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
Sidney Blumenthal's Tall Tale
When Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal stepped outside the courthouse in February and blasted Ken Starr for improperly focusing on his contacts with reporters, it quickly became a point of attack for Starr haters and the media. On the CBS Evening News Eric Engberg noted over video of Blumenthal that Starr’s grand jury left him "raging about police state tactics."
But ABC’s Nightline and FNC discovered Blumenthal’s statement did not match what happened. On the October 2 Nightline David Marash played Blumenthal’s diatribe: "I was forced to answer questions about my conversations, as part of my job, with, and I wrote this down, the New York Times, CNN, CBS, Time magazine, U.S. News, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Observer and there may have been a few others, I don’t remember right now. Ken Starr’s prosecutors demanded to know what I had told reporters and what reporters had told me about Ken Starr’s prosecutors."
Marash countered: "A look at the grand jury transcript shows prosecutors pressing Blumenthal not about his contacts with the media, but with the President, the First Lady and other top White House politicos and about the messages that they wanted Blumenthal to spin into the media."
FNC’s David Shuster revealed that the grand jurors "were infuriated" by Blumenthal, reporting October 6 that when he returned four months later "they took the unusual step of admonishing him." Shuster read aloud the testimony of the foreperson: "We are very concerned about the fact that during your last visit that an inaccurate representation of the events that happened were retold on the steps of the courthouse. We would hope that you will understand the seriousness of our work...and that you would really represent us the way that events happened in this room."
Shuster ended with an illuminating point about the political costs of playing by the rules: "Still the entire episode underscores the huge advantage the White House had in shaping the public debate, because even when misleading statements were spinning through the media there was nothing the prosecutors or the grand jury could do about them."
FNC demonstrated again how it offers a unique perspective. On September 23 CBS and NBC relayed the Democratic strategy of blaming the GOP for dragging out the Clinton impeachment inquiry, but only FNC picked up on Democratic hypocrisy.
"Republicans take a hard line," declared NBC's Tom Brokaw on Nightly News before Gwen Ifill found that even "one Senate Republican" decided "that House Republicans are too shrill." On the CBS Evening News Dan Rather emphasized the GOP's unreasonableness: "On Capitol Hill not only did the Republican-led majority reject any punishment deal, they're even talking now of a wider, deeper, longer investigation."
Only Fox Report viewers heard a different take, as FNC's Carl Cameron observed: "For the last couple of weeks the Democrats have said Republicans are in a 'reckless rush to judgment.' Now they seem to think that the GOP is moving too slowly."
After allowing House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to charge that "if the Republicans don't want to drag this out we can do it fairly and judiciously and justly in the next 30 days or so," Cameron highlighted the Democratic change of ploys: "Quite a contrast to recent Democratic complaints that Republicans have moved too fast." To illustrate the point, Cameron played a clip of Democrat John Conyers from just nine days earlier: "What is it that we're rushing for? What are we trying to find? What deadline have we self-imposed on each other?" Cameron observed: "Republicans accuse the minority of trying to pick fights and cause distractions."
