CyberAlert -- 08/07/1996 -- MRC CyberAlert: From San Diego
***MRC CyberAlert: From San Diego***One item today:A Republican Party platform subcommittee passed a plank stating: "We also recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views. We view this diversity of views as a source of strength." Nonetheless, the very networks which barely touched in 1992 the refusal of the Democratic Party to allow Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey to make a pro-life speech at their convention, pounced on the GOP Tuesday night for intolerance. -- Here's how Peter Jennings opened the August 6 World News Tonight: "Good evening. We begin tonight with what you could certainly call zero tolerance. As much as Bob Dole would like to have the nation focus on his very sweeping tax cutting proposals of yesterday, the men and woman who will join him at his party's political convention in a few days are once again involved in a power struggle about abortion. Today by the time Mr. Dole spoke by satellite to his party's delegates, who were already gathered in San Diego, all notions of tolerance on the subject of abortion had disappeared from the party's platform." -- On the NBC Nightly News reporter Gwen Ifill's piece ended by showing Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld saying in a soundbite: "I don't want to drum the pro-lifers out of the party. I just want there to be room for me and them within the same description of the party." Ifill then concluded: "But there's not enough room for the words abortion and tolerance to co-exist in this party's platform. Dole is gambling that voters care more about the economy and taxes than they do abortion. But he has undercut moderate Republicans at a time when he needs every vote he can get. Gwen Ifill, NBC News, San Diego." It just shows that it pays to suppress any dissent. When you allow debate and what reporters consider the wrong side wins they call you intolerant. -- Brent Baker
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