Moran: Bush "Dodged" Query; O'Donnell Errs, Yet Corrects Bush --10/29/2003

1. Moran: Bush "Dodged" Query; O'Donnell Errs, Yet Corrects Bush
Reporting on President George W. Bush's late morning press conference, on Tuesday night ABC's Terry Moran highlighted how he "dodged a reporter's follow-up" question about whether "you promise a year from now that you will have reduced the number of troops in Iraq?" NBC's Norah O'Donnell stressed how Bush "used the word 'danger' or 'dangerous' 17 times to describe Iraq." While Moran accepted Bush's explanation that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was produced by sailors on the ship, O'Donnell, who herself used an incorrect combat death number in a question she posed, corrected Bush: "Tonight, a senior White House official acknowledged that while the Navy requested the sign, the White House produced it."

2. Hume Notes Some Things Media Skipped Over at Anti-War Protest
Picking up on a CyberAlert item and an article on Salon.com, on Tuesday night FNC's Brit Hume informed viewers of his Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC how "we are just now finding out some things about this past weekend's anti-war protest in Washington that the mass media did not include its accounts." Hume noted how "one speaker, a rap musician, chanted 'F--- Bush,' but he chose to use the full four-letter word. The crowd then chanted the same."

3. Only Newsweek Devotes a Page to Partial-Birth, a One-Sided One
Newsweek was the only news magazine to devote a page this week to the partial-birth abortion ban passed last week by the Senate and sent to the President's desk, but it offered a strange take on the victory, quoting four abortion advocates who feel it will never pass Supreme Court muster, but only Senator Bill Frist on the pro-life side. Frist's quote describing the procedure as "barbaric" and "brutal" was the closest Newsweek came to reporting the medical realities.

4. Reagan Friend Merv Griffin Blasts CBS for "Cowardly Act"
Veteran television host and producer Merv Griffin, a long-time friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, appeared Tuesday night on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and used the opportunity to blast CBS for "the most cowardly thing I've ever heard" over the reported tone and content of CBS's upcoming mini-series, The Reagans. "It's a cowardly act," he charged, asking: "Is that what the 'C' stands for in CBS?" Griffin laid into CBS for denigrating the Reagans when they "can't fight back" since Ronald Reagan is "on his deathbed" and Nancy Reagan is taking care of him all day. MSNBC delivered a cowardly act itself. As Griffin spoke, on-screen text, below some historic video of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, read: "30 Members of Reagan Admin. Spent Time in Prison."

5. Ted Danson: George W. Bush a Drinker, Clark "Inspires Hope"
Actor Ted Danson, who when last interviewed on a CBS show a couple of weeks ago admitted that though he is a founder of the American Oceans Campaign, he has "relieved" himself in the ocean, on Tuesday's Early Show praised Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark as he denigrated President Bush: "Instead of, you know, hiring the guy you want to go out and have a beer with like we did last time, I think having somebody who genuinely looks like he could lead us in a, he inspires hope in a very fearful time." But, as CBS's Harry Smith noted, Bush doesn't drink.

Moran: Bush "Dodged" Query; O'Donnell
Errs, Yet Corrects Bush

Reporting on President George W. Bush's late morning press conference, on Tuesday night ABC's Terry Moran highlighted how he "dodged a reporter's follow-up" question about whether "you promise a year from now that you will have reduced the number of troops in Iraq?" NBC's Norah O'Donnell stressed how Bush "used the word 'danger' or 'dangerous' 17 times to describe Iraq." While Moran accepted Bush's explanation that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was produced by sailors on the ship, O'Donnell, who herself used an incorrect combat death number in a question she posed, corrected Bush: "Tonight, a senior White House official acknowledged that while the Navy requested the sign, the White House produced it."

CNN's John King, on NewsNight, also pointed out how officials later corrected Bush while the CBS Evening News held itself to a brief item read by anchor John Roberts with a clip of Bush.

More on the October 28 ABC and NBC stories on Bush's press conference held earlier in the day in the Rose Garden:

-- ABC's World News Tonight. Terry Moran began from the White House: "One day after another wave of violence rocked Baghdad, the President used this press conference to argue that the costs to the U.S. in Iraq, in lives and dollars, are worth it."
Bush: "I believe a free and peaceful Iraq will help effect change in that neighborhood and that's why I've asked the American people to foot the tab for $20 billion of reconstruction. Others are stepping up, as well."
Moran: "But Mr. Bush dodged a reporter's follow-up."
Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: "A second question: Can you promise a year from now that you will have reduced the number of troops in Iraq?"
Bush: "The second question's a trick question, so I won't answer it."
Moran: "Instead, the President continued his recent effort to emphasize the progress in Iraq -- construction of schools and other improvements in daily life there. Democrats scorned that argument."
Senator Tom Daschle, Senate Minority Leader: "If this is progress, I don't know how much more progress we can take."
Moran: "Mr. Bush was also asked about his moment, his triumphant appearance aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1st when his speech and the banner behind him [zoom in on "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" sign] seemed to declare the war in Iraq over. He said today the banner wasn't his idea."
Bush: "The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished."

Moran concluded by noting that Bush's main goal in holding the press conference was to convince the public that progress is being made in Iraq and that the U.S. must see it through despite the violence.

-- NBC Nightly News. Norah O'Donnell began her piece, which also ran on CNBC's The News with Brian Williams: "It was a defiant President Bush in the Rose Garden today, sending a message: The U.S. will stay the course in Iraq despite the growing number of U.S. casualties and terror attacks."
After a soundbite of Bush saying the attacks won't intimidate "brave Iraqis," O'Donnell pointed out: "In the past three days there have been at least five suicide attacks and a well-coordinated hotel bombing. Today President Bush used the word 'danger' or 'dangerous' 17 times to describe Iraq."
O'Donnell ran an example of Bush using the word and then she noted how Bush maintained that the attack on the Red Cross to was meant strike fear and has "obscured successes" in Iraq.
O'Donnell then recalled: "It was nearly six months ago that President Bush stood under a sign saying, 'Mission Accomplished.' Today he reminded reporters that he'd warned then that there was still hard work to do in Iraq. And as for that sign:"
Bush: "The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man for my staff. They weren't that ingenious, by the way."
O'Donnell concluded by contradicting Bush: "Tonight, a senior White House official acknowledged that while the Navy requested the sign, the White House produced it and the official said, 'I regret that it might have left the wrong impression.'"

At the press conference, O'Donnell had posed this loaded question: "Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, 'Mission Accomplished.' At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?"

But O'Donnell should be checking her own facts too. As of the time she spoke, 113 U.S. soldiers had been killed in combat in Iraq since May 1, the other 100-plus she cited were those who died outside of combat, such as because of accidents or illness. See (a PDF updated with two new unfortunate deaths since O'Donnell spoke): www.defenselink.mil

Hume Notes Some Things Media Skipped
Over at Anti-War Protest

Picking up on a CyberAlert item and an article on Salon.com, on Tuesday night FNC's Brit Hume informed viewers of his Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC how "we are just now finding out some things about this past weekend's anti-war protest in Washington that the mass media did not include its accounts."

Hume began his October 27 "Grapevine" segment: "We are just now finding out some things about this past weekend's anti-war protest in Washington that the mass media did not include its accounts. One speaker, a rap musician, chanted 'F--- Bush,' but he chose to use the full four-letter word. The crowd then chanted the same.
"One protester, a high school English teacher from Virginia held a sign saying quote, 'U.S. Troops Out of Iraq, Bring Them Home Now.' But when asked by a reporter for Salon.com whether he thinks the troops should in fact come home now, the teacher said he wasn't sure, adding that he quote 'would hate for the Bush administration to half way fix things and then leave.' So, then why was he carrying the sign? He said quote, 'I didn't even look at it. I was just waving it.'"

The October 28 CyberAlert reported: Sunday's Washington Post story on the latest "anti-war" protest organized by some very far-left groups ignored the more incendiary comments from the officially-sanctioned speakers on the stage and tried to portray an image of a group of average people next door coming together along with concerned relatives of those deployed in Iraq, as opposed to a bunch of hateful political activists. From the stage, to the delight of the crowd which joined in, a rapper yelled: "F*** George Bush!" But the Post ignored that and saw only how "the demonstrators represented a diverse mix of dissent, from suburban high school students to gray-haired retirees, from fathers pushing their children in strollers to Muslim American college students shouting through bullhorns..." See: www.mediaresearch.org

Only Newsweek Devotes a Page to Partial-Birth, a One-Sided One

Newsweek was the only news magazine to devote a page this week to the partial-birth abortion ban passed last week by the Senate and sent to the President's desk, but it offered a strange take on the victory, quoting four abortion advocates who feel it will never pass Supreme Court muster, but only Senator Bill Frist on the pro-life side. Frist's quote describing the procedure as "barbaric" and "brutal" was the closest Newsweek came to reporting the medical realities.

[Tim Graham, the MRC's Director of Media Analysis, submitted this article for inclusion in CyberAlert.]

True to form, Newsweek loaded up the story, in its November 3 issue, with martial metaphors, as if the pro-life side was packing heat. The story's headline read: "A Firefight Over Abortion." Reporter Debra Rosenberg suggested the vote "has set off one of the fiercest political clashes since Roe v. Wade," and concluded the story by noting that if the ban doesn't get judicial approval, it could become "just another skirmish in the abortion wars."

The story began from the perspective of a Nebraska abortionist: "For Dr. Leroy Carhart, last week was deja vu all over again. When Nebraska passed a ban on so-called partial-birth abortion in 1997, Carhart challenged it in court, contending the law was so vague it could restrict nearly all abortions after the first trimester." Dr. Carhart promised to litigate again: "There's no way that I can't refight this," he said.

Rosenberg struggled to get around the basic definition of partial-birth abortion by quoting the bill: "The measure bars 'an overt act' that 'will kill the partially delivered living fetus.'" She also quoted Frist declaring victory: "We have just outlawed a procedure that is barbaric, that is brutal, that is offensive to our moral sensibilities and that is out of the mainstream of the ethical practice of medicine today."

From then on, Rosenberg used only abortion advocates to explain how the ban would not have much political impact: "Though the ban is clearly a major public-relations setback for abortion rights, its real effect is less clear." She then quoted Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt, NARAL leader Kate Michelman, and "Emory legal historian" David Garrow. Rosenberg did not explain that Garrow is liberal or the author of the book, "Liberty and Sexuality," which is described in a Publishers Weekly review on Amazon.com as showing "how the courage and initiative of ordinary women and men made a crucial difference in establishing that right [to abortion]."

The Newsweek story is online at: www.msnbc.com

The partial-birth ban is not mentioned in the November 3 U.S. News. Time carried a brief article by Viveca Novak. It agreed with Newsweek that the ban is likely to be judicially crumbled, but its only quote came from Doug Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee. See it at: www.time.com

Reagan Friend Merv Griffin Blasts CBS
for "Cowardly Act"

Veteran television host and producer Merv Griffin, a long-time friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, appeared Tuesday night on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and used the opportunity to blast CBS for "the most cowardly thing I've ever heard" over the reported tone and content of CBS's upcoming mini-series, The Reagans. "It's a cowardly act," he charged, asking: "Is that what the 'C' stands for in CBS?"

Griffin, the owner of the Beverly Hilton who created the Wheel of Fortune game show after many years as host of his own daytime Merv Griffin Show, relayed how Nancy Reagan feels "hurt" by the distorted portrayal.

Griffin laid into CBS for denigrating the Reagans when they "can't fight back" since Ronald Reagan is "on his deathbed" and Nancy Reagan is taking care of him all day. An angry Griffin asserted:
"Here is a man who is on his deathbed. He's in the last stages of Alzheimer's, and a woman who has been sitting by the bedside there holding his hand for nine years, they can't fight back. From what I've read, I have not seen the film, I have not read the script, but I have certainly seen enough excerpts from it in the promos. I mean it's, I think it's cowardly. I think it's the most cowardly thing I've ever heard. I don't understand my own medium which I've been in since the Dumont network. How can it be so cruel? That's not, from what I've read in the scenes, that's not Nancy and the President at all."

But MSNBC delivered a cowardly act itself. As Griffin spoke, MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth noticed, on-screen text, below some historic video of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, read: "30 Members of Reagan Admin. Spent Time in Prison."

That was the fourth an final information line MSNBC placed on screen toward the start of Griffin's appearance by satellite from California. The previous three:
-- "A U.S. Aircraft Carrier is Named After Reagan"
-- "Nancy Reagan Refused to Live in CA Governor's Mansion"
-- "Reagan Was Named Spokesman for General Electric in 1950s"

And then in what to MSNBC is one of the four most important and/or interesting facts about Reagan, beneath video of Ronald and Nancy descending plane stairs, viewers were treated to: "30 Members of Reagan Admin. Spent Time in Prison"

If MSNBC ever goes 24-7 with "Time & Again" and "Headliners and Legends," maybe Olbermann's producer could get a job writing screenplays for CBS.

The Reagans is scheduled to air on CBS on Sunday, November 16 and Tuesday, November 18.

Olbermann set up the October 28 segment:
"It's been more than 14 years since he left the White House, yet in the last six months, more books have been written about his presidency than the more recently concluded administration of Bill Clinton. Our number two story tonight, the dark side of the Reagan revival, it continues to swirl. Next month, CBS Television will air a two-part miniseries about the lives of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Beyond the predictable made-for-TV sensationalism, the series seems to highlight what even Mr. Reagan's historian critics agree are some of the less verifiable stories about the former President, certainly the less flattering ones.
"In one scene, Reagan, as played by actor James Brolin, describes AIDS as religious retribution, telling his wife that, quote, that 'They that live in sin shall die in sin.' In another exchange in the movie with his wife, Reagan, at least the character, describes the Iran-Contra affair in apocalyptic terms, saying, 'It's Armageddon. The leader from the West will be revealed as the anti-Christ, and then God will strike him down. That's me. I am the anti-Christ.' Scenes like that have fans of the former President, and even some who would not call themselves fans, up in arms. There is now even a Web site calling for people to boycott the network's advertisers. CBS has answered today. 'As broadcasters,' its statement reads, 'it is our job to put forth programming that informs, entertains and, hopefully, stirs meaningful discourse.'"

How about being accurate?

Olbermann introduced Griffin: "Joining us now to assess just how meaningful that discourse might be is Merv Griffin, long-time host of his own successful nightly talk show, even more successful television producer, and personal friend to the Reagans."

Olbermann's first question with a cryptic reference to the DrudgeReport.com: "Let me start with your involvement in this. It was reported on an Internet site that Nancy Reagan had asked friends of hers in Hollywood, yourself included, to intervene with CBS in hopes of preventing or editing this miniseries. Is that true?"
Griffin denied the claim as he launched into a lengthy criticism of CBS: "No, not at all, nor have I tried to intervene with CBS. It's a friendship that's been for a long time, and anybody who knows the Reagans is horrified by what they're about to see. Here is a man -- let me see if I can paint the picture -- here is a man who is on his deathbed. He's in the last stages of Alzheimer's, and a woman who has been sitting by the bedside there holding his hand for nine years, they can't fight back. From what I've read, I have not seen the film, I have not read the script, but I have certainly seen enough excerpts from it in the promos. I mean it's, I think it's cowardly. I think it's the most cowardly thing I've ever heard. I don't understand my own medium which I've been in since the Dumont network. How can it be so cruel? That's not, from what I've read in the scenes, that's not Nancy and the President at all.
"I mean, I knew her mother and father well, I mean, father a distinguished doctor, head of Passavant Hospital in Chicago and Northwestern before that, and Edie, her mother, who was just great fun, one of the great ladies. They didn't talk like that, nor would a distinguished doctor talk like what they portray them as in that scene, that Hollywood, 'What are you so involved with Hollywood, Nancy, it's full of Jews and queers?' Why, they would never talk like that. I doubt, there wasn't a prejudiced bone in Ronald Reagan's body, you know. I know, I know that people have gone after him and certain liberal Hollywood stars and say, 'Oh, he did nothing, I'm ashamed of him as a fellow actor, he did nothing about AIDS.' Well, it's on the record in 19-, I think '84, '85, he said it's the worst enemy in America, were AIDS. That just wasn't Ronald Reagan.
"And I spent enough quality time with them alone, away from it all, and I really feel after doing 23 years as a talk show host, you do get kind of a third eye, an insight into people and stuff, and I never, I don't recognize anything about what I read."

Olbermann suggested conservative critics consider it a conspiracy: "We live in a time of assumed conspiracy, especially politically. Do you think, as many of the critics of the CBS series have suggested, that this is some kind of left-wing media revenge, or is it the oldest of entertainment conspiracies, something to make more money with?"
Griffin: "Well, I think, you know, I think Les Moonves, who's head of CBS, that's always been a very distinguished network. I mean, it gave us Walter Cronkite, who was almost the father of our nation, and has always been distinguished. Why would they resort to putting it into sweep month, which is November, where everybody tries to beat the heck out of each other for ratings and for money, obviously, why would they, why would they do that? I mean, it's a cowardly act. Is that what the 'C' stands for in CBS? I don't know. I can't imagine it. Why have we all gotten so mean? Why is everything mean on television? Number one, the reality shows are fading and falling out. So they have to be replaced with something, but do they have to be replaced with trash television?"

Olbermann's third and last query: "Let me ask you one final question about this, Mr. Griffin. Although we discussed it briefly before, can you synopsize or just give me a feeling of how Mrs. Reagan has reacted to you about the advance publicity for this series?"
Griffin: "I talk to her quite often, and she's, she's hurt. And that's so understandable. She doesn't understand them. I mean, Nancy is nothing like how she is portrayed in this series coming up. And I guess I'm the one who started it all on the Scarborough report when I heard about it a couple of months ago and mentioned it on the air with Joe, and he looked shocked and said, 'They're gonna do what?' And I think that has, you know, and then with Larry Elder's radio show, he picked up the baton and he ran with it. Now, everybody's in on, 'How can they do this to a man with a great legacy?' Look what he did. You know, he was not in his, they say in his second term as President that he wasn't focusing on anything. Well, those were the greatest four years of his presidency. Look what he did."

For a picture of Griffin and a look at all his work, from television production to now owning luxury hotels in Beverly Hills, Scottsdale, Arizona and Galway, Ireland, see: www.merv.com

To skip the musical intro: www.merv.com

CBS President Les Moonves will be interviewed tonight, Wednesday, on CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown airing at 10pm and 1am EST.

New York Post columnist Liz Smith on Tuesday quoted Moonves as saying, in the pre-taped session with Brown, that less than three weeks from the broadcast date CBS is still adjusting the final cut, a situation this near to the air date which suggests CBS is reacting to the controversy: "We've looked at the rough cut, there are things we like...there are things we don't like...there are things we think go too far. So there are some edits being made trying to present a more fair picture of the Reagans."

Previous CyberAlert items on the CBS movie:

-- From the October 22 CyberAlert: CBS's upcoming The Reagans mini-series starring James Brolin, aka Mr. Barbra Streisand, as Ronald Reagan, looks to be so slanted against Reagan from the left that even the New York Times has taken notice. In an October 21 story, Times reporter Jim Rutenberg revealed: "As snippets about the television movie circulate in Washington and Los Angeles, friends and relatives of the ailing Mr. Reagan are expressing growing concern that this deconstruction of his presidency is shot through a liberal lens, exaggerating his foibles and giving short shrift to his accomplishments."

For more on that as well as the liberal political orientation of the producers and screenwriter, see: www.mediaresearch.org

-- From the October 27 CyberAlert: Since the New York Times story last Tuesday, the DrudgeReport.com has been given more excerpts from the script of CBS's mid-November mini-series, The Reagans, in which Nancy Reagan slaps five-year-old daughter Patti, Ronald Reagan curses in the Oval Office and refers to himself as "the anti-Christ," and, in what Drudge dubs the "showcase line," Nancy Reagan argues: "Ketchup is a vegetable! It is not a meat, right? So IT IS a vegetable." See: www.mediaresearch.org

Ted Danson: George W. Bush a Drinker,
Clark "Inspires Hope"

Actor Ted Danson, who when last interviewed on a CBS show a couple of weeks ago admitted that though he is a founder of the American Oceans Campaign, he has "relieved" himself in the ocean, on Tuesday's Early Show praised Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark as he denigrated President Bush: "Instead of, you know, hiring the guy you want to go out and have a beer with like we did last time, I think having somebody who genuinely looks like he could lead us in a, he inspires hope in a very fearful time."

Danson's reference to George W. Bush as a guy people wanted to "have a beer with" befuddled CBS host Harry Smith, the MRC's Brian Boyd noticed, since, as Smith pointed out, Bush "doesn't drink." Unswayed by the factual correction, Danson plowed forward: "Good point. But nevertheless, people wanted to go have a beer with him and so we hired him."

The exchange in the last half hour of the October 28 Early Show came during an appearance by Danson to plug his Wednesday night sit-com on CBS, Becker.

After Danson expressed support for Clark, who hails from the same state, Arkansas, as does his wife, Mary Steenburgen, Smith wondered: "We're not doing this so much in a political sense, but I'm just interested in you as you look at this group of nine people. Why him [Clark] as opposed to anybody else?"
Danson: "I think the politics are probably roughly the same on all of the Democratic candidates. He's a liberal, he has had incredible, you know, foreign policy opportunities being the head of NATO. And I think that you know instead of you know hiring the guy you want to go out and have a beer with like we did last time, I think having somebody who genuinely looks like he could lead us in a, he inspires hope in a very fearful time."
Smith: "Right. Now I'm trying to you know have-"
Danson: "What?"
Smith: "What. I just, you mean two guys ago or the last guy?"
Danson: "This, the guy we have right now."
Smith: "Oh-"
Danson: "Wasn't that the billing? He's somebody you want to go out and have a beer with."
Smith: "Right, except for he doesn't drink."
Danson: "Good point. But nevertheless, people wanted to go have a beer with him and so we hired him."
Smith: "There you have it."

Yes, there you have the shallowness of a Hollywood liberal exposed.

As revealed in the October 15 CyberAlert, Danson, a founder of the American Oceans Campaign, a group which since merged with Oceana, an advocacy organization on whose Board of Directors he sits and which has a campaign devoted to stopping cruise ships from discharging sewage into the ocean, admitted to Craig Kilborn that he has relieved himself in the ocean. For his admission to Kilborn and links to Danson's ocean group: www.mediaresearch.org

For the Internet Movie Database page on Danson, with a picture and bio: us.imdb.com

For his page on CBS's page for Becker: www.cbs.com

-- Brent Baker