MediaWatch: October 19, 1998
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: October 19, 1998
- Democrats Greedy, But GOP Worse
- NewsBites
- Impeaching GOP Budget Arguments
- Moral Equivalence Weekly?
- Sidney Blumenthal's Tall Tale
Democrats Greedy, But GOP Worse
Considering the ideology that inspires public broadcasting (commercial television millionaires are evil, the uncorrupted public interest is only found in public funding), it should come as no surprise that PBS is something of a tub-thumper for campaign finance "reform," especially in election years.
In 1992, Frontline aired both a two-hour special on April 15 by leftist William Greider promoting his book Who Will Tell the People? and an October 27 jeremiad by the equally leftist Center for Investigative Reporting. On January 31, 1994, an episode of Bill Moyers’ Journal promoted nine campaign finance activists, every single one a liberal. Frontline aired another pox-on-both-parties sermon for "reform" on January 30, 1996.
Bill Moyers returned to PBS after a long absence for the latest liberal installment on October 6, titled "Washington’s Other Scandal." Frontline apparently couldn’t stand the thought of devoting an hour to a President lying to Congress, a grand jury, and the entire public, since it was "just about sex" — even though eight years ago, then-PBS omnipresence Moyers hosted a Frontline full of moral dudgeon about the Reagan administration’s lying to Congress in a program suggestively titled "High Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Moyers began his latest sermon with footage of White House coffees: "These White House videotapes reveal the heart of a Washington where money, not sex, is the obsession. The story is not what two consenting adults did in private, but what our two political parties are doing to an unsuspecting public. The campaign of 1996, which cost $2.2 billion, was the most expensive in history and one of the most corrupting. Tonight, we will show you how both parties contrived to bend and break the law. While Janet Reno reluctantly investigates White House fundraising and Senate Republicans buried campaign finance reform, we will piece together the outlines of Washington’s other scandal."
To be fair, more than a year after PBS rejected live coverage of the Senate fundraising hearings as less important than its daytime kiddie-show lineup, Moyers did focus on several story lines that the networks paid almost no attention to last year — the DNC’s funneling of money to state parties, Harold Ickes sending donors to "nonpartisan" nonprofits registering Democrats, Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers and White House coffees and the milking of a poor Oklahoma Indian tribe. The narrator read from memos from Dick Morris and Harold Ickes about how to avoid the spending limits by using soft money for issue advertising which rather unsubtly promoted the President. But other than one reference to John Huang, Moyers failed to explore the allegations of illegal foreign contributions to the DNC. He only profiled one big-bucks Democratic donor — Charles Surveyor, the Oklahoma Indian leader who gave to buy access but never got what he wanted — and portrayed him as a victim.
Republican Offenses. Moyers attacked the Republicans with at least equal gusto. "The Republicans, too, have found ways to raise and spend campaign money outside the limits of the law." In contrast to impoverished Indians, two conservative GOP donors were painted as schemers who gave only to avoid responsibility for their products which killed children and polluted the earth.
Moyers highlighted Sam Brownback’s first Senate campaign in Kansas, focusing on last-minute ads against his opponent Jill Docking by something called Citizens for the Republic Education Fund which, Moyers noted, is a front for Triad, a Washington group which promises anonymity to donors. Viewers then saw Bob Cone in a promotional video for Triad as Moyers asserted: "But Cone had shown little interest in politics until 1994 when at least ten children had died in the swing cradles produced by his company, Graco Children’s Products. When the parents threatened to sue, Cone and his brother began contributing to candidates who promised to limit a citizen’s ability to sue corporate America."
Triad’s other big donor on Brownback’s behalf was the Economic Education Trust, which Moyers connected to Koch Industries, "a Kansas-based conglomerate." Over video of newspaper headlines about polluting violations and oil spills, Moyers announced: "The Kochs begin putting a lot of money into politics when their company’s behavior created legal difficulties and unwanted attention. By 1996 in state after state at the center of Koch’s business empire, legal problems were piling up," so they poured campaign money into those key states. Moyers sourly concluded with the Thompson hearings: "Senator Sam Brownback was named a member of the committee charged to investigate campaign finance abuses. His campaign would not come under public scrutiny."
The Real Scandal. But that’s not even the real scandal
for Moyers. The real scandal is the failure of a liberal bill:
"Three weeks before the investigation was shut down, Senate
Republicans had killed efforts to eliminate soft money from
campaigns. Just last month another attempt at reform reached
the Senate floor with majority support. The Republican
leadership, once again, buried it. So the arms race in dollars continues
to escalate. And so does the selling of democracy." Moyers
also complained: "The real scandal is the legal bribery built
into a system where your political worth is determined by your
net worth." And, to former DNC Chairman Don Fowler: "People
with money should not be able to buy more democracy than people
without money."
Perhaps in an attempt to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, Frontline failed to include nothing more than a faint echo of dissent. Republican Senators Trent Lott, Fred Thompson, and Don Nickles appear — but only in small taped bits, not interviews. The Frontline Web site contains transcripts of interviews that represent the most frequent talking heads: Ickes, Morris, Surveyor, and Senate Democratic investigator Elizabeth Stein.
The Web Shutout. Moyers ended the show: "If you believe
the arms race in campaign money is undermining the very soul of
our democracy, the Internet is a whole new forum for citizen
activism. Frontline’s Web site for tonight’s report offers an easy guide to getting informed and connected via the Web."
If you don’t believe in campaign finance "reform," there’s nothing on the Web site for you. A directory on "What You Need to Know" is an encylopedia of liberal sites: the Center for Responsive Politics, the Center for Public Integrity, Common Cause, Public Campaign, Rock the Vote, the Environmental Working Group, the League of Women Voters, and Public Citizen. Several regional liberal groups were included, including Democracy South and Northeast Action (whose home page begins with the motto "Power to Progressives!"), as well as statewide "reform" ballot initatives in Arizona and Massachusetts. A link to the "Campaign Finance Information Center," run by the group Investigative Reporters and Editors, is touted for offering a reading list (all liberal tracts like Philip Stern’s The Best Congress Money Can Buy). Its "Expert Sources on Campaign Finance" doesn’t include a single expert against "reform."
Another Frontline Web feature is an analysis of "advocacy ads," heavily flavored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s complaints about the issue ad "loophole" in campaign finance laws. The PBS program and Web site could have benefited from a dollop of balance, and perhaps the best current site for arguments opposing campaign finance "reform" is the National Right to Life Committee.
One article by NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson rebuts the PBS argument with an appeal for free speech: "We respectfully submit that journalists should not characterize communications that are regarded as core protected speech under the First Amendment as ‘abuses’ or evasions of ‘the law,’ even though some advocates may employ such terminology. The First Amendment is not a ‘loophole.’ It is, among other things, the nation’s paramount ‘election law.’" It’s too bad that Frontline thinks it’s fair to leave this segment of the public unconsulted and voiceless on the taxpayer-funded airwaves.
