MediaWatch: December 1995

Janet Cooke Award: DeParle's Drama of Destruction

Sheila Burke is Bob Dole's Chief of Staff. She is also the center of a small controversy revolving around the question: How conservative is Bob Dole? Some conservatives contend Burke has used the power Dole has granted her to undermine conservative goals. Writers such as Robert Novak and Paul Weyrich have identified Burke as a problem if Dole wishes to win conservative votes.

This small gathering of criticism was blown up on the cover of the November 12 New York Times Magazine into "The Campaign to Demonize Sheila Burke: The Conservative Attack Machine Strikes Again." The cover featured Burke's picture with red horns sketched out of her head.

Inside the magazine, the headline read: "Sheila Burke Is the Militant Feminist Commie Peacenik Who's Telling Bob Dole What to Think." That was followed by the subhead: "Well, no. She's just the Senator's moderate chief of staff, the latest victim of the conservative attack machine." For wallowing in a conspiracy he couldn't prove, reporter Jason DeParle earned the Janet Cooke Award.

DeParle focused on the conservatives' "attack dog wing proficient at demonizing individuals, whether through Willie Horton ads or talk radio hosts who label Hillary Rodham Clinton a `feminazi.' When it comes to vilification, the left isn't always more virtuous: recall Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. But for now it has little of the right's fervor, finances and reach."

The Times reserved one page for a listing of "specialists in bare-knuckle attacks on political opponents." Listed, among others, were Rush Limbaugh ("pioneer of `anything goes' commentary"), Robert Novak ("cultivates a snarling image"), R. Emmett Tyrrell ("Clinton hater"), Floyd Brown ("all-around attack entrepreneur"), and The Washington Times (a "broadsheet mix of fact and rumor.") "Victims" included Anita Hill, Vince Foster, Hillary Clinton ("talk radio's `feminazi'") and Bill Clinton ("`Slick Willie' or worse in direct-mail appeals.")

Burke also made the list of "victims," although she has yet to be fired, demoted, or otherwise embarrassed. Apparently, Burke was "demonized" as a liberal Republican. But DeParle hailed Burke's openly pro-abortion views and told of Burke "dispensing a $20 million gift to a New York Democrat -- one insisting, at that very moment, that the Republican bill will flood the streets with orphans. But Burke thinks the study worthwhile." The study requested by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan claimed a million children would be hurt by the Republican welfare reform, and drew major media play.

How did this "conservative attack machine" work against Burke? DeParle reported Novak wrote an anti-Burke column in the spring of 1994. Then this year, one Senator called New York Times columnist William Safire "urging him to expose Burke as a moderate. [Safire didn't.] So something was already in the air when Novak fired his shot in late June."

DeParle continued: "The subsequent chronology would look awfully suspicious to a conspiracy buff...The Wall Street Journal's op-ed piece was written by John Fund, a former Novak research assistant. Fund, in turn, quoted Weyrich. Weyrich then followed up, hitting Burke with both a television commentary and a column in The Washington Times. Novak, meanwhile, is the host of a show on Weyrich's network. Mmmmm. Sounds like a plot."

After noting that Weyrich denied a conspiracy, DeParle admitted: "Weyrich is probably telling the truth when he disavows any formal plan. Then again, who needs a plan?"

DeParle complained about the role of the "attack machine" in Burke's fame: "Of course the whole thing would have gone unnoticed by anyone beyond the movement faithful had the mainstream press not picked it up. The Burke story reincarnates an old problem: covering an attack campaign inevitably helps the attackers by keeping the story alive....Once the Burke story was in play, it echoed everywhere despite the emptiness of the accusations."

But DeParle did not discover that Burke surfaced earlier in the March 28, 1994 U.S. News & World Report, where Gloria Borger paired her with Hillary Clinton, titling the article "Health Reform's Other Woman." As for the "emptiness" of calling Burke a liberal, Borger wrote that "Clintonites try to figure out what Burke is thinking -- and take some comfort in her open devotion to [health] reform." With articles like that in mind, the November 27 Weekly Standard critiqued DeParle's attack-machine thesis: "A computer search has turned up seven conservative pieces totalling about 6,000 words attacking Burke. And a total of 15 totalling 23,000 words defending her."

From DeParle's position on the political spectrum, he could not believe Burke would be accused of being a liberal, most of all on health care. "It would be a flattering, if true....There is, in fact, a case to be made against Burke and her boss, but it's the opposite one: following the polls, they dashed all hope of a health care breakthrough, disowning even the moderates' bill, which Dole himself had endorsed the year before."

DeParle not only found conspiracy on the right but repressed psychological problems: "The portrayal of Burke as a feminist Svengali may say more about the phobias of her critics than it does about her." Later, he added: "There is also what sounds like a lot of old-fashioned fretting about a woman's achieving power." To drive home the repressed-male-chaunivist angle, DeParle implied the claim that "if you like Hillary Clinton, you'll love Sheila Burke" came from men: Burke replied "I'm strong-willed and I'm independent, and I see women as fully capable as men of doing anything they choose." DeParle did not report Andrea Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition claims authorship of the phrase. Sheldon told MediaWatch: "That's the worst part of the article. Women also disagree with her. I don't agree with her."

Sheldon appeared in the DeParle article concerning a disagreeable meeting Burke held with conservatives about welfare reform. DeParle wrote: "Conservatives wanted the bill's preamble to call marriage `the foundation' of society. Burke sided with those suggesting `a foundation.'" (Italics his). Heritage Foundation analyst Robert Rector told MediaWatch DeParle was wrong: "The actual debate was to substitute the word `family' for the word `marriage,' which goes to the heart of the problem: the bill had no provisions dealing with illegitimacy. The fight was over the substance of legislation she brought to the floor, on an issue of fundamental importance to our society, and DeParle chose to trivialize it." DeParle failed to return repeated phone calls.

Why would the Times publish such a stew of personal attacks and unproven conspiracies? Perhaps they're a broadsheet mix of fact and rumor, a part of the liberal attack machine.

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