Jennings Delivers Liberal Cliches on Reagan and Taxes and Blacks --6/11/2004

1. Jennings Delivers Liberal Cliches on Reagan and Taxes and Blacks
ABC's Peter Jennings just can't let a moment pass without pointing out how Ronald Reagan was not popular with African-Americans. On Thursday's Good Morning America, Jennings delivered liberal cliches as he asserted that at the end of Reagan's presidency "a great many people thought he'd made the wealthy wealthier and had not improved life particularly for the middle class, and there were just occasional intrusions yesterday of the divisiveness which was evident during his presidency, particularly in the African-American community, which felt that Ronald Reagan had not given it their due."

2. Today Trumpeted Reagan for Raising Taxes and Backing Gun Control
NBC's Today on Thursday championed Ronald Reagan's policies -- of raising taxes and supporting gun control. In an interview with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Campbell Brown pressed him to agree that Reagan, as Governor of California, "was a leader but not an ideologue. He made a lot of compromises to get things done." She then twice reminded Schwarzenegger of how Reagan "raised taxes." Today also featured Jim and Sarah Brady and Katie Couric insisted that "it's important to point out" that Reagan backed gun control. Couric, who also trumpeted how Nancy Reagan backs stem cell research, yearned for success on gun control efforts: "And I know the assault weapons ban is expiring in September. What are the hopes that it will be extended?" Couric proposed: "Do you think that's one of Ronald Reagan's greatest gifts, the gift, the gift of flexibility?" Sarah Brady agreed.

3. Stem Cells Unlikely to Benefit Alzheimer's, But Media Don't Care
Don't confuse us with the facts. Thursday's Washington Post reported that despite stem cell research advocates using the death of Ronald Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer's, to advance their cause, "the infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess, is that, of all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit." Nonetheless, journalists incessantly highlight, in the face of the Bush administration's opposition, Nancy Reagan's advocacy of stem cell research. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Thursday night acknowledged the Post story, but nonetheless suggested that "the immediate political legacy of Ronald Wilson Reagan may not be the anticipated flag waving at Madison Square Garden replete with President Bush holding hands with Nancy Reagan at the end of August. That immediate legacy may be controversy over stem cell research." Olbermann proposed that "ultimately is it not the President who has to give in?"

4. Under Reagan "America Had a New Household Term: 'The Homeless'"
The second paragraph of a "news" story in Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle by "reporter" Kevin Fagan: "Before Reagan, people sleeping in the street were so rare that, outside of skid rows, they were almost a curiosity. After eight years of Reaganomics -- and the slashes in low-income housing and social welfare programs that went along with it -- they were seemingly everywhere." The short, but to the left-wing polemical point, third paragraph: "And America had a new household term: 'The homeless.'"

5. NBC's Mitchell Uses Rotunda Service to Take Shot at Bush
NBC's Andrea Mitchell used the opportunity, of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney paying his respects at Ronald Reagan's casket in the Capitol Rotunda, to take a shot at President Bush for losing the trust of the allies. Mitchell recalled on MSNBC how when President Reagan offered to send an aide to provide evidence to justify an air strike on Libya, Mulroney said "'You don't have to send me an aide. Your word is good enough for me." Mitchell drove home her point: "Speaks to very different relationship among the Allies when there was trust."

6. Washington Post Photo Captures MRC Staffers at Reagan Procession
You can barely make out, in a big photo emblazoned across the front page of Thursday's Washington Post, showing the caisson carrying the late President Reagan down a Washington, DC street on Wednesday, some MRC staffers who attended the procession.

Jennings Delivers Liberal Cliches on
Reagan and Taxes and Blacks

ABC's Peter Jennings just can't let a moment pass without pointing out how Ronald Reagan was not popular with African-Americans. On Thursday's Good Morning America, Jennings delivered a liberal cliche as he asserted that at the end of Reagan's presidency "a great many people thought he'd made the wealthy wealthier and had not improved life particularly for the middle class, and there were just occasional intrusions yesterday of the divisiveness which was evident during his presidency, particularly in the African-American community, which felt that Ronald Reagan had not given it their due."

As recounted on the June 10 CyberAlert, as the late President Reagan's hearse arrived at the tarmac at Point Mugu Naval Air Station on Wednesday, Jennings brought up how "we haven't seen many African-American faces up at the presidential library or this morning." Later in the day, as casket-bearers carried Reagan's body up the Capitol steps while a military band played the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," Jennings decided it was a good time to point out how analysts have "not talked a lot yet about his relationship to African-Americans." For more on those comments: www.mediaresearch.org

On the June 10 GMA, MRC analyst Jessica Anderson noticed, Charles Gibson asked Jennings: "Peter, one of the things that struck me yesterday, we're about to go into a very divisive election in this country and the politics is going to get pretty thick in the coming months. And yet I thought it was interesting that Ronald Reagan, who at many times was divisive in his presidency, yesterday there really was an extraordinary uniting. It's not so terrible, I think, to go into an election which may divide us with some remembrance of that which unites us and really a stress on the Americanism of the man as opposed to the politics of the man."
Jennings answered: "Well, as we stood and watched the Congress yesterday, standing in the Rotunda, Linda Douglass, our congressional correspondent, wondered if any of Ronald Reagan would rub off on this particular Congress, which as you point out has been so divided and continues so divided. It's interesting that this week the House of Representatives and the Senate are not doing any business; they're simply talking about Ronald Reagan. I think that's what led Linda to wonder whether or not any of it would rub off in a period of great angst in the political establishment in the country. And I do think that as we got farther away from President Reagan's actual period here in Washington, people did indeed appear to feel much more strongly about him as a single -- what did the Vice President call it? -- 'graceful and gallant man.' I was looking at some of the poll numbers yesterday, because at the end of his presidency, a great many people thought he'd made the wealthy wealthier and had not improved life particularly for the middle class, and there were just occasional intrusions yesterday of the divisiveness which was evident during his presidency, particularly in the African-American community, which felt that Ronald Reagan had not given it their due."

Today Trumpeted Reagan for Raising Taxes
and Backing Gun Control

NBC's Today on Thursday championed Ronald Reagan's policies -- of raising taxes and supporting gun control. In an interview with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Campbell Brown pressed him to agree that Reagan, as Governor of California, "was a leader but not an ideologue. He made a lot of compromises to get things done." She then twice reminded Schwarzenegger of how Reagan "raised taxes." Today also featured Jim and Sarah Brady and Katie Couric insisted that "it's important to point out" that Reagan backed gun control. Couric, who also trumpeted how Nancy Reagan backs stem cell research, yearned for success on gun control efforts: "And I know the assault weapons ban is expiring in September. What are the hopes that it will be extended?"

Couric proposed: "Do you think that's one of Ronald Reagan's greatest gifts, the gift, the gift of flexibility?" Sarah Brady, a gun control activist, agreed.

MRC analyst Geoff Dickens caught both segments, starting with Brown with Schwarzenegger. Matt Lauer set up the taped interview: "California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has also moved from actor to politician in the footsteps of his hero Ronald Reagan. NBC's Campbell Brown caught up with Governor Schwarzenegger in Sacramento. Campbell, good morning to you."
Campbell Brown: "Good morning, Matt. Well the similarities between the two are obvious and we asked Governor Schwarzenegger if he agreed with President Reagan's view that being an actor was the best training for politics."

Brown asked him: "Did you look at him as a role model, as someone that you saw in the future you'd like to try to emulate?" Brown soon pointed out: "He was a leader but not an ideologue. He made a lot of compromises to get things done. Fair?"
Schwarzenegger: "Politicians today. It's more divisive than ever before in the history of America. They should learn from that. Both parties should learn from Ronald Reagan how to get together. You can never get just your way. It's impossible. He was able to cross over to Democrats and the Republicans. Bring the two parties together because it's the only way you can get things done."
Brown: "Is that what you're trying to do in California? You've angered a lot of conservative Republicans by making deals with Democrats. But is that what you believe is the, the right approach?"
Schwarzenegger: "Ronald Reagan has always been my hero. I'm not trying to be Ronald Reagan because Ronald Reagan is Ronald Reagan. There will only be, always be only one Ronald Reagan and he's up there on a pedestal. And I will be Arnold. I will always be Arnold. I'll do it my way. But I can draw from the experience and I can draw from the inspirations that Ronald Reagan gave me."
Brown: "In the capital where Governor Schwarzenegger now rules-"
Brief Scharzenegger clip
Brown: "-there are plenty of reminders of the Reagans' time spent here."
Schwarzenegger citing Reagan
Brown: "And much like now-"
Schwarzenegger taking the oath
Brown: "-when Reagan became Governor California was facing a financial crisis."
Schwarzenegger: "Ronald Reagan came in to save the day-"
Brown: "-and raised taxes-"
Schwarzenegger: "-to save the day."
Brown: "-and raised taxes!"
Schwarzenegger: "Remember I said that this is Arnold and this is Reagan, different things."
Brown: "But in what's called The Ronald Reagan Conference Room the Governor is most proud of the bust he had commissioned of Mr. Reagan. This one a copy, the original donated to the Reagan Library."

Couric teased her session with the Brady's: "Coming up in this half hour we're gonna be talking with President Reagan's former press secretary Jim Brady who, as many of you know, narrowly survived one of the administration's darkest days. He and his wife Sarah will be here to share their memories of the President and his support of their efforts in the field of gun control in just a few minutes, Matt."

As the three sat in chairs on Washington's Mall, Couric asked for their thoughts about Ronald Reagan's passing away and how Reagan supported them after Jim Brady was shot, and then Couric got to gun control: "You all became huge crusaders in the area of gun control. Certainly fighting very vocally, very hard and some people might think that this was sort of a philosophical thing that, that the president couldn't support. But that wasn't the case, was it Sarah? And I think it's important to point out."
Sarah Brady: "I do too. Ronald Reagan was totally supportive. Endorsed and worked hard for both the Brady Law and the assault weapon ban. In fact the day the assault weapon ban passed he made 10 calls to members of Congress trying to persuade them to vote for the assault weapon ban."
Couric: "And when there was news, I guess, in the media that somehow you all and the President were not seeing eye-to-eye he actually picked up the phone and called you. What did he say?"
Sarah Brady: "Yeah he called. He called and he said, 'I was for waiting periods and background checks. I signed that bill in California. And he says, 'You know they say I was a life member of the NRA. But they just sent me a card, I never joined.'"
Couric: "As, as, as you worked for the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban he was then supportive throughout."
Sarah Brady: "He did a press conference. Huge, major speech. Called members of Congress. Wrote letters to the editor."
Couric: "Do you think people might be surprised to hear this?"
Jim Brady: "No."
Couric: "No?"
Sarah Brady: "Well I think, a lot of them are. Congress, at the time. It gave wonderful cover for some of the conservatives because Ronald Reagan had come out so strongly for them."
Couric: "And I know the assault weapons ban is expiring in September. What are the hopes that it will be extended?"
Sarah Brady: "Oh we are working so hard and I just hope people realize and especially members of Congress that Ronald Reagan supported this with all his heart and soul. And I hope that they'll, the last thing we want to see are assault weapons, even at this time of terrorism back on the street."
Couric: "I know that Mrs. Reagan although mostly quietly behind the scene, Jim and Sarah, has been speaking out to expand stem cell research. This is science that could help people like you who have spinal chord injuries in addition to people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's. A host of neurological disorders. Are you hoping that Mrs. Reagan will be getting more out front on this issue? What do you think the chances of that are?"
Sarah Brady: "I think she will stay out front and we applaud her for that. It's so important. And I think she's already helped draw the nation's attention to the disease and that what it's gonna take. But we need to use stem cell research. And there are so many other diseases that are going to be helped as well, Parkinson's, ALS, it's just very important. I think she's gonna change the mood."
Couric: "Although the Bush administration is for limited stem cell research so it will be interesting to see how it plays out."
Sarah Brady: "Maybe he, like Ronald Reagan, will learn to read and change his mind from time to time."
Couric: "Do you think that's one of Ronald Reagan's greatest gifts, the gift, the gift of flexibility?"
Sarah Brady: "I think he was a very-"
Jim Brady: "And he was a voracious reader."
Sarah Brady: "He, he stuck by his basic principles always but always, even in the very last time we saw him in California was still reading and understanding new and different things that were new on pop culture and changing views like most people, bright people need to do."

Stem Cells Unlikely to Benefit Alzheimer's,
But Media Don't Care

Don't confuse us with the facts. Thursday's Washington Post reported that despite stem cell research advocates using the death of Ronald Reagan, who suffered from Alzheimer's, to advance their cause, "the infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess, is that, of all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit."

Nonetheless, journalists incessantly highlight, in the face of the Bush administration's opposition, Nancy Reagan's advocacy of stem cell research.

ABC's World News Tonight on Thursday night picked up on the Post story two days after Charles Gibson, on the June 8 Good Morning America, trumpeted how on stem cell research Nancy Reagan "is a staunch advocate, like many medical experts who consider it to be the best hope for beating Alzheimer's and other diseases, but that puts Mrs. Reagan at odds with many of her fellow conservatives."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Thursday night acknowledged the Post story, but nonetheless suggested that "the immediate political legacy of Ronald Wilson Reagan may not be the anticipated flag waving at Madison Square Garden replete with President Bush holding hands with Nancy Reagan at the end of August. That immediate legacy may be controversy over stem cell research." Pointing out how crowds at Wednesday's procession through DC streets clapped for Nancy as she went by, Olbermann argued to Newsweek's Howard Fineman: "If President Bush is on one side of this thing and the grieving presidential widow is seen to be on the other one, ultimately is it not the President who has to give in?"

"Stem Cells An Unlikely Therapy for Alzheimer's," declared the headline over the page 3 story in the June 10 Washington Post. The subhead could have been referring to the news media: "Reagan-Inspired Zeal for Study Continues." An excerpt from the article by Rick Weiss:

Ronald Reagan's death from Alzheimer's disease Saturday has triggered an outpouring of support for human embryonic stem cell research. Building on comments made by Nancy Reagan last month, scores of senators on Monday called upon President Bush to loosen his restrictions on the controversial research, which requires the destruction of human embryos. Patient groups have also chimed in, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday added his support for a policy review.

It is the kind of advocacy that researchers have craved for years, and none wants to slow its momentum.

But the infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess, is that, of all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit.

"I think the chance of doing repairs to Alzheimer's brains by putting in stem cells is small," said stem cell researcher Michael Shelanski, co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, echoing many other experts. "I personally think we're going to get other therapies for Alzheimer's a lot sooner."

Stem cell transplants show great potential for other diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes, scientists said. Someday, embryo cell studies may lead to insights into Alzheimer's. If nothing else, some said, stem cells bearing the genetic hallmarks of Alzheimer's may help scientists assess the potential usefulness of new drugs.

But given the lack of any serious suggestion that stem cells themselves have practical potential to treat Alzheimer's, the Reagan-inspired tidal wave of enthusiasm stands as an example of how easily a modest line of scientific inquiry can grow in the public mind to mythological proportions.

It is a distortion that some admit is not being aggressively corrected by scientists.

"To start with, people need a fairy tale," said Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand."

Human embryonic stem cells have the capacity to morph into virtually any kind of tissue, leading many scientists to believe they could serve as a "universal patch" for injured organs. Some studies have suggested, for example, that stem cells injected into an injured heart can spur the development of healthy new heart muscle.

END of Excerpt

For the Post story in full: www.washingtonpost.com

On Thursday's World News Tonight, Ned Potter provided a summary of the Post story: "Doctors say stem cells could someday hold hope for many diseases, from cancer to diabetes to Parkinson's. But as a cure Alzheimer's, researchers say not yet."
Dr. Michael Shelanski, Alzheimer's researcher, Columbia University: "Most of us in the field feel that stem cells in the short term do not have much potential in Alzheimer's disease."
Potter: "Stem cells, which are found in human embryos, may be able to replace almost any damaged cell in the body. But with Alzheimer's it's not the cell tat need to be replaced."
Shelanski: "The early changes of Alzheimer's disease are a loss of the connections between nerve cells without death of the nerve cells themselves."

On the June 8 Good Morning America, however, ABC celebrated Nancy Reagan's push on stem cells motivated by Ronald suffering from Alzheimer's. Charles Gibson, the MRC's Jessica Anderson observed, touted:
"Now, to what may be Mrs. Reagan's legacy, stem cell research. As everyone knows I think, she is a staunch advocate, like many medical experts who consider it to be the best hope for beating Alzheimer's and other diseases, but that puts Mrs. Reagan at odds with many of her fellow conservatives. So ABC's Claire Shipman is here in New York with the story of Mrs. Reagan's very emotional battle. Claire."
Shipman: "Indeed, Charlie. Well, it is shaping up to be quite a battle between a woman who's become an American icon and the President of the United States. Mrs. Reagan has been conducting this campaign in private for about three years now. She's been lobbying the President's Chief of Staff behind the scenes, calling dozens of members of Congress, but recently, frustrated by the results, she decided to go public....Few knew the private battle Nancy Reagan was waging behind the scenes, and when she finally went public in May with her plea for stem cell research, the nation listened....It's hardly a role she or we ever imagined for her -- crusader -- but the former First Lady threw herself into the middle of a political firestorm, to say the least, especially for a staunch Republican. Conservatives often oppose stem cell research."
Sheldon Goldberg, President & CEO Alzheimer's Association: "She was the one who really raised the platform and really identified stem cell research as a viable alternative that should at least be explored in terms of a research-medical agenda."
Shipman: "Nancy Reagan's decision to go public was embraced by others who've done the same, like Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease....But in 2001, President Bush argued that destroying human embryos for research is morally wrong and limited research on stem cells to the use of already existing stem cell lines. Experts are now saying there are so few of those, research is in perilous shape. Nancy Reagan wrote to the President before his decision, pleading for support, and though she likes the President personally, she's disappointed he won't change his mind."
Goldberg: "I think she'll require that a lot of people will reappraise the situation and their past views on the subject. She's a leader just like the President is a leader."
Shipman: "Mrs. Reagan redefining her legacy, changing the boundaries of a difficult debate."
Nancy Reagan: "Those with Alzheimer's are on a rocky path that only goes downhill, and because of this I'm determined to do what I can to save other families from this pain."
Shipman: "Recently 58 U.S. senators sent a letter to the White House, asking the President to change his position, many of them prominent conservatives. And Charlie, her friends are saying she will keep up this public pressure in the next phase of her life. Whether it will help the White House to soften its position, I don't know, but we'll certainly start to witness a titanic struggle, I think, here."
Gibson: "It is indeed a story that will go on for some time. Claire, thanks very much."

The next morning, June 9, NBC's Norah O'Donnell asked Laura Bush on Today: "And he suffered from Alzheimer's which your father suffered from, a painful disease. And as you know Nancy Reagan has become an advocate for finding a cure and has, has differed with your husband on the issue and has said he should ease restrictions on stem cell research."

Over on the June 9 Early Show on CBS, the MRC's Brian Boyd noticed, Bill Plante pressed First Lady Laura Bush: "And of course, she's [Nancy Reagan] now pushing to have the restrictions on stem cell use removed, restrictions that the President put on three years ago, because she feels that it could help patients with diseases like Alzheimer's."
Laura Bush: "Well, there are stem cells to do research on and there's, you know, we have to be really careful between what we want to do for science and what we should do ethically. And the stem cell issue is certainly one of those issues that we need to treat very carefully."
Plante: "So you're not prepared to endorse that just yet?"
Bush: "No."

The June 8 CyberAlert recounted: Leading journalists are exploiting Ronald Reagan's death to push for wider embryonic stem cell research as they emphasize how President George W. Bush is out of step with Nancy Reagan on the issue. On Sunday, Washington Post television reviewer Tom Shales ridiculed how "Bush thinks he hears Jesus giving him orders." Monday on ABC's daytime show, The View, Barbara Walters proclaimed that by fighting for stem cell research Nancy Reagan is "going to change the lives of millions of people." Walters trumpeted how "it's probably, maybe the most important contribution that she has made." NBC's Tom Brokaw mildly scolded some Senators for not using Ronald Reagan's name in a letter urging stem cell funding. "Out of her isolation, she [Nancy Reagan] found her cause," CBS's Sandra Hughes touted Monday night, "fighting for a cure. Recently, that's meant supporting stem cell research, putting her at odds with her own party." See: www.mediaresearch.org

Back to Olbermann now on Thursday's Countdown, as transcribed by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth. He teased the June 10 program: "On the eve of the national funeral service, an unexpected Reagan legacy. Will the President now have to politically oppose Nancy Reagan?"

Olbermann soon asserted: "Amid the public sadness, among the kind of institutionalized remembrance that is nowhere done better than in Washington, we have perhaps not really seen it coming. The immediate political legacy of Ronald Wilson Reagan may not be the anticipated flag waving at Madison Square Garden replete with President Bush holding hands with Nancy Reagan at the end of August. That immediate legacy may be controversy over stem cell research. First Lady Laura Bush, whose own father suffered from the same Alzheimer's Disease that ultimately claimed Mr. Reagan, voicing her continued support for the current policy on stem cell research to combat that long dismal tide of incapacitation and other diseases, but continuing also to oppose any expansion of it."
Laura Bush: "There are stem cells that are available for research, but also we need to balance the interest in science with moral and ethical issues that have to do with embryonic stem cell use."
Olbermann: "What might be a smoldering controversy got two new sources of fuel today, one from each perspective. Several of the nation's leading specialists on stem cells and Alzheimer's have told the Washington Post that the doubts that stem cells are a likely therapy for the disease are real ones. 'I think the chance of doing repairs to Alzheimer's brains by putting in stem cells is small,' said Michael Shelanski, co-director of the research at Columbia University, although others continue to insist that to stick to the rigid limitations on the research to predict what experimentation will not find is foolhardy. 'The public should understand that science is not like making widgets,' says James Battey, who heads the stem cell efforts at the National Institutes of Health. 'We're exploring the unknown, and by definition, we don't know where it's going to take us.'
"The second development of the day, a majority of the Senate, 14 Republicans ranging from Orrin Hatch to Arlen Specter among them, have sent a letter to Mr. Bush asking him to loosen those restrictions on stem cell research, the ones he imposed nearly four years ago. 206 members of Congress sent a similar letter to the White House a month ago. In their documents, the Senators write, 'We would very much like to work with you to modify the current embryonic stem cell policy so that it provides this area of research the greatest opportunity to lead to the treatments and cures for which we are all hoping.' One of the five organizers of the Senate letter, Dianne Feinstein of California, says this issue is especially poignant given President Reagan's passing. Poignant, and given Nancy Reagan's much-publicized view, potentially explosive.
"Can it be forestalled? It was in a letter to the American public 10 years ago that President Reagan revealed his diagnosis. 'By doing so,' he wrote, he hoped to, quote, 'promote greater awareness of the condition and to encourage a clearer understanding.' The woman who is now his widow took those remarks to a different level. She first publicly, but with seeming deference, pushed for more stem cell research at a time when the current President Bush first opposed it. Last month, the deference ended."
Nancy Reagan, in May: "Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him. We can't share the wonderful memories of our 52 years together, and I think that's probably the hardest part. And because of this, I'm determined to do what I can to save other families from this pain. And now, science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with many answers that have for so long been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this. There are so many diseases that can be cured or at least helped. We have lost so much time already, and I just really can't bear to lose any more."

Olbermann elevated stem cell research to top status as he asked Newsweek's Howard Fineman: "What happens now? Three forces seem to be colliding: The sadness and the nostalgia for Ronald Reagan, the extraordinary public support for Nancy Reagan, and the Republicans' intent to use the Reagan legacy in the current campaign."

Olbermann wondered: "So how does the President expect to get the cooperation of Nancy Reagan in the immediate wake of her husband's death while denying her that which she has not only set her heart on in her grief, but set her heart on publicly?"

Olbermann followed up: "I was out during the state funeral procession yesterday, right behind us in Taft Park, all the appreciation of the military bands, all of the awestruck responses to the F-15s flying over so low and in succession and the missing man formation, even the passing of the caisson itself, of all of these things in that 15 minutes or so that it took to go past a given point, the most spontaneous genuine response from that crowd, those people there, was when Nancy Reagan drove past. If President Bush is on one side of this thing and the grieving presidential widow is seen to be on the other one, ultimately is it not the President who has to give in?"

Olbermann itched for a controversy: "Do you center up to that podium if there is no agreement? Do we have suddenly something of fascination at the Republican Convention? Is that now suddenly something to, as a plug for people to watch it, is it something to watch now?"

Under Reagan "America Had a New Household
Term: 'The Homeless'"

The second paragraph of a "news" story in Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle by "reporter" Kevin Fagan: "Before Reagan, people sleeping in the street were so rare that, outside of skid rows, they were almost a curiosity. After eight years of Reaganomics -- and the slashes in low-income housing and social welfare programs that went along with it -- they were seemingly everywhere." The short, but to the left-wing polemical point, third paragraph: "And America had a new household term: 'The homeless.'"

"Amid tributes, activists lament Reagan's failure on homelessness," read the headline over the page 16 story in the June 10 edition of the newspaper, brought to my attention my MRC analyst Ken Shepherd.

Fagan's lead: "Praise for the late President Ronald Reagan's sunny resonance with the common man has been rasping all week on the ears of many activists and social workers who watched in vain as homelessness exploded under his watch -- and they hope the history books remember one thing:"

Fagan failed to mention anywhere in his story the impact of late 1970s court ruling, supported by liberals, which denied states the ability to hold many mentally ill people in mental health facilities.

An excerpt from the remainder of the very slanted article in which Fagan relayed, without any doubt, some left-wing talking points and a ludicrous claim about how the HUD budget was cut to one-third of its pre-Reagan level:

"I don't think he was a bad guy, but I think he thought the private charity system could address homelessness. And he was wrong," said Michael Stoops, co-founder in 1981 of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., which he still helps direct. "He was a Robin Hood in reverse, who took from the poor and gave to the rich, and I think Americans have such short attention spans they forget this."

Reagan's supporters don't quite see it this way, of course, but his critics say the single most powerful thing Reagan did to create homelessness was to cut the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by three-quarters, from $32.2 billion in 1981 to $7.5 billion by 1988. The department was the main governmental supporter of subsidized housing for the poor and, combined with the administration's overhaul of tax codes to reduce incentives for private developers to create low-income homes, the nation took a hit to its stock of affordable housing from which it has yet to recover, they contend.

During the same period, the average family income of the poorest fifth of the American population dropped by 6.1 percent, and rose 11.1 percent for the top fifth, according to "Sleepwalking Through History," the best-selling assessment of the Reagan years by Haynes Johnson. The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 24.5 million in 1978 to 32.5 million in 1988.

And the number of homeless people went from something so little it wasn't even written about widely in the late 1970s to more than 2 million when Reagan left office.

"His HUD cuts were the main factor in creating homelessness, and we said that throughout the 1980s, but Reagan and his people never listened," said Stoops. "Reagan, very similar to Herbert Hoover, did not believe the federal government had a role in addressing poverty, so he resisted any legislation or programs that did that.

"Besides, how could he help the poor when he didn't even know who they were?"...

"He was a catastrophe," said Terry Messman, who co-founded the now- defunct Oakland Union of the Homeless in 1986. "He was single-handedly responsible for homelessness as we know it today -- and he did it to feed the wealthy and the Pentagon."...

END of Excerpt

For the diatribe in the guise of a news story in full: www.sfgate.com

NBC's Mitchell Uses Rotunda Service to
Take Shot at Bush

NBC's Andrea Mitchell used the opportunity, of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney paying his respects at Ronald Reagan's casket in the Capitol Rotunda, to take a shot at President Bush for losing the trust of the allies. Mitchell recalled on MSNBC how when President Reagan offered to send an aide to provide evidence to justify an air strike on Libya, Mulroney said "'You don't have to send me an aide. Your word is good enough for me." Mitchell drove home her point: "Speaks to very different relationship among the Allies when there was trust."

MRC analyst Jen Schwarz took down Mitchell's remarks, from about 8:30pm EDT on Wednesday night, to which Robert Cox of TheNationalDebate.com alerted me. A few minutes after the Rotunda memorial service ended, Mitchell commented as Mulroney approached the casket: "Now you see, of course, Brian Mulroney, another one of the former foreign leaders who was in a very close relationship with the man he called Ron Reagan, and his wife."
Lester Holt: "Andrea, watching this picture of Prime Minister Thatcher and Brian Mulroney, it certainly takes us back to that time and kind of defines the moment of that presidency."
Mitchell: "If you have just a minute, a few weeks ago I had a long conversation with Mulroney about Ronald Reagan and he shared one of those moments when after the United States was preparing to hit Moammar Gadaffi -- Libya, with an air strike -- Ronald Reagan called Brian Mulroney in Canada and said, 'I'm going to send a young national security aid to tell you our evidence is and why we need your support on this. And I'm going to send this young man Oliver North to see you.' And according to Mulroney, he said, 'Ron, you don't have to send me an aide. Your word is good enough for me. If you say you have the evidence, you have my support. And I'm sure you'll have Maggie's as well.'"
Holt, naming who was on screen: "Former Vice President Quayle, Marilyn Quayle."
Mitchell: "Speaks to very different relationship among the Allies when there was trust."

For a photo and bio of Mulroney, the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of Canada from 1984-1993: www.collectionscanada.ca

Washington Post Photo Captures MRC Staffers
at Reagan Procession

You can barely make out, in a big photo emblazoned across the front page of Thursday's Washington Post, showing the caisson carrying the late President Reagan down a Washington, DC street on Wednesday, some MRC staffers who attended the procession.

In addition to myself, MRC Research Director Rich Noyes, news analysts Geoff Dickens, Jessica Anderson, Brian Boyd and Ken Shepherd, and intern Mary Fisher, all went into DC on Wednesday. We picked a spot on the south side of Constitution Avenue, just as it merges into Pennsylvania Avenue a bit west of 4th Street, and stood in the sweltering hot sun from about 3:15pm until the caisson passed at about 6:45 pm. (This put us across the street from the Canadian embassy so we could watch for any comings or goings by Peter Jennings!)

It was well worth the wait. After the caisson passed, we walked down 4th Street and stood in the middle of the Mall and watched, in the very distance, the casket being carried up the steps of the Capitol.

(I had brought along a radio scanner with an earphone so I could follow what was happening, and inform those around us of the status of the hearse. And it was when the casket was being carried up the Capitol steps, as I listened to the audio of ABC News being broadcast on WJLA-TV, that I caught Jennings, as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" played, deciding it was a good time to point out how analysts have "not talked a lot yet about his relationship to African-Americans" -- a quote I cited in the June 10 CyberAlert.)

Back to the Post's picture, go to this address and click on "enlarge photo": www.washingtonpost.com

Look about a third of the way into the photo from the right side of it. We are just above the white cap of the uniformed Navy man walking to the front left of the caisson. One of those blurs is me. The aqua blur just in front of the same guy's face, between him and the back of the head of the man in the blue jacket just to the right of the front wheel of the caisson, is, we believe, MRC analyst Jessica Anderson. You'll need a big screen and good eyesight.

We were on TV too when the pool boom camera caught us in the foreground during a sweeping shot. And by coincidence, we were right in front of the FNC tent, set up on the museum lawn behind us, to shield Molly Hennenberg and crew from the sun.

-- Brent Baker