids first in this year's budget battles and the presidential race." The caption on a photo of Edelman with kids: "Standing for Children." The story concludes: "Politicians are not invited on Saturday, though. They would only obscure what Edelman, a veteran of many marches, sees as this event's main goal: to inspire the heady awareness -- found in the civil rights campaigns and the antiwar movement -- that individuals can change the world."
But the media are invited. MRC entertainment division analyst Tom Johnson reports that NBC Today weather guy/CNBC talk host Al Roker has appeared in MTV ads promoting the march.
Imagine a Christian Coalition march getting this kind of free ride -- no mention of "extreme" views or ulterior motives.

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Speaking of this weekend, when you watch 60 Minutes keep in mind who is writing what Molly Ivins mouths. Ivins is the liberal commentator each Sunday opposite either P.J. O'Rourke or Stanley Crouch. Andy Rooney isn't impressed with the writing in the new commentaries, Gail Shister reported in the May 30 Philadelphia Inquirer. Rooney asserted that all three are first-class writers, "but I don't think they know how to write for TV," where "turning a quick, snappy phrase doesn't work." Shister then reported: "Ivins agrees with Rooney and has enlisted the help of her pal, Marilyn Schultz, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Texas and a former NBC producer." Back in the 1970s Ivins was a New York Times reporter.

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The fax newsletter Talk Daily reported that on Wednesday Fisher Broadcasting, owner of Seattle's KVI Radio, fired talk show host Mike Siegel. The host had been suspended a couple of weeks ago, about a month after he allowed a caller to discuss allegations about homosexuality and the Mayor of Seattle, an incident for which he apologized. If you'd like more information on the controversy leading up to the firing, you can contact Talk Daily at 703-522-6020 or e-mail publisher William Adams at: adams@adams-research.com

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Finally, on the risque but humorous side, in the wake of Clinton's Soldiers and Sailors Act claim here's Boston Herald columnist/WRKO talk show host Howie Carr's "Top 10 List of Bill Clinton's Stirring Military Sayings" (from the May 26 Herald):

10. Don't fire until you see the whites of her thighs.
9. Semper Fly.
8. From the halls of Montezuma to the whores of Tripoli.
7. One if by hand and two if by C cup.
6. I have nothing to offer you but blood, sweat and a higher-paying job at the Arkansas Board of Tourism and Trade.
5. We have not yet begun to neck.
4. Give me liberty or give me a ...
3. I came, I saw, I did her.
2. You may harass when ready, Gridley.
1. I regret that I have but one wife to give for my country.

In my next e-mail I'll provide the results of a survey which found most White House reporters voted for the Democratic presidential candidate from 1976 to 1992

-- Brent Baker

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