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Rubin: Greatest SecTreas since 1790s; Liddy Earns Media Approval Corrections. First, the May 12 CyberAlert misspelled the last name of Bernardine Healy. It is Healy, not Healey. Second, the same edition quoted CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson as reporting "...the declassified data made have helped Pakistan and India." That should have read "...data may have helped..."
Viewers did not hear a word of criticism, but did hear some historical revisionism which credited much of the economic success to the balanced budget though the economic numbers were doing good well before the imaginary balanced budget occurred. Rubin was also credited with advocating "fiscal restraint" though during his years as a White economic adviser in Clinton's first term the President was advocating a massive spending spree for his health care program. No reporter mentioned its defeat or how a Republican Congress rejected many Clinton ideas for government expansion which would have slowed the economy. All also praised Larry Summers, the current Deputy Treasury Secretary Clinton will nominate to replace Rubin. Though many conservatives condemn his international money giveaways, the networks praised how he coordinated bailouts. CBS's Anthony Mason recalled how with Alan Greenspan and Rubin Summers formed a "troika that Time called 'The Committee to Save the World.'" Here's how the broadcast networks treated Rubin's resignation on Wednesday night, May 12. ABC and CBS led with Rubin, NBC went first with Yeltsin firing Primakov. -- ABC's World
News Tonight. Peter Jennings opened the show by gushing: Sam Donaldson
joined the chorus of praise: "Rubin is credited, along with Mr.
Clinton's first Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, with fashioning the
policy of fiscal restraint that led to the first balanced budget in 12
years. That in turn is given major credit for the kinds of improvements
Americans have felt, including low unemployment and interest rates, the
booming housing market, especially for lower income families, and the
country's record length of economic expansion. Rubin said the credit
belonged to the team." Up next, Betsy Stark on how Summers "is widely respected as a brilliant academic thinker who has learned a lot about policy making from Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan."
After a clip of Clinton Pelley recounted Rubin's achievements: "He advised that cutting the deficit was more important than new social programs. Rubin gets credit for pushing the 1993 budget deal to reduce deficit spending, the result was lower interest rates. He backed reform of the IRS and intervened when meltdowns in Mexico, Russia, Brazil and Asia threatened the U.S. economy." On Summers, Anthony Mason relayed: "....Larry Summers is said by many to be even smarter than Rubin, a former Harvard professor and chief economist at the World Bank, he spent four years at Rubin's side. The administration's trouble-shooter as the global financial crisis spread, Summers met privately with Greenspan and Rubin every week forming a troika that Time called 'The Committee to Save the World.'"
Twice in the past week Dole has earned praiseworthy network pieces for her comments denouncing NRA stands. The most recent: Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News and that followed an even more glowing appraisal Saturday night on ABC during which reporter John Cochran marveled at how she's "sounding almost like, good grief, a Democrat." Cochran set her up with this softball from left field: "Do you think it's time to stop being scared of the gun lobby?" And, Cochran passed along this bit of spin: "By taking on the gun lobby, she hopes men will decide maybe she is also tough enough to take on Slobodan Milosevic." Now that's quite a stretch. -- CBS Evening
News, May 12: Bob Schieffer began his piece from Washington: Schieffer went on to report how the Senate agreed to fund a look into whether violent video games are marketed to kids, but turned down more money for youth programs and handed the NRA a victory by not passing a bill to mandate background checks at gun shows.
While Cochran did question whether it really takes "courage" to take on the media-pummeled "gun lobby," he never questioned nor allowed anyone else to criticize the appropriateness of her proposals.
Cameron began his
May 12 story over video of a nuclear plant in North Korea: Jumping to Chinese
espionage, Cameron showed how at a Senate hearing ignored by the other
networks Energy official Mary Ann Sullivan said her department followed
proper procedure in deferring the espionage investigation to the FBI.
And the CBS Evening News, which skipped Chung Tuesday night, did so again Wednesday night so viewers of that show have yet to learn of how Chung got $300,000 from the head of Chinese military intelligence to donate to aide in Clinton's re-election. The May 12
CyberAlert noted how Today and GMA skipped Chung on Wednesday morning and
now MRC analyst Brian Boyd has informed me that so did CBS's This
Morning. Here are some examples of what they covered instead on May 12,
the morning after Chung appeared before the House Government Reform
Committee: In the front page New York Times story reporter David Johnston relayed what morning show viewers never learned, opening his May 12 story: A Democratic fundraiser who has pleaded guilty to campaign-related bank and tax fraud told a House panel Tuesday that he met in 1996 with a high-ranking Chinese intelligence official who promised him $300,000 for use in the presidential election saying, "We really like your President." Recounting mysterious meetings at restaurants, hotel lounges and karaoke bars, the fund-raiser, Johnny Chung, provided his first public account of his experiences, from 1994 to 1996, as he traveled the Far East prospecting for business clients eager for access to the Clinton administration. In his testimony to the government Reform and Oversight Committee, Chung said he met several times with the chief of China's military intelligence agency, Gen. Ji Shengde, who directed that the $300,000 be wired to Chung's bank account in Hong Kong for use as contributions to President Clinton's re-election campaign.... Chung said that at their first meeting in August 1996, Ji used the alias "Xu" and emerged as a shadowy figure from a kitchen entrance of an abalone restaurant in Hong Kong. They spoke obliquely about Clinton, Chung said. Ji told him, "We hope to see him re-elected. In will give you 300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to the president and the Democratic Party," Chung said. Chung was introduced to Ji by Liu Chaoying, the daughter of powerful Chinese general and an official in a Chinese aerospace company. Chung said he never told Democratic Party officials that he raised money in China, but believed that Democratic officials were aware of his business activities there. Chung said he later introduced Ms. Liu to Donald Fowler, who was then chairman of the Democratic National Committee.... END New York Times excerpt The MRC's Conservative News Service picked up some interesting Chung-related angles and tidbits I've not seen elsewhere. Here are some excepts from a piece by Bruce Sullivan posted on May 12: Former Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung concluded his marathon testimony, Tuesday, before the House committee investigating illegal donations to the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign by shaking hands with committee chairman Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), and then referred to the scores of other witnesses who have refused to testify. "Well Mr. Chairman, one down, 120 to go," said the effusive California businessman, who appeared none the worse after his five-hour testimony.... Burton said that during the course of the committee's investigation 121 people have refused to testify, with 80 people pleading the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination. Some, like Thai business consultant Pauline Kanchanalak, who gave $235,000 to the Democratic National Committee that was later returned when she admitted it wasn't her money, have fled the United States. Others have been immunized and have testified said Burton, "but we still have over 100 people who refuse to testify." One of those who refused to testify before Burton's committee and fled the country, but later returned, was Charlie Trie. The Arkansas restaurateur and friend of President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, is scheduled to go on trial next week in Little Rock for obstruction of justice related to a Senate investigation into campaign fundraising abuses. Trie reportedly gathered $645,000 for the DNC from illegal foreign sources, but the money was returned. Bank records from the Chinese Construction Bank show that Trie received about $1 million from a Macao businessman with close links to the Chinese government and, according to Burton's committee staff, the records also "indicate that Chung has an association with the bank.".... When Chung was sentenced last year to five years probation for making illegal campaign contributions, the sentencing judge said that if his contacts at the DNC "didn't know what was going on" then they are some of the "dumbest politicians" he'd "ever seen." END Excerpt To read the whole story, go to: http://www.conservativenews.org/InDepth/archive/199905/IND19990512f.html [2] For the latest from CNS: http://www.conservativenews.org [3]
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The networks gave Robert Rubin a glorious send-off Wednesday night,
enthusiastically praising him, as CBS's Scott Pelley put it, for having
"guided policy during what may be the greatest boom in U.S.
history." ABC's Peter Jennings enthused that "all sorts of
people" have "called him the best Treasury Secretary since
Alexander Hamilton." NBC's Tom Brokaw suggested it's the
government which creates wealth, applauding Rubin for "very
skillfully positioning the government to help fuel these extraordinarily
good times."
Elizabeth Dole knows how to win media admiration: Go left and take on a
conservative group most reporters despise. In this case the NRA, better
known to TV viewers as "the gun lobby."
The top Senate Democrat on the Select Committee on Intelligence criticized
the Justice Department Wednesday for turning down a FBI warrant request to
probe Wen Ho Lee, but only FNC's Fox Report noticed of all the evening
shows. That coverage by FNC's Carl Cameron followed his exclusive about
how the Clinton administration ignored warnings about misuse of plutonium
by North Korea.
"Committee Told of Beijing Cash for Democrats" announced the
front page New York Times headline on Wednesday below a top center color
picture of Johnny Chung testifying in front of Congress on Tuesday. But
not even that prominent play in the New York Times could generate a
syllable of coverage Wednesday morning on the morning shows.