CyberAlert -- 11/02/2000 -- Anti-Bush Ad Not Rebuked
Anti-Bush Ad Not Rebuked; Lieberman-Cheney Inaugural?; Nets Bought Gore's Global Warming Hype; More Gore Agenda in NBC's Prime Time -- Back to today's CyberAlert 5) Letterman's "Top Ten Gallup Polltaker Pet Peeves." All three morning shows today played the new anti-Bush ad from the Gore campaign which lists his supposed policy failures and then ends by asking of Bush: "Is he ready to lead?" But unlike Tuesday morning, when the morning shows criticized a Bush ad which asked "Really?" after showing Gore insist he's never said anything untrue in the campaign, no one today suggested the Gore team went "too far," was "harsh," had utilized "Halloween scare tactics" or had contradicted a promise to not go negative. NBC's David Gregory, however, put equal blame on both sides, asserting the campaign "has turned ugly. Both sides now on television with attack ads." -- ABC's Good Morning America, November 2. Diane
Sawyer set up George Stephanopoulos to evaluate the ad, MRC analyst Jessica
Anderson observed: "I want to ask you about something else because in
these remaining days, Al Gore has an ad he's going to roll out, which he hopes
will be a clincher kind of ad and change things for him. What is it?" Stephanopoulos was pleased: "This is the greatest hits of the Gore campaign. They believe by focusing hard on the Texas record and then trying to draw this line to George W. Bush's proposals, this is the argument they need to make in the closing days. Bush campaign says no way. Too little, too late." Sawyer issued no further comment or question. Yesterday, November 1, Stephanopoulos ruminated about the Gore reaction to the new Bush ad: "What they're wondering is, does it go over the line, does it seem too harsh?" Next, Diane Sawyer asked Florida Governor Jeb Bush: "We just heard that ad which ends, 'Really?' about Vice President Gore. Does that go too far for you?" -- CBS's The Early Show, November 2. Bill Plante, MRC
analyst Brian Boyd noted, set up an ad clip: "Gore is in Pennsylvania
today and his campaign has taken the gloves off, releasing a TV spot slamming
Bush's record and asking if he's really up to the job." Compare Plante to how Diana Olick on Tuesday introduced a clip of Bush's anti-Gore ad: "George W. Bush wrapped up his tour of the West coast with some Halloween scare tactics in the form of a new Republican attack ad." -- NBC's Today. David Gregory castigated both sides,
MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens saw: "The campaign's final mile has turned
ugly. Both sides now on television with attack ads in the crucial battleground
states. Going negative in hopes of breaking this race open. The Vice President
is the latest to strike. An ad hitting the airwaves today that knocks Bush's
record in Texas and ends with Gore's central attack against his
opponent." Yesterday morning Gregory argued Bush was being hypocritical: "All of this as Governor Bush promised earlier this week that he was going to unite and inspire and not attack during the final week." Back to Thursday morning, Today played the ad in full
during Matt Lauer's daily discussion with Tim Russert: "Negative ads
have been coming from both campaigns in the last couple of days. Bush came out
with one and now Al Gore has responded with this one. Let's take a look." Lauer found the ad successful: "Pushes all the
buttons, Tim. Big oil, health care, children, minimum wage and ends with that,
'Is he ready to lead?' Is it effective?" President Lieberman and Vice President Cheney? Entering wild speculation mode about the most extreme scenario, Tim Russert this morning laid out how an Electoral College tie could lead to President Joe Lieberman picking Dick Cheney to be his VP. MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens picked up on the
political science "what if" session on today's Today prompted
by Matt Lauer wondering: "Couple of quick scenarios. The split
election. More possible now than before?" This afternoon's Campaign 2000 Media Reality Check titled, "TV Balances Liberals...with Ultra-Liberals: Networks Push Gore and Nader Line on Global Warming 'Threat,' But Ignore Skeptical Scientists." For this report distributed by fax today, Rich Noyes, Director of the MRC's Free Market Project, showed how reporters relayed Al Gore's global warming fears last week without noting how the study he cited is questionable and was leaked early so Gore would have fresh ammunition. To view this Media Reality Check as an Adobe Acrobat
PDF file: The pull-out quote in the middle of the page: The Viewpoint the Networks Excluded Now the Thursday Afternoon, November 2, Media Reality Check: Does this sound balanced to you? Last week Al Gore trumpeted a leaked UN report on the alleged perils of global warming, so the CBS Evening News showed him pledging "to protect the environment with all my heart and soul." Balancing Gore on the October 26 newscast: Ralph Nader, the only other candidate who thinks global warming is a real threat requiring immediate government intervention in the free market. "Al Gore is suffering from election year delusion if he thinks his record on the environment is anything to be proud of," Nader twitted from Gore's left. The only other on-camera source in John Roberts' report: a Greenpeace spokesman, who said of Gore: "The promises are great, the rhetoric is great. Keeping the promises, doing what you say -- that's our concern." CBS never told viewers of skeptical scientists whose insistence on proof is plainly irritating to those who impatiently wish to start re-shaping American society right away. Instead, the pols, activists and journalists conducted a closed discussion that treated the UN paper as irrefutable. "Earth's average surface temperature could rise from 2.7 to almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 10 years -- that's according to a draft report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," asserted Natalie Pawelski, host of CNN's weekly Earth Matters. "Eleven degrees may not sound like much of a change, but to put it into perspective, consider this: the Earth's average global temperature today is only about nine degrees warmer than it was during the last Ice Age," Pawelski hyped, but allowed "some observers are wondering about the timing of this report, leaking out so close to the presidential election." Observers are doing a lot more than "wondering." Weeks ago, climate expert Patrick Michaels warned that Gore would cynically seek an "October environmental surprise," and -- right on schedule -- the heavily political UN document found its way to the public a month early. "A copy of the summary was obtained by The New York Times from someone who was eager to have the findings disseminated before the meetings in The Hague," related Andrew Revkin, the Times reporter who received the leaked document. TV reporters haven't talked about the still-to-be-officially-released report's flaws, but "fourteen international experts gathered on Capitol Hill in June to review the report. They unanimously agreed it contains systematic errors and omissions bordering on scientific fraud," revealed Cato Institute scholar Steve Milloy in a Sunday New York Post op-ed. Further, according to an editorial in today's European edition of the Wall Street Journal, "The vast evidence and models compiled by over 100 scientists, and casting doubt on the evidence of human-enhanced greenhouse effect, were ignored." Two questions for the networks: Are you unable to track down any of the numerous experts who disagree with the Gore-Nader-Greenpeace view of the environment? And will you seek to discover whether it's really the Earth or the Democrats' campaign that's in such peril that it is crucial to pump out a sloppy summary report a few weeks ahead of schedule? END Media Reality Check NBC's Gore agenda in prime time, week #2. Last night's The West Wing featured a subplot in which an insurance company refused to pay for emergency surgery for a gun shot victim because the ambulance took him to an "out of network" hospital and he did not get pre-approval for the life-saving emergency surgery. As reported in the Monday CyberAlert Extra in an
item by the MRC's Rich Noyes, which the Wall Street Journal editorial
page picked up on Wednesday, last week The West Wing and two other NBC
dramas illustrated liberal Al Gore points about the evils of businesses
which he pledges to remedy: For details, go to: Wednesday night, November 1, The West Wing took up the health insurance plight of presidential aide "Josh Lyman," played by Bradley Whitford, who was shot and critically wounded at the end of last season in the shooting of the presidential party as they walked to limos which, it turned out, was aimed not at the President but was committed by skinheads trying to kill the black boyfriend of the President's daughter. Anyway, in last night's episode Josh read aloud from a letter: "They're still saying I owe them $50,000 and that 'failure to pay will result in a negative report on your credit.'" Exasperated, he asked: "They're referring me to insurance code 4336. You know what that means?" Later, aide "Sam Seaborn," played by Rob
Lowe, explained what he was working on for Josh: "The hospital was
out of network and therefore they're claiming responsibility for only 20
percent of a life saving medical procedure. Also didn't get the
procedure cleared beforehand." That's quite a stretch from reality. I really doubt any reputable insurance company covering federal workers would require pre-approval in such an emergency situation. From he November 1 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Gallup Polltaker Pet Peeves." Copyright 2000 by Worldwide Pants, Inc. 10. When boss says you can't go home till you find a Pat Buchanan voter And from the Late Show Web page, some of the "extra" entries which didn't make the final cut: -- Telling your co-workers you actually found a Buchanan supporter, and
no one believes you
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