CyberAlert - October 25, 1996 - Dole Lashed Out

Five items today:

2. After Wednesday's order proved fruitless, on Thursday a federal judge issued another order demanding the DNC to produce John Huang. Of the broadcast network evening shows, only ABC's World News Tonight reported the effort to locate him.

3. On CBS, Dan Rather offered an uncritical look at video of Bill Clinton hugging a "devout Catholic" after convincing her that it was okay for him to veto the partial birth abortion bill.

4. NBC's Lisa Myers contended on MSNBC that tax cuts are incompatible with balancing the budget. By promising a tax cut, she charged, Bob Dole "seems to have cast aside the most enduring commitment of his 35 year career - balancing the budget."

5. Republican House freshman Helen Chenoweth told Tom Brokaw that she's "just a plain spoken Western woman." Brokaw countered on Thursday's Nightly News: "Not exactly. In her first term Chenoweth was a cheerleader for the New Right."

1) Thursday night (October 24) ABC's World News Tonight made no mention of Perot's comments about Clinton's character. Instead, ABC emphasized Dole's attack, saying he was "livid" when he criticized the media. Anchor Diane Sawyer announced: "In a speech in Florida Mr. Dole lashed out at the President and a lot of other people too."

Brian Ross on John Huang: "In Washington today, a federal judge ordered Democratic Party lawyers into court and told them to produce John Huang to testify in a civil lawsuit alleging favoritism at the Commerce Department for big Democratic contributors. The judge's unusual action came after Huang could not be found at his home in Glendale California or when U.S. Marshall's went to an address yesterday in Washington that the judge had ordered the Commerce Department to provide..."

Reporter Mark Litke followed with a dispatch from Jakarta on the Lippo conglomerate's Asian empire and ties to Clinton.

While ABC thus updated viewers on the Indonesian scandal, neither CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News mentioned the scandal or Huang's name. (CNN's Inside Politics did offer an anchor-read brief.)

3) Over video of Bill Clinton along a rope line talking with a teenage girl who at first is crying, then is smiling and, finally, is hugging Clinton, Dan Rather announced on the October 24 CBS Evening News:
"In Louisiana President Clinton had this tearful encounter today with a teenager. She said she was a devout Catholic and was upset with the President's veto of a bill banning late-term abortions. The President spoke with her awhile, saying he had vetoed that bill after talking with women who might have died without the procedure. As you see, this seemed to satisfy the teenager who said she felt better and would tell her mother 'it's okay to vote for President Clinton,' unquote."

Of course, Rather didn't bother telling viewers that the bill Clinton vetoed had a life or health of the mother exception.

4) MSNBC's News with Brian Williams on Tuesday night (October 22) ran a profile of Dole by Lisa Myers. It began:

Lisa Myers: "The heart and soul of Dole's agenda is his economic program, built around the bold, some say extravagant, promise."
Bob Dole: "We'll have a President who will cut taxes 15 percent across the board for every taxpayer in America."
Myers: "With that promise, that half a trillion dollar tax cut, Dole seems to have cast aside the most enduring commitment of his 35 year career - balancing the budget."

5) Thursday night Tom Brokaw narrated an "In-Depth" segment exploring big money from special interests pouring into congressional races. His case study: The Idaho race of GOP freshmen Helen Chenoweth (targetted by labor unions) vs. Democrat Dan Williams.

Brokaw asserted: "Helen Chenoweth, a controversial first term Republican Congresswoman."
Chenoweth: "I don't have a clue why they would target me. I come from an innocuous state. I'm just a plain-spoken Western woman."
Brokaw: "Not exactly. In her first term Chenoweth was a cheerleader for the New Right. Voting against an increase in the minimum wage, trashing traditional environmental organizations. She was a hardliner on gun laws. So, she is a target of big labor and conservationists."

Brokaw didn't make any negative comments about the views espoused by the Democratic candidate. He concluded by noting that the two candidates have debated, "But their campaigns are trapped in a cloud of money, saturating the air, polluting the political process, and that's a loss for everyone."

So is a campaign trapped in a cloud of media distortion, polluting the fair and balanced dissemination of political views.

- Brent Baker