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Winnie's Story "Totally Genuine"; Bush "Scare Tactic" in Calling Gore Liberal; Gumbel Avoided Lieberman's Two-Faced Promises 3) Before Bush listed what Gore would bring, ABC's Dean Reynolds complained that he offered "few details to back up his charges," including how "Bush predicted darkly, more IRS agents." CBS looked at how Bush's "secret weapon," GOP Governors, "is misfiring."
"Her neighbors say her story is totally genuine," Jim Avila insisted, adding: "In fact one neighbor, a Republican, told me she's angry that anyone would suggest that Winnie is a political plant." Avila boosted the liberal cause of using a victim to promote another government program as he argued that "experts say she represents many older Americans." Though she lives in a house and has a son, and as a great grandmother presumably other relatives who could help her, Avila shamefully asserted that pharmaceutical company programs for the poor aren't doing enough to lower her medicine bill to "take this great grandmother off the streets." An earlier Avila piece ran on Thursday's Today. To
read about it go to: For details about Wednesday night's fawning
coverage of her: Thursday night Tom Brokaw trumpeted: "While these presidential campaigns are scrambling to make the most of the country's prosperity, there are still a great many Americans who have been left behind. One of them turned up at a Gore campaign event yesterday in Iowa, and her story has turned into more than 15 minutes of fame. NBC's Jim Avila tonight on campaign soundbites and real-life struggles." Avila began his fawning story, which also ran later on MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams, by recounting how Skinner takes blood pressure pills every morning before she heads out to pay for them by getting $5 a day picking up cans. After a clip of her at the Gore event, Avila
elevated her importance and then tried to discredit any doubters:
"White-haired, gentle-faced. Winnie, taking center stage. So perfect
a symbol of what many older Americans say is wrong with the nation's
health care system some people doubted her story, suspected she could be
working for Gore." Avila ran down how she gets $782 a month from Social Security, $159 from her UAW pension and then must pay $111 for health insure and spend $200 on medication. "By the end of the month, her checking account
down to a couple of dollars, her pantry down to cereal," Avila
lamented. A news organization interested in serving their viewers would have asked why anyone finds symbolic a woman who has a hobby of picking up cans for five cents per can when she clearly doesn't have to given that she has a large family and friends who can help her. A September 29 story in the Des Moines Register recounted how Skinner became a national media celebrity on Thursday. Reporter Mike Siebert noted that "while she walked her regular morning route picking up cans on Des Moines' east side, a woman asked how Skinner could afford a designer jacket from Tommy Hilfiger." Siebert documented how she got into the "invitation-only" event via her union connections and how a someone in the invitation-only audience urged Gore to call on her. An excerpt from Siebert's report: Here's her version of what happened Wednesday: A secretary at the local United Auto Workers office called to see whether Skinner wanted to attend an invitation-only Gore event in Altoona. No, she replied, her "93 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera was in the shop with an oil leak. Marilyn D. Arnold, the union secretary, said she had a list of senior citizens who might want to attend a town-hall meeting on health-care costs. Skinner was one of about 30 on the list, she said. Arnold knew Skinner. They had coffee occasionally and Arnold gave Skinner cans. Arnold offered her a ride to Altoona. "She walked in the door and gets to talking to people and says, 'I wanted to talk to the man,'" Arnold said. A man in the audience told Gore he should give Skinner the microphone. She shined. She was poignant, funny and completely unafraid about being on TV or in front of a presidential candidate. The frenzy began. END Excerpt To read the entire Des Moines Register story, go to:
David Gregory warned that Bush delivered "a scare tactic of his own" when he branded "the Vice President an old style tax and spender." Gregory soon added: "Yet it's Bush who's been forced to defend his proposed $1.3 trillion tax cut against the charge that it will bust the budget." But with Gore, Claire Shipman simply relayed how he insisted "the stakes...couldn't be higher" as he wants people to worry about Bush's plans. But Gore's rhetoric was every bit as much of a "scare tactic" as he warned that "forty days from now prosperity itself will be on the ballot" because Bush's tax cut "could wreck our good economy in the process." In the sequence they aired, here's how the September 28 NBC Nightly News assessed the economic pitches of Gore and Bush. Claire Shipman began: "Gore's team believes
that the booming economy is his greatest strength heading into the debates
and not just how healthy it is right now, but how it could easily go bust
according to Gore in the wrong hands. The stakes, according to Gore,
couldn't be higher." Shipman explained how he vowed to protect the middle
class by balancing the budget and paying down the debt, "but the key,
Gore advisers believe, to using the economy effectively is to make voters
worry about George W. Bush's economic policy." After relaying how a NBC poll found that when asked "Who would do better with the economy?" 42 percent said Gore versus 36 percent who answered Bush, Shipman concluded: "Still, Gore advisers admit since the race is dead even, the issue hasn't helped that much, but look for him to keep pounding away at it because his advisers believe in the final weeks the economy will make a difference." Next, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, David Gregory
observed: Yeah, "forced to defend" it by a media
which focuses incessantly on its "cost" and impact on the
surplus while ignoring how Al Gore's spending plans will consume all of
the surplus and more. A National Taxpayers Union Foundation study in
August determined Gore's spending proposals are five times greater than
Bush's. For details, go to:
Reynolds opened his World News Tonight piece, as
transcribed by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: "In his sharpest policy
attack of the campaign, Bush today suggested the Vice President is a
champion of big government whose plans would cripple the economy." Sounds like a lot of details to me. Reynolds showed another Bush soundbite:
"We'll find ourselves working harder for government -- appeasing
it, pleasing it, and trying to keep it at bay. More forms to fill out,
more regulations to meet, and more lines to stand in." Anchor Peter Jennings then provided a short item on Gore's day: "In Washington today Mr. Gore responded to Mr. Bush by saying that he is the safer choice when it comes to the economy. Mr. Gore reiterated that he believes in paying down the debt -- this year, next year, every year -- and he criticized the tax cuts proposed by Mr. Bush, which he said would lead the country back into running deficits." Over on the CBS Evening News, anchor Anthony Mason
castigated the hype of both candidates: "It's forty days till
election day, and Al Gore and George Bush are ratcheting up the attacks
over who has the better plan for the economy. This includes accusing each
other of trying to sell the public a blueprint for economic disaster.
Correspondent John Roberts reports on the soaring inflation of their
rhetoric." Roberts assessed Gore's status: "That Gore has to work this hard on the issue is troubling to his campaign. Historically, if the economy is good, the incumbent party wins. The economy has never been better, but Gore has had difficulty connecting himself to that prosperity....part of the reason is that next to the President the person most likely to get credit for the economy is Alan Greenspan, not Al Gore. And there is also a feeling among some voters that the economy is so good a change at the top wouldn't matter. That's why the Vice President is driving so hard to convince voters that it would." Next, Bill Whitaker checked in from Green Bay with Bush, asserting: "George W. Bush came here today to slam Al Gore as the godfather of big government." After a Bush soundbite Whitaker moved on to explore how Bush's "secret weapon," the Republican Governors in battleground states, "is misfiring." Whitaker charged: "Bush, neck and neck with Gore in national polls, is down in Michigan, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, all with strong GOP governors. Tommy Thompson also helped Bush's father in '88, but Wisconsin went for Dukakis and twice for President Bill Clinton....And in this tight race, even playing with such a formidable team is no guarantee of victory in November."
Jackie Judd interviewed Yvette Lozano, who works for Mark McKinnon, the man who makes Bush's ads. She told how she's been interviewed by the FBI. Judd explained: "What made the FBI suspicious was video from a Post Office security camera in Austin of Lozano mailing a package on September 11. Two days later, former Congressman Tom Downey received a package postmarked 'Austin' containing briefing documents and a tape of George W. Bush practicing for his debate with Al Gore -- explosive political material. The package she sent, Lozano insists, did not contain the tape but a pair of pants from the Gap that she says she was sending back for Mark McKinnon, her boss." McKinnon confirmed her story to Judd and Lozano assured Judd she'd be willing to take a lie detector test. Judd added: "The Bush campaign faults the FBI for focusing its attention on Lozano instead of casting a wider net." After a clip of McKinnon suggesting Gore operatives are involved, Judd concluded: "The Gore campaign has complained it is being set up to take the blame. The mysterious mailing is a dirty trick that has left both sides in this frustrated and distracted." To watch Judd's story via RealPlayer, go to:
Like ABC and NBC in their interviews with Gore earlier in the week, Gumbel avoided raising the subject of Gore's fabrications from the week before about his dog versus his mother-in-law's prescription costs and hearing as a child a union jingle actually not created until he was 27. Gumbel began the interview by asking Lieberman about polls which show a close race and "why has George Bush successfully closed ground?" Gumbel next inquiry: "When health and education continue to be the primary issues, primary concerns of the voters, and since both camps are offering a series of new proposals. Does this come down to simply a matter of who do you trust?" Gumbel followed up: "I don't want to get hung-up on polls, but poll after poll shows an undecided rate of somewhere of about 10 to 12%. Do you find that either surprising or disappointing at this stage of the race?" Gumbel then arrived at hypocrisy over Hollywood:
"You've no doubt seen the New York Times this morning, headline up in
the top of the front page how the studios use children to test market new
films, how they've basically shown R-rated films to youngsters as young as
nine and ten years old, full of violence. In light of stuff like that how
do you justify continuing to take money from Hollywood?" Instead of pointing out how Lieberman had actually praised the industry and promised them no government action, Gumbel proceeded to a series of questions about the controversy over Lieberman remaining in the Connecticut Senate race. Back on September 20 the Washington Post's Mike Allen quoted how Lieberman, at a Hollywood fundraiser on September 18, privately assured the entertainment industry they had nothing to fear: "'Al and I have a tremendous regard for this industry,' Lieberman said late Monday to an audience that had contributed $10,000 a couple to the Democratic National Committee. 'We're both fans of the products out of the entertainment industry -- not all of them, but a lot of them. And the industry has entertained and inspired and educated us over the years.'" Allen later quoted Lieberman: "'It's true from time to time we have been, will be critics -- or nudges -- but I promise you this: We will never put the government in the position of telling you by law, through law, what to make,' Lieberman said. 'We will nudge you, but will never become censors.'" The Democratic ticket doesn't need to consider any law to censor Gumbel since he self censors himself to avoid making them defend saying one thing in public to get votes and another in private to their big donors to generate contributions. -- Brent Baker [6]
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After
showing the good judgment Wednesday night to ignore the anecdotal story of
Winnie Skinner which both ABC and CBS, as well as MSNBC, showcased,
Thursday night NBC Nightly News caught up and ran a glowing story in
support of her Gore-agenda cause and discrediting anyone who would dare
question the genuineness her plight. At a Gore event Wednesday in Iowa
with a pre-selected audience, Skinner became a media hero after she stood
and recounted how she collects cans along roadsides in order to pay for
her prescriptions.
Bush
"scare tactic" versus Gore's effort to "make voters worry
about George W. Bush's economic policy." Thursday night NBC Nightly
News presented back-to-back pieces on the Bush and Gore economic
arguments, but only George Bush's rhetoric was negatively described and
only with Bush did NBC claim he's had to defend the validity of his
economic program.
ABC and
CBS provided much less tilted reviews Thursday night of Bush's attack on
Gore, though ABC's Dean Reynolds complained that Bush offered "few
details to back up his charges." CBS's
Bill Whitaker looked at how Bush's "secret weapon," the
Republican Governors in battleground states, "is misfiring."
ABC
Thursday night became the first broadcast network evening show to take on
with a full report the Bush "mole" story. Peter Jennings
reminded those unfamiliar about how "a package of secret information
and video tapes from the Bush campaign was mailed by someone to Tom
Downey, the man who was helping Al Gore prepare for the presidential
debates. There has been a noisy debate ever since about who sent it."
Given
how Hollywood markets R-rated movies to youngsters, "how do you
justify continuing to take money from Hollywood?" CBS's Bryant
Gumbel asked Joe Lieberman on Wednesday's The Early Show. But when
Lieberman insisted that he and Gore have told them "stop
or we'll take action" through the FTC, Gumbel failed to follow up
on how in direct conflict with Gore's threat to have the government
regulate the content of material exposed to kids, Lieberman promised at a
fundraiser that they will only be "nudges" and, "I promise
you this: We will never put the government in the position of telling you
by law, through law, what to make."