MediaWatch: January 1996
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: January 1996
- Same Liberal Song, Second Verse
- NewsBites: The Silent Veto
- Revolving Door: If You Cant Boost 'Em
- The Shutdown Soap Opera
- Today Gushes Over Hillary
- Nightline's True Story
- Brinkley Agrees Media are Liberal Paula Zahn is "Overloaded"
- Janet Cooke Award: Newt Gingrich, Political Liability
Today Gushes Over Hillary
"Really Terrific" Book
As questions swirled around Hillary Clinton's veracity on Whitewater and the travel office, NBC News gave her a gift: a January 16 Today interview by Maria Shriver, who campaigns for and donates to her uncle Ted Kennedy's Senate campaigns. Shriver served more as political flack than journalistic inquisitor. Shriver opened the show by calling Clinton's new book, It Takes a Village, "really terrific."
Her first question: "What's this last week and a half been like for you personally?" She followed up about daughter Chelsea: "What has she said to you about these attacks?...This is beyond the territory....This is your mom that someone's talking about." After wondering if she'd be willing to testify before the Senate and posing one question about the travel office, Shriver showed sympathy for Clinton's plight: "Whitewater, I know you've been answering questions on this subject for four years, thousands of pieces of documents have been handed over, but they still want even more. As you look back on this, do you wish you'd never worked for Madison Guaranty?"
Shriver did ask: "Regarding these billing records that came about that had been subpoenaed two years ago, people say, `Gosh, how could a woman as smart and politically savvy as Hillary Clinton not know where these records were these past two years? Why didn't she make that her priority to find them, particularly when they were found in her own home, under an assistant's desk?'"
Shriver returned to softballs: "You also quote a letter in there that Nelson Mandela wrote to one of his daughters while he was in prison, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, but he wrote that there is no personal misfortune that one cannot turn into a personal triumph if one has the iron will and the necessary skills. You clearly have an iron will, you clearly are skilled. How are you going to turn this personal misfortune into a personal triumph?"
Shriver then stumped for liberalism: "You think government should do a lot more than it's doing in terms of making children a priority, doing things for kids. We're clearly living in an age where people are anti-government. How do you get across the message that we all need to see everybody's kids as our own, we need to have more programs, the government needs to be more involved?"
