Networks: Hillary "Candid," She "Unwittingly" Defended Husband --6/5/2003

1. Networks: Hillary "Candid," She "Unwittingly" Defended Husband Though Hillary Clinton's tale in her new book about not realizing for eight months the truth of her husband's relationship with Monica Lewinsky is ludicrous, the networks bought her line without a scintilla of doubt. Wednesday TV stories were full of statements about how Clinton "reveals how she learned" of the Lewinsky reality and "writes candidly about the moment her husband admitted he'd been unfaithful." No story suggested that she owes an apology for smearing conservatives with her "vast right-wing conspiracy" fantasy. CNN's Jonathan Karl painted her as just naive: "Mrs. Clinton believed him and, famously, went on national television, unwittingly repeating his lies and denouncing the reports about Lewinsky as the product of a vast right-wing conspiracy."

2. Hume Notes How Blumenthal Book Contradicts Hillary's Claims FNC's Brit Hume pointed out how Hillary Clinton's claim, about being very angry at Bill Clinton and not talking to him for weeks after she "learned," just two days before he was to testify before a grand jury, that he really did have a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, is at odds with Sidney Blumenthal's account of how the two were getting along fine just fine hours after the grand jury appearance. Hume also asked: "Is Hillary's account of her rage at the President in the time when she only at the last realized that this Lewinsky story was true, is this credible?" NPR's Mara Liasson thought so.

3. Jennings Fears Israelis, Not Palestinians, Will "Sabotage" Peace Peter Jennings, Palestinian propagandist. On Wednesday night Jennings he Islamic Jihad and Hamas simply as "Palestinian groups," characterized their terrorist actions as "fighting Israel," and concluded the newscast by arguing that Israeli extremists are the ones scuttling peace efforts -- not Palestinians who carry out terrorist attacks and refuse to even recognize Israel's right to exist. After recalling Yitzhak Rabin's assassination and how "Yasser Arafat was boycotted and placed under house arrest," Jennings concluded over video of protesting Israelis: "In the territories and in Israel, there are people tonight who are furious with their leaders, which is why there is fear that anger will sabotage the hope for peace once again."

4. "Sean Penn's Pugnacity of the Day," Feeling the Pain of Dissent The second installment of "Penn's Pugnacity of the Day," quotes drawn from actor Sean Penn's 4,000-plus word screed which filled a full page of the May 30 New York Times. Penn lamented how he "experienced firsthand the repressive condition of public debate in our country, as it prepared for war. I was beginning to feel the price to paid by a citizen exercising a position of dissent."

Networks: Hillary "Candid," She "Unwittingly"
Defended Husband

Though Hillary Clinton's tale in her new book is barely plausible at best, if not much more believably an outright ludicrous claim, about how she didn't figure out that the stories about her husband and Monica Lewinsky were true until her husband admitted the sexual relationship on August 15, 1998, after eight months of ongoing revelations in the media about connections between the intern and President, the networks bought her line without a scintilla of doubt.

Morning, evening and cable news shows on Wednesday were full of statements from reporters and anchors about how Clinton "reveals how she learned" of the Lewinsky reality and "writes candidly about the moment her husband admitted he'd been unfaithful."

None suggested that if she really was in the dark for eight months she must be one of the stupidest people alive.

The stories were prompted by an overnight AP story which relayed Senator Clinton's claim that when Bill Clinton told her about the relationship just two days before he was to testify before Ken Starr's grand jury and address the nation, she now claims, "I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?' He just stood there saying over and over again, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.'"

But the phrase "claim" was never uttered Wednesday morning or evening in any television or cable network news program I saw, excerpt for FNC. See item #2 below for more on FNC's take.

ABC's Charles Gibson trumpeted at the top of the June 4 Good Morning America: "Overnight, Hillary Clinton's new book bombshell: Bill's confession made her gulp for air, cry and yell at him, 'why did you lie to me?'" Reporter Bill Ritter proceeded to read the AP's quotes without casting any doubt on Hillary's version.

NBC's Katie Couric heralded at the start of Today: "Hillary's heartache, Senator Clinton reveals how she learned the painful truth about her husband and Monica Lewinsky." Couric also dubbed the book "very candid." In the subsequent story, Sara James insisted: "Bombshell new details are emerging this morning from Hillary Clinton's book going on sale next week. In it Mrs. Clinton writes candidly about the moment her husband admitted he'd been unfaithful."

No story suggested that she owes an apology for smearing conservatives in her Today show appearance when at the time everyone knew the Lewinsky story was accurate. NBC's Norah O'Donnell, for instance, in a story which aired on both Today and in the evening on MSNBC shows including Countdown with Keith Olbermann, recalled how "before Bill's confession, Hillary vehemently defended him on the Today show."
Hillary Clinton on Today in January 1998: "The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast, right-wing conspiracy."
O'Donnell focused on Hillary's supposed pain instead of those she falsely smeared: "She now says she was dumbfounded, heartbroken, and outraged that she believed her husband's lies."

Incredibly, CNN's Jonathan Karl, in a piece which ran on both Inside Politics and later on NewsNight, simply repeated Hillary Clinton's line without even adding a mild caveat like "she says," never mind a "she claims." Karl reported with a straight face: "Months earlier, when he made his famous public denial, he was also lying to his wife in private. Mrs. Clinton believed him and, famously, went on national television, unwittingly repeating his lies and denouncing the reports about Lewinsky as the product of a vast right-wing conspiracy."

"Unwittingly"?!?

An hour after Karl's story aired in Inside Politics, Wolf Blitzer Reports featured an interview about the new book with Democratic operative Ann Lewis. CNN's on-screen text: "Hillary Clinton's Version New Book Bares the Pain"

A bit later, on the NBC Nightly News, anchor Tom Brokaw announced that "leaked excerpts" of Mrs. Clinton's new book "show that she's a lot more candid about her personal life and feelings than many had expected." Andrea Mitchell's story did not include any doubters, but did feature soundbites from two Clintonista's vouching for her. Her former Press Secretary, Lisa Caputo, maintained: "She didn't know. I mean I remember that time very well. She had no idea."

Over on the CBS Evening News, Byron Pitts bought without any question her spin: "The wounded wife's account of her husband's, in this case, not so secret sins. Just days before President Clinton made this confession to the nation-"
Bill Clinton, August 17, 1998: "Indeed I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong."
Pitts: "-he choked back tears and confessed to his wife he'd also lied to her..."

ABC's World News Tonight previewed its exclusive first interview with Hillary Clinton conducted by Barbara Walters who compliantly related how "Mrs. Clinton reveals that from the moment the very first headline broke the story, Bill Clinton lied not only to the country about this relationship, but he lied to her as well." When Clinton told Walters, "I did believe him," Walters prompted Hillary to agree: "One more false rumor?"

Walters, however, was the only broadcast network reporter, or cable reporter in a pre-taped story, to point out how a lot of information about Bill and Monica came out during the eight months Hillary claims to have been in the dark: "Even as the late-night phone calls between the President and the intern were discovered and the logs of gifts and visits became public, Senator Clinton says she cross-examined her husband again and again, and still the President claimed nothing happened until just two days before he was to testify under oath about the affair."

Now, more detail about several of the June 4 stories quoted above:

-- ABC's Good Morning America. After Charles Gibson's opening tease quoted above, Gibson set up a longer look, as taken down by MRC analyst Jessica Anderson:
"We start with Hillary Clinton. Her book is about to come out -- she calls it 'Living History' -- and a copy of the book was leaked to the Associated Press, and the details about the Lewinsky scandal, obviously, what everyone is interested in. In the New York Post today, the headline 'Hillary's Agony: She reveals Bill's betrayal,' and the New York Daily News, '"Why did you lie to me?"' a quote from the book. WABC's Bill Ritter has our report on the details."
Ritter simply served as a conduit for the AP's quotes from Clinton's book: "At first, says Mrs. Clinton, she believed her husband's story about befriending the White House intern Monica Lewinsky; their relationship, the husband told the wife, had been terribly misinterpreted."
Bill Clinton: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
Ritter: "But one Saturday morning, six months later, in August 1998 as the President was preparing his testimony and with Mrs. Clinton still believing in her husband, she says her world caved in. The President woke his wife up, paced at the bedside and, quote, 'told me for the first time the situation was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged. He now realized,' Mrs. Clinton writes, 'he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy.' Mrs. Clinton says the President knew she'd be angry and he was right: 'I could hardly breathe,' she writes. 'Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, "What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?" I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."' What followed were months of chill between the First Couple. When they went to Martha's Vineyard for vacation, quote, 'He slept downstairs. I slept upstairs.' She added that she felt 'nothing but profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger. I could barely speak to Bill, and when I did, it was a tirade. I read. I walked on the beach.'
"If any one event helped the Clintons relax around each other, it was apparently Mrs. Clinton's decision to run for the U.S. Senate from New York. Mrs. Clinton says it gave them a chance to talk about something other than the future of their relationship."

-- NBC's Today. Following Katie Couric's tease quoted above about how "Senator Clinton reveals how she learned the painful truth about her husband and Monica Lewinsky," Lester Holt announced: "And another powerful woman in the glare of the spotlight, Hillary Clinton. According to the Associated Press in her new book the former First Lady writes about one of the hardest decisions of her life, to stay with her husband after he revealed the agonizing truth about Monica following months of lies. She says she could hardly breathe when he finally confessed to her. We'll have more on Senator Clinton's book, Living History, in a few minutes."
Couric asserted: "She's very candid about a very personal matter."

Sara James soon introduced NBC's story of the morning reported, as taken down by MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens: "Bombshell new details are emerging this morning from Hillary Clinton's book going on sale next week. In it Mrs. Clinton writes candidly about the moment her husband admitted he'd been unfaithful. NBC's Norah O'Donnell reports."
O'Donnell: "For the past two years as a U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton has kept a low profile. But now that's all about to change with the mega-hyped arrival of her new book, obtained by the Associated Press. In surprising detail Senator Clinton talks about her husband's affair writing, 'As a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck,' after he had admitted he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky."
Bill Clinton, in national address on August 17, 1998: "Indeed I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky which was not appropriate. In fact it was wrong."
O'Donnell: "Hillary reveals it was only three days before President Clinton confessed to the world that he told his wife, bedside, about the relationship. Hillary writes quote, 'I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?' She adds, 'He just stood there saying over and over again, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.' Pictures revealed the strange relationship as the family left on vacation and Hillary recalls, bitterly, 'Buddy, the dog, came along to keep Bill company. He was the only member of our family still willing to.' In Martha's Vineyard that summer, Hillary writes, 'He slept downstairs, I slept upstairs.' Before Bill's confession Hillary vehemently defended him on the Today show."
Hillary Clinton on Today in January 1998: "The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain is this vast right-wing conspiracy."
O'Donnell sympathized: "She now says she was dumbfounded, heartbroken, and outraged that she believed her husband's lives. Her decision to run for the Senate from New York was part of the healing process, she writes, 'The most difficult decisions I made in life were to stay married to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York.' With a national book tour scheduled many questioned whether the purpose of this book is to write a living history, or to launch the first step in a presidential campaign for the year 2008. Norah O'Donnell, NBC News, Washington."

-- CNN's Inside Politics and NewsNight. Jonathan Karl began his piece: "At the time, her body language seemed to tell the story, but, until now, she hasn't. As the Clintons left for vacation in Martha's Vineyard in August 1998, after President Clinton admitted betraying his wife, their dog Buddy was the only member of the family willing to keep the President company. If the excepts obtained by the Associated Press are any indication, she vividly recounts how, during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the President woke her up one morning in the White House to tell her the truth about his affair only 48 hours before testifying about it and telling the rest of the world.
"'I could hardly breathe,' she writes. 'Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?' I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again: 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.'"
"On vacation in Martha's Vineyard, she said she felt profound sadness and unresolved anger: 'I could barely speak to Bill. And when I did, it was a tirade. I read. I walked on the beach. He slept downstairs. I slept upstairs.'"
Bill Clinton in January denial: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
Karl then treated Hillary, not those she smeared, as the victim: "Months earlier, when he made his famous public denial, he was also lying to his wife in private. Mrs. Clinton believed him and, famously, went on national television, unwittingly repeating his lies and denouncing the reports about Lewinsky as the product of a vast right-wing conspiracy. After learning the truth, she said she confronted one of the most difficult decisions of her life, whether to stay married to Bill Clinton. Remarkably, Hillary Clinton has been mum about this for five years, even avoiding the subject during an intense campaign for Senate in New York in the year 2000."
Howard Wolfson, former Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman backed up her spin: "She is a private person. I think people do know that about her. And this was something that she wrestled with while she was writing the book. But she decided that this was part of the public record, through no fault of her own, and that it had to be dealt with in the book."

Karl concluded with a soundbite from Hillary Clinton about how she's "a private person" and about how Bill Clinton's memoirs will also soon be published.

-- NBC Nightly News. Tom Brokaw teased: "Hillary's story: The former First Lady reveals her pain and suffering over the Lewinsky affair. And what are the political consequences?"

Brokaw set up the story by celebrating how "candid" she is: "NBC News 'In Depth' tonight, surprisingly revelations from a book due out next week from former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Leaked excerpts show that she's a lot more candid about her personal life and feelings than many had expected."

Andrea Mitchell began by seeming to rue how Hillary is not meeting the feminist standard: "She's a power broker in the Senate and perhaps some day even a presidential candidate. But today the new Hillary was trying to explain why she portrays herself in her book as a woman wronged."

Mitchell ran through the quotes of how Hillary supposedly reacted when Bill told her the truth and then, without citing a scintilla of doubt, featured two soundbites supporting Hillary's take:
Lisa Caputo, former Press Secretary to the First Lady: "She didn't know. I mean I remember that time very well. She had no idea."
Mike McCurry, former White House Press Secretary: "It was a very, very painful time and now that she has written about it I feel comfortable saying that everything that I saw at Martha's Vineyard makes me absolutely certain that the story she's related in the book is accurate."

-- ABC's World News Tonight. With Peter Jennings in Jordan, fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas handled the domestic stories and set up a preview of the Walters interview: "Now to the new book by Hillary Clinton. It gives the former First Lady's account of her years in the White House. Mrs. Clinton spoke to us exclusively about the memoir and how she came to learn all the details surrounding the Monica Lewinsky scandal. She writes simply, 'As a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck.' In the aftermath, Mrs. Clinton said, 'The most difficult decisions I have made in my life were to stay married to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York.' But before her husband confessed, Hillary Clinton was one of his most loyal defenders. Barbara Walters has more now from her interview with the author."
Barbara Walters, walking outside the Clinton's New Castle, New York house: "Senator Clinton has never before spoken about her feelings or about any conversation she had with her husband during the dark days of the 1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal until now. In her book, Living History, due out Monday, and in our interview, Mrs. Clinton reveals that from the moment the very first headline broke the story, Bill Clinton lied not only to the country about this relationship, but he lied to her as well."

Now indoors, ABC played this exchange from the interview in which Walters helpfully prompted Senator Clinton to agree that the Lewinsky story was "one more false rumor." The exchange:
Hillary Clinton: "He told me it wasn't true."
Walters: "Did you believe him?"
Clinton: "I did believe him."
Walters: "One more false rumor?"
Clinton: "That is what I believed, yes."
Walters: "Even as the late-night phone calls between the President and the intern were discovered and the logs of gifts and visits became public, Senator Clinton says she cross-examined her husband again and again, and still the President claimed nothing happened until just two days before he was to testify under oath about the affair. On Saturday, August 15th, your husband woke you up."
Clinton: "That was probably the worst moment that I can even imagine anyone going through because what he told me that morning was that he had not leveled with me or anyone else, he had not told me the whole truth about what the relationship was, and I was, I was furious, I was dumbfounded, I was, you know, just beside myself with anger and disappointment."
Walters: "Mrs. Clinton goes on to tell of the very painful days that followed and the many, many months that she continued her duties as First Lady while still uncertain about the relationship."
Clinton: "The jury was really out about whether the marriage would survive, whether I wanted it to survive."

With that, ABC's excerpt ended.

To watch that story online: abcnews.go.com

ABC's one-hour special with Walters interviewing Hillary Clinton titled, "Hillary Clinton's Journey: Public, Private, Personal," is scheduled to air Sunday night at 7pm EDT, 6pm CDT and after the NBA finals game in the West, so at about 8pm PDT, 9pm MDT.

Hume Notes How Blumenthal Book Contradicts
Hillary's Claims

FNC's Brit Hume pointed out how Hillary Clinton's claim, about being very angry at Bill Clinton and not talking to him for weeks after she "learned," just two days before he was to testify before a grand jury, that he really did have a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, is at odds with Sidney Blumenthal's account of how the two were getting along fine just fine hours after the grand jury appearance.

On his Special Report with Brit Hume show on Wednesday night Hume also recounted Hillary's story and then asked: "Is Hillary's account of her rage at the President in the time when she only at the last realized that this Lewinsky story was true, is this credible?" NPR's Mara Liasson thought so. She passed along how he has "no problem believing" what Hillary wrote about not realizing the Lewinsky truth for eight months.

Hume set up a panel discussion on his June 4 program, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth, by raising the conflict with Blumenthal's book, an observation also made Rush Limbaugh on the radio earlier in the day. Hume noted:
"And one of the more difficult ones, as set forth in the book which is entitled Living History...by Hillary Clinton, is her description of the confession made at last just shortly before his testimony by her husband about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. And afterwards she describes the period of deep chill between the two of them, a vacation that came later when quote, 'I could barely speak to Bill, and when I did, it was a tirade. I read. I walked on the beach. He slept downstairs. I slept upstairs.'
"One of the things that's striking here is that one of Hillary's closest aides in the White House, who was an aide to both of them, was Sid Blumenthal, who also has a book out right now at considerable length. And Sid Blumenthal writes about being in Italy and getting a phone call from the President after his speech on the night of his testimony, and he says, quote, 'The President said he was pleased with it. Hillary also approved.' He talked to both of them. 'They handed the phone to James Carville and Mark Penn, and I spoke to them, too. I could hear the President and Hillary bantering in the background. Whatever they would have to do between themselves to get over this episode, in the challenge to their marriage and the presidency they were still working as a team.'
"Now, a lot of people have questioned Sid Blumenthal's credibility, but he is certainly a Clinton loyalist. So what about this? Is Hillary's account of her rage at the President in the time when she only at the last realized that this Lewinsky story was true, is this credible?"

NPR reporter Mara Liasson thought so. She chimed in: "You know what? There is no marriage more complicated than the Clintons. Most marriages are complicated. But you know what, I have no problem believing this because these are people who compartmentalize things. She was furious at him, but did she want to leave him or did she want him to lose his job? Absolutely not, and she was going to do what she could to help him keep it even though she was furious at him."

Jennings Fears Israelis, Not Palestinians,
Will "Sabotage" Peace

Peter Jennings, Palestinian propagandist. Anchoring from the site of the Middle East summit in Aqaba, Jordan, on Wednesday's World News Tonight, Jennings described Islamic Jihad and Hamas simply as "Palestinian groups," characterized their terrorist actions as their "fighting Israel," and concluded the newscast by arguing that Israeli extremists are the ones who have consistently scuttled peace efforts -- not Palestinians who carry out terrorist attacks and refuse to even recognize Israel's right to exist.

Jennings recalled how Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated and that in 1993 "Shimon Peres, another Israeli Prime Minister, deposed; Bill Clinton failed; Yasser Arafat was boycotted and placed under house arrest." Jennings then concluded by seeing the Israelis as the impediments as he adopted the assumption that the "territories," which her earlier called the "occupied territories," and Israel are two separate entities: "In the territories and in Israel, there are people tonight who are furious with their leaders, which is why there is fear that anger will sabotage the hope for peace once again."

Following stories on the June 4 ABC broadcast about the summit, Jennings relayed: "At least two Palestinian groups today described the event, the agreement today as an American-Israeli plot to dominate the Palestinians. Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas said they had not yet agreed to stop fighting te Israelis, which the Palestinian Prime Minister very much wants them to do."

Jennings wrapped up the broadcast with his thoughts on the situation: "Finally this evening, from here in Jordan, a reality check. You have heard from the Middle East tonight, including from the President himself, that millions of people here hope, with the President's help, there will be a Palestinian-Israeli agreement. Land for peace. But we are reminded tonight in excerpts from two Israeli newspapers just how tough it may be.
"The newspaper Al-ras [phonetic spelling guess] remembers a giant rally in 1995 where demonstrators described the then-Prime Minister who agreed with Palestinians to give up occupied territories as a Nazi SS commander. A month later, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli who called him a traitor.
"The newspaper Yid-alarnot [again, a guess] recalls that in 1993, five men gathered on the little stage on the White House lawn to sign an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The expectations were exaggerated, the paper says, and over the years, the process cursed them all. Prime Minister Rabin assassinated; Shimon Peres, another Israeli Prime Minister, deposed; Bill Clinton failed; Yasser Arafat was boycotted and placed under house arrest. Yasser Arafat will have watched this Middle East milestone from the isolation of his ruined headquarters in the occupied territories while another Palestinian gets the honors."

Over video of protesting Israelis holding up signs all but one in Hebrew, Jennings concluded by seeing Israelis, not Palestinian terrorism, as the greatest threat to peace: "In the territories and in Israel, there are people tonight who are furious with their leaders, which is why there is fear that anger will sabotage the hope for peace once again."

The one sign in English: "Bush's War on G-D Who gives this Land to Israel?"

For the MRC's year-old compilation, "Palestine Pete: Peter Jennings and the Palestinians," go to: www.mediaresearch.org

"Sean Penn's Pugnacity of the Day," Feeling
the Pain of Dissent

Today, the second installment of "Penn's Pugnacity of the Day," quotes drawn from actor Sean Penn's 4,000-plus word ad which filled a full page of the May 30 New York Times.

As noted in the June 4 CyberAlert, it's impossible to sum up Penn's diatribe, so I'll defer to Tony Snow, who in his end of the show "Final Thoughts" on Fox News Sunday, offered this apt description of the screed: "It throbs with loopy desperation, as if he were trying to persuade authorities that aliens from Alpha Centauri had instructed him to scale a TV tower, put on a hat made of foil and await lightning. You know the old theory that a chimp, given enough time in front of a typewriter, would pound out the Gettysburg Address? Well, this is a simian rough draft."

For more of Snow's take and for the first installment of "Penn's Pugnacity of the Day," culled from the first three paragraphs of his diatribe headlined "KILROY'S STILL HERE," see the June 4 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

Now the second installment of "Penn's Pugnacity of the Day," made up of the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh paragraphs of the 30-paragraph opus:

Saint Augustine said that "Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to change them." Beside me, my little girl tugged at the blue ribbon in her blond hair, her eyes forward, gentle but unblinking; her front teeth nipped a french fry, one slow bite at a time. As I started the car, I wondered if her future and my son's would befriend or be vanquished by Saint Augustine's daughters of hope. And I had to ask myself, "What remaining hope did I have? What example was I to them?" I carried troubling questions to the President of the United States, in a public letter printed October 18, 2002, in the Washington Post.

I'm neither a peace activist nor a partisan politico and the letter I printed did not represent the platform any movement, or speak with determination against any necessity. My letter spoke to questions of an American man and father, protected and encouraged by our Constitution, and obliged by my own individual sense of democracy and civic responsibility. I had been inspired to speak up by my love of my children, which recalled my admiration for our founding fathers, and the tradition of thousands of engaged men and women before me. In my own way, I sought to join all of them in waving the American flag.

Following the printing of that letter, my public flag, was hit by a tidal wave of media misrepresentation, and even accusations of treason. I experienced firsthand the repressive condition of public debate in our country, as it prepared for war. I was beginning to feel the price to paid by a citizen exercising a position of dissent.

If my hope as an American was not dwindling, it was certainly under siege. Hope though, like truth, is a stubborn creature.

END of Excerpt

Some later paragraphs are longer than those four put together.

For a PDF of the ad, go to Penn's Web site: www.seanpenn.com

The direct address for the PDF, from which I plucked the above text: www.seanpenn.com

For picture of Penn and a rundown of his movie roles, check the Internet Movie Database's page on him: us.imdb.com

Another installment of "Penn's Pugnacity of the Day" in the next CyberAlert.

Barbara Walters is scheduled to appear tonight, Thursday, on the Late Show with David Letterman to plug her Hillary Clinton interview.

-- Brent Baker