CyberAlert -- 07/09/1999 -- Surprised So Many Object to Hillary; News Chief Tried to Mute Drudge

Surprised So Many Object to Hillary; News Chief Tried to Mute Drudge

1) Hillary Clinton may now support moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but only CNN's Bruce Morton recalled her advocacy of a Palestinian state. CBS stressed how "she is not flip-flopping."

2) Clueless in Manhattan. By 70 to 30 percent those answering an ABCNews.com poll opposed Hillary's candidacy. "I am really surprised...by the size of that majority," admitted GMA's Gibson.

3) Liberal New York columnist Jimmy Breslin told CNN's Bernard Shaw that Hillary's "strength comes from a lot of people on television or in newspapers that just write drivel."

4) Filegate "might yet be broken open with political implications for Hillary Rodham Clinton," Bob Novak reported in revealing evidence that a White House lawyer took FBI files home to type into his laptop computer.

5) "FBI Records Outline China's Attempt to Silence Chung," Jerry Seper revealed in The Washington Times.

6) Katie Couric gushed: "People have called Robert Rubin the best Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton."

7) Howard Kurtz revealed ABC Radio is syndicating Matt Drudge's talk show "over the heated objections of ABC News President David Westin." But having Stephanopoulos host GMA is fine by him.

8) The director of Arlington Road, a movie opening today, said "I don't disagree with a lot" of the Unabomber's manifesto.

9) MSNBC's John Hockenberry suggested that Hillary benefits from a "great expectations momentum that Jesse Ventura seems to possess." Then saying goodbye he asked: "How bad does cable TV suck?"

>>> On Boston radio Friday. MRC Chairman L. Brent Bozell will appear Friday, July 9 from 4 to 4:20pm local time on Howie Carr's talk show on WRKO 680 AM. Topic: Lack of network coverage of Chinagate. Carr's talk show is simulcast on WNNZ 640 AM in Springfield as well as on stations in Worcester, Mass. and Providence, Rhode Island. <<<

1

ABC, CBS and CNN all took time Thursday night to report Hillary Clinton's view that the U.S. embassy in Israel should be moved to Jerusalem, but only CNN's Bruce Morton reminded viewers that last year she "famously came out for a Palestinian state."

Neither ABC or CBS suggested that her view on Israel's capital might be in conflict with her advocacy of a Palestinian state. CBS's Diana Olick marveled at how "Mrs. Clinton is clearly defining her new role, that is she's moving from First Lady to politician." Olick stressed how "her spokesman said she is not flip-flopping on this issue and has always believed exactly what she said in this letter."

NBC's Andrea Mitchell, CNN's David Ensor and FNC's Gary Matsumoto all previewed a dire report from a congressionally-appointed commission about how the country is unprepared to deal with a chemical or biological attack, but only Matsumoto, on the Fox Report, credited the Baltimore Sun with breaking the story.

The networks displayed different news priorities in their leads with NBC Nightly News and CNN's The World Today starting with flooding in Las Vegas. ABC opened with a report on Bill Clinton's trip to Watts while CBS went first with the Air Force's emergency aid drop to a woman who may have cancer but is stuck at the National Science Foundation's South Pole station where it's 80 below and dark all day.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's acceptance of the Republican idea of creating a special agency to oversee the nuclear labs generated short items read by the anchors of both CNN's The World Today and FNC's Fox Report, but not a word on the broadcast networks.

Now back to Hillary, the Palestinians and Israel. Anchor Peter Jennings read this short item on ABC's World News Tonight:
"One item about U.S. politics today. It didn't take Mrs. Clinton long in her campaign for the Senate to disagree with her husband and the U.S. government. Mrs. Clinton has told an Orthodox Jewish group she considers Jerusalem the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel and that the U.S. embassy should be moved there. The Jewish vote is very important in New York state."

Over on the CBS Evening News Dan Rather intoned:
"Among other things today she spelled out her opinion about a sensitive foreign policy issue. In a letter that surfaced today Mrs. Clinton tells a New York-bases Orthodox Jewish organization that she considers Jerusalem quote 'the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.' Now this appears at least to be at some odds with the official policy of her husband's administration. Official policy says Israel and the Palestinians should decide Jerusalem's status."

From Utica Diana Olick marveled: "Mrs. Clinton is clearly defining her new role, that is she's moving from First Lady to politician..." Olick pointed out the obvious: "She's sizing up New York, the state she wants to represent, and she's tailoring her opinions to suit New Yorkers which is important because Jews in New York traditionally vote Democratic and they represent 12 percent of the statewide vote."

But, Olick passed along, she's not pandering: "From Mrs. Clinton's camp her spokesman said she is not flip-flopping on this issue and has always believed exactly what she said in this letter."

How many people who favor a Palestinian state, which Arafat wants to make Jerusalem the capital of, also want the city to be the capital of Israel, a position which Palestinians violently oppose?

In reality Hillary Clinton has a long history of supporting the terrorist Palestinian side against the only democracy in the region. In an e-mail on Thursday Evan Gahr of the American Enterprise magazine reminded me that in a 1992 story for Insight magazine he documented Hillary's role in funding the PLO. He passed along a May 19, 1998 op-ed he wrote for the Washington Times a week or so after she declared her support for a Palestinian state:

...She has often made common cause with leftists who view America and Israel with equal contempt. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton has even managed to help fund PLO front groups -- a dubious endeavor for which she has never given an honest explanation.

In the late 1980s, Hillary Clinton served as chairman of the New World Foundation. During her tenure, the New World Foundation played Sugar Daddy to virtually every ultra-left organization under the sun -- from the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) to the National Lawyers Guild, long the legal arm of the American Communist Party. Under Chairman Hillary, the New World Foundation also donated $15,000 to the Boston-based Grassroots International, which in turn funded two PLO-affiliated groups on the West Bank.

It's well to note that the grant came before Yasser Arafat renounced terrorism and accepted Israel's right to exist. Of course back in the late '80s, folks of Mrs. Clinton's ilk were quite sympathetic with the PLO. Just as the United States and the Soviet Union were deemed morally equivalent in left-wing circles, the Jewish state was placed on much the same level as PLO terrorists.

Of course, such views didn't quite mesh with the 1992 Clinton campaign's centrist posture. And when Mrs. Clinton's PLO ties came to light in 1992, the campaign was long on lame explanations and short on accountability. Mrs. Clinton's press secretary Lisa Caputo told the Forward that Mrs. Clinton did not vote on the grant, and the money was intended for Grassroots' anti-apartheid work in South Africa. Picking up on that note, Mrs. Clinton subsequently said, "If the money was diverted I knew nothing about it."

Not so fast. The Grassroots donation was a general purpose grant; Grassroots didn't have to divert anything. Moreover, the New World Foundation, according to Grassroots, knew full well that the organization supported West Bank Palestinian groups....

END Excerpt.

2

"I am really surprised...by the size of that majority in that poll," exclaimed Good Morning America co-host Charlie Gibson on Thursday in announcing how an online ABCNews.com poll found those casting a vote opposed Hillary's candidacy by more than two-to-one.

MRC analyst Jessica Anderson caught this revealing exchange from a bit before 8am on the July 8 show:
"We have just a minute here before we turn away for local news, and we mentioned at this point in the program yesterday, well, we talked in the first half hour yesterday and today about Hillary Rodham Clinton running for the Senate from New York, we had our little focus group this morning. Yesterday on ABCNews.com service, the poll of the day involved Hillary Rodham Clinton, and again, this drives my, my friends in the scientific polling community nuts, when you have these unscientific polls because anybody who has a computer can vote. And again, people from all over the country could vote in this, not just in New York, but the results are interesting. I'll show you what they said. 'Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to run for the U.S. Senate from New York is,' and then we said, 'wrongheaded, she's a carpetbagger' or 'good news, she'd make a great Senator,' and I guess I'm not surprised that, what had the majority, but I'm surprised by the size of that vote. Thirty-seven thousand one hundred and seventy-two people voted, 37,000 people voted."

An on-screen graphic listed the vote as 69.3 percent answered "wrongheaded" while 30.6 percent thought is was "good news."

Co-host Robin Roberts tried to downplay the relevance: "But again, not only from the state of New York, all around, across the country."
Gibson: "Yes, and not scientific. They do a pretty good job of keeping people from voting twice. Once you've voted on your computer, then the ABCNews.com thing just gives you the standings at the moment. They don't let you vote again. But I suppose if you had two computers or three, you could vote..." [trails off]
Roberts: "Were you surprised by the numbers?"
Gibson: "Yes, I am. I really am surprised, not by what got the majority, but by the size of that majority in that poll."
Roberts: "Almost 70 percent."
Gibson: "But as I said, unscientific. So all my friends, who really work for pollsters and whatever, please don't write me, don't call me up."
Roberts: "And you know they are, they are."
Gibson: "We just, we report it for what it means, which is probably not a lot. We take a commercial break. We'll be right back."

3

Veteran liberal New York columnist Jimmy Breslin, now with Newsday, told CNN's Bernard Shaw that Hillary's "strength comes from a lot of people on television or in newspapers that just write drivel."

In the midst of an impassioned tirade against Hillary's candidacy by Breslin on Wednesday's Inside Politics, MRC analyst Paul Smith noticed Shaw tried to defend Hillary only to be scolded by Breslin:

Shaw: "Now wait a minute now, this woman brings a lot of strength."
Breslin: "What strength?"
Bernard Shaw: "Don't you agree that she brings a lot of strength to what she is trying to do?"
Jimmy Breslin: "No, I think that the strength comes from a lot of people on television or in newspapers that just write drivel."

Indeed, as Gibson's reaction demonstrates, members of the media don't understand why everyone isn't as excited as they are about her candidacy.

4

"Filegate Lives On" declared the headline over Robert Novak's syndicated column in the Washington Post on Thursday about how the case "might yet be broken open -- with political implications for Hillary Rodham Clinton," but will the mainstream media allow it to become a news topic again?

Novak reported that a Judicial Watch filing with a federal judge requesting a deposition states that the former wife of White House Associate Counsel William Kennedy says he "'brought FBI files from his White House office to their home in Alexandria, Va.' She observed him 'on several occasions' working for hours, 'making entries from the files into a database he maintained on his laptop computer.'"

Here's an excerpt from Novak's illuminating column:

A filing petition to a federal judge last week raised the possibility that the FBI files case, one of the capital's great all-time mysteries, might yet be broken open -- with political implications for Hillary Rodham Clinton. It requests the deposition of a former Clinton White House aide's ex-wife, who claims she observed her husband transferring FBI files into his laptop computer.

The June 29 filing by the conservative Judicial Watch asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington to authorize the sworn testimony of Leslie Gail Kennedy, who was married until late 1994 to then White House Associate Counsel William H. Kennedy. The request also quotes Mrs. Kennedy's opinion that Mrs. Clinton was associated with the FBI files. The next day, Judicial Watch also asked Lamberth for a deposition of the First Lady herself on grounds that "she was involved in, if not responsible for, making key decisions that bear on 'Filegate.'"

Most inscrutable of the Clinton scandals is the appearance in the White House during President Clinton's first two years in office of FBI personal files of prominent Republicans. Even partisan Democrats suggested this was an inexcusable invasion of privacy. Yet, after the White House shrugged it off as a "bureaucratic snafu," Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr seemed to lose interest.

But not the dogged Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch. His class-action suit against the White House, the FBI, selected aides and Mrs. Clinton asks $90 million for personages whose confidential files went astray....

Still, the case looked dead until Judicial Watch employee Christopher Farrell interviewed Mrs. Kennedy at her Little Rock home June 11. According to Farrell's court filing, she told him that her then husband "brought FBI files from his White House office to their home in Alexandria, Va." She observed him "on several occasions" working for hours, "making entries from the files into a database he maintained on his laptop computer."

Kennedy's wife, according to the filing, asserted that the database "was intended to make FBI file information accessible and useful to the Clinton administration." Asked whether these were files of Reagan and Bush administration staffers, she replied there would be no need to review files of Democrats "routinely available" at the White House. Her statement tended to be confirmed by the deposition in the case last December by Linda Tripp, swearing that as a White House staffer she knew of Kennedy putting FBI files into his database.

Farrell visited Mrs. Kennedy again June 16 to get a sworn affidavit, but she demurred. According to the filing, she said she "could not be seen by people in this administration as being out here volunteering information. If I get subpoenaed, that's a different story. At least, I'll have some cover."....

Kennedy was no underling in the category of file purveyors Craig Livingstone and Anthony Marceca. He was Mrs. Clinton's colleague at the famous Rose Law Firm in Little Rock and is back there now. It is improbable that he would carry on activities alleged by his former wife without higher approval.

Mrs. Kennedy expressed personal views about how high the scandal goes. Asked what use might be made of the files, the court filing says, she "pointed out that Mrs. Clinton's first major policy objective was 'health-care reform' and that Mrs. Clinton anticipated resistance from many people in forwarding her agenda."....

END Excerpt

Not a syllable about this disclosure aired Thursday morning or evening on any of the networks. They can hardly dismiss the story because it came from a conservative columnist. He just relayed independently verifiable testimony from Judicial Watch and, as the MRC's Tim Graham reminded me, a decade ago a New York Times op-ed by Gary Sick launched a round of network stories about the "October Surprise."

5

"FBI Records Outline China's Attempt to Silence Chung," announced the headline over a July 8 front page Washington Times story by Jerry Seper filling in details about what wiretaps of Robert Luu revealed, the basic content of which was first revealed by FNC's Carl Cameron back in late May.

No other network or major print outlet picked up on Cameron's exclusive May 23 and 24 pieces and none touched Seper's story on Thursday morning or evening. An excerpt:

Chinese intelligence officers were more significantly involved than previously suspected in efforts to monitor Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung's cooperation with the FBI's campaign finance probe, relaying instructions to a middleman on a near-daily basis.

The Beijing-directed operation is described in FBI transcripts of 20 telephone conversations and meetings, along with 22 intercepted fax messages, over four months in 1998 involving Chung and Robert Luu, a Chinese-American who made subtle threats if Chung did not keep silent and offered hush money for his defense if he did.

The transcripts, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times, show that Mr. Luu received instructions concerning the probe from Chinese agents and relayed messages from them to Chung. Those messages included a suggestion he not disclose information he might have on two U.S. aerospace firms, Loral Space & Communications Ltd. and Hughes Electronics, that provided China with technology used to improve its satellites, missiles and warheads.

Mr. Luu also shared with Chung a secret code, handwritten in Mandarin during a meeting at a Los Angeles-area hotel, to schedule times and sites of future meetings, and told him Chinese agents were aware of pending news stories about the FBI probe and had advice on how he could respond.

Although Chung has told a similar tale of Chinese intrigue and would-be threats before a House committee, the documents more fully describe a shadowy network of ranking Chinese intelligence officers eager to insulate Beijing from any ties to the campaign finance scandal....

END Excerpt

Back on the May 23 Fox News Sunday Cameron relayed: "Fox News has obtained documents for the first time that directly connect China's illegal campaign contributions to President Clinton with specific cases of Beijing's acquisition of U.S. military technology. China had an elaborate scheme to obstruct U.S. Justice Department investigations into both." To read more, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/1999/cyb19990524.html#1

Cameron returned the next night to FNC to elaborate. To learn more and watch a RealPlayer clip of his story, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/1999/cyb19990525.html#2

6

Greatest ever. Just as happened a few weeks ago when Robert Rubin announced his impending resignation as Treasury Secretary, the confirmation of Lawrence Summers to replace him generated excessive accolades.

Here's how Katie Couric ended her July 8 interview with Summers, as picked up by MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens:
"Alright well Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. I know people have called Robert Rubin the best Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton so I know you have some big shoes to fill. All the best to you."

7

ABC Radio this weekend is launching syndication of a weekly talk show hosted by Matt Drudge. But the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz revealed it is happening "over the heated objections of ABC News President David Westin" who does, however, feel it's appropriate to have a liberal political operative co-host his TV network's morning news show.

Kurtz reported in the July 8 Post:

Matt Drudge is coming to Washington -- and plenty of other cities -- over the heated objections of ABC News President David Westin.

ABC Radio said yesterday that it has signed the Internet gossip columnist to a syndication deal that will put him on the network-owned stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Atlanta and Washington, where Drudge will be heard on WMAL-AM. Drudge, whose Sunday night show is already carried on New York's WABC, is getting a bigger major-market rollout than Rush Limbaugh.

According to network sources, Westin vociferously argued that Drudge should not be part of ABC's corporate family. In meetings with Pat Fili-Krushel, the President of ABC Television, and Lyn Andrews, the head of ABC Radio Networks, Westin contended that Drudge was reckless and that the radio division would be sorry if it hired him. Fili-Krushel, in turn, raised the matter with Steven Bornstein, President of ABC Inc....

Drudge's signing was delayed more than a week by Westin's lobbying campaign. But the radio unit, which operates separately from the news division, prevailed.

Drudge brushed off the criticism by Westin, who declined to be interviewed. "It doesn't bother me at all," he said from Los Angeles, where he will often do the show. "Hopefully one day I can become an apple of his eye like George Stephanopoulos and anchor the news." The former White House aide recently filled in as co-host of ABC's "World News Now" overnight news show....

ABC has given Drudge a six-figure deal and a share of future advertising revenues. While he'll debut Sundays on about 20 stations, Rich said he hopes to eventually air the program five days a week. In the latest ratings period, Drudge boosted his New York audience by 80 percent and beat everyone else on both AM and FM -- a feat that Rich says is accomplished only by the likes of Limbaugh and Laura Schlessinger...."

END Excerpt

Update for Kurtz: Stephanopoulos not only anchored the overnight World News Now, he has co-hosted Good Morning America three times in the past six weeks, including June 24 and 25. To learn about that and to see a RealPlayer clip of him interviewing pollsters about the presidential campaign, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/1999/cyb19990625.html#3

To see him anchor World News Now, go to the MRC's Media Bias Videos page and scroll down to June 16: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/biasvideo.html

Washington area readers: Drudge's show will be carried Sunday from 10pm to 1am on WMAL. That moves another conservative to a better time slot: ABC's syndicated Mark Davis Show from WBAP in Ft. Worth will now run live from 1 to 4pm bumping the Sunday Limbaugh re-run.

8

The director of Arlington Road, a movie opening today which stars Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins, agrees with much of he Unabomber's manifesto. The movie is about an FBI agent whose wife is killed in a shootout and how he comes to suspect that his neighbors in Reston, Virginia are terrorists.

MRC entertainment analyst Tom Johnson alerted me to the comments from director Mark Pellington as quoted an April 30 Entertainment Weekly preview of summer movies (brackets and ellipses as in the magazine):
"'This may sound controversial, but...I don't disagree with a lot of what [the Unabomber manifesto] had to say,' says the director, though 'the means by which [extremists] express their ideas may be completely horrible and cowardly.'"

9

One last liberal zing for a bitter Hockenberry. Opening a discussion segment Wednesday night about Hillary Clinton MRC analyst Mark Drake noticed that MSNBC's John Hockenberry outlined her virtues to U.S. News owner Mort Zuckerman:
"It seems to me on some level, Mort, let me begin with you, that Hillary benefits from a kind of breath of fresh air, great expectations momentum that Jesse Ventura seems to possess now. Hillary seems like something new, something different. Yet are the expectations too high?"

MSNBC has canceled his 10pm ET show after just seven months and Thursday night the network aired the last edition. Ending his show on Wednesday night, July 7, Hockenberry displayed how he's not too pleased:
"We want to invite you all here tomorrow night to our last program on this network where we're considering some 'Bottom Line' questions [a list of questions normally posed to guests] like how bad does cable TV suck? That could be our first question. But we're still working on them, still working on them. We'll have it all for you tomorrow. Join us tomorrow on MSNBC for the last Hockenberry."

Well, one less liberal on a news network, though he'll have a bigger audience on Dateline NBC. MSNBC will replace Hockenberry not with a news show but with something called Headliners and Legends in which Matt Lauer narrates biographies. Sounds like another low-budget Time & Again-type clip show. -- Brent Baker

3

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