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Russert Took on Gore; Lauer Scolded Matthews; Sheen Wants to Be "Pain in the Ass" to Bush; ABC's In-Kind Contribution to Gore -- Back to today's CyberAlert [1] 7) Letterman's "Top Ten Election Issues Important to Dumb Guys." Correction: A table of contents item in this morning's CyberAlert flipped the direction of the debate questions. It stated "conservative agenda questions outnumbered liberal ones by 8-to-2." It should have read, as the subsequent article accurately outlined, "liberal agenda questions outnumbered conservative ones by 8-to-2."
-- ABC's Good Morning America. Terry Moran, who covers the Gore campaign for World News Tonight, kissed up to the Vice President shortly after the debate. Among his questions, as transcribed by MRC analyst Jessica Anderson: "Why did you feel so good out there? Because it seemed like you just wanted to seize the moment tonight?" And: "You've spent a quarter century in public service and have worked on a lot of these issues, obviously have mastered a lot of the details of them. When you look across the stage, are you frustrated at all?" -- CBS's The Early Show. Bill Plante wondered to Gore: "Do you get the sense that your opponent is trying to make this a personality contest, as opposed to an issues contest." Gore replied: "Seems that way, yeah." -- NBC's Today. Tim Russert interviewed Gore for the first time since a July 16 Meet the Press appearance in which Russert's first question was to ask Gore what he meant when he told a woman in Michigan that being Vice President was a lot like being "the woman behind the man." This morning, he pressed Gore on his opposition to school vouchers, and Gore at one point accused Russert of bias. "I know you're in favor of vouchers," Gore defensively told Russert, prompting Russert to respond: "No, I have no view on it. I have no view on it. But I went to a private school, you went to a private school. Your children go to private school, mine goes to a private school....Why not, as you said [before], if I was the parent of a child that went to an inner city school that was failing, I might be for vouchers, too. Why not give it a shot?" Gore said he preferred a program in which failing schools are shut down and re-opened by a team of "specialists." "Governor Jim Hunt of North Carolina has put a plan just like that into effect and it works great," Gore exuded. "We called his office tonight," Russert informed the Vice President. "He has not shut down any schools." "Well, he has turned around a bunch of schools that
were failing schools," Gore insisted, "and he has sent specialists
in. Whether the terminology used is 'shut down' or whether it's 'a
take over,' you know, that's something that you ought to-" In his interview with Bush, Russert also repeatedly quizzed the candidate about school vouchers, challenging the Texas Governor's contention that his voucher plan did not involve a federal mandate on states. "When you talked about vouchers, you said that the federal government would not mandate vouchers. And yet, in your own plan, in your own proposal, it says very clearly, quote, 'The state will be required to offer parents [a] $1500 per year voucher they can use." Bush explained that the provision was not a general mandate, but one that would only take effect if the state had fallen below new federal standards on education. "Are you comfortable in having that federal mandate," Russert followed up. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't believe it," Bush responded. Prediction: Whether he wins or loses next month, Al Gore will do everything he can to avoid another interview with Tim Russert.
Lauer started off by baiting Matthews, who once worked for former Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill: "Before you tell me who won, and I know who you think won, just tell me how you rate the debate. Was it the best of the series?" Later in the interview, Matthews referred to public
opinion polls, saying: "It's interesting. People keep saying, even the
Bush people say Gore won the debate, but I like Bush." Matthews: "The public's been saying that,
too." A few minutes later, Matthews maintained he was among the ranks of still-undecided voters: "I think they have to decide this on who do you trust. And I think that people are going to see Gore as a Clinton guy, as a government man, as the incumbent. And they're gonna look at the other guy as not the most trained guy to be President, and probably not the perfect candidate, but they do want a change. And I think it's about a 50-50, that's why it was a draw last night and the American people are going to have to make the decision. And there's about 10 percent of the people that are gonna make that decision, including people like me that haven't made up their mind, yet." Lauer was disbelieving. "Yeah, right," he
snorted. Matt Lauer, poster-boy for open-minded journalists?
On ABC's Good Morning America, an obviously pleased George Stephanopoulos congratulated the questioners for what he considered fine lines of inquiry. Host Diane Sawyer asked him: "So, George, what did you think?" Stephanopoulos exulted: "I think, three cheers for the citizen questions, Diane. These real people last night produced the most revealing debate of the series, showing sharp differences between Gore and Bush, both on questions of style and on substance; between Bush's philosophy of smaller government and the policy specifics that Gore is going to fight for, and I think it really sets the ground, the strategic ground for these final three weeks." But not everyone agreed with Stephanopoulos's assessment. "Did you think those people in that room last night were undecided?" MSNBC's Chris Matthews wondered in his interview with Today's Matt Lauer. "I thought that they were all pro-Gore." For a complete rundown of all eight liberal questions
posed, check out today's Media Reality Check complied by Tim Graham titled,
"Lehrer Picks Pile of Liberal Questioners: PBS Anchor Stacked the Deck
for Gore With Eight Questions from the Left, and Two from the Right." Go
to: To view it as an Adobe Acobat PDF file, go to:
In addition, during the 12am ET News with Brian Williams re-cap of the October 17 debate, Chris Matthews pointed out the pro-Gore agenda of the questions. MRC analyst Paul Smith took down his early morning comment: "Will somebody please admit that these are not bipartisan audience selections. These are all special pleaders for Democratic causes. There was a teacher in the union. There was somebody talking about prescription drugs. They wanted the Democratic bill. There was somebody for gun control. Were there any conservatives in the audience that were against big government anywhere? I didn't hear one."
Thanks to the American League Championship Series ending before a seventh game, The West Wing returns tonight to NBC at 9pm ET/PT, 8pm CT/MT. MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens took down these exchanges from Sheen's two interviews. -- October 16 Rivera Live on CNBC: Later, Sheen proclaimed of Bill Clinton: "I think
he's terrific and heroic and, and we're gonna miss him." -- October 18 Today:
MRC Communications Director Liz Swasey alerted me to the item titled "Dems to Get Barb Boost on ABC" in the October 17 "Neal Travis' New York" column. Here's an excerpt: Yesterday in Manhattan, Barbara Walters began taping an interview that could become the Democrats' "November surprise." The ABC ace spent several hours chatting with uber-liberal Barbra Streisand for a 20/20 show that will air on the Friday before the Nov. 7 election. Make no mistake: Diva Streisand, who has an enormous following, is using this nationwide forum to promote the candidacies of Democrats Al Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her remarks could be enough to push both of them over the top in what are shaping up as very close races.... I understand that, as a quid pro quo for doing the interview at a time when she has nothing personal to promote, Streisand insisted that she would be given room to explain why she is supporting Al and Hillary and the Democratic platform. It could be the most important political performance the star, who has raised many millions of dollars for the party, has ever given. "Babs is enormously popular in Middle America, where the election will be decided," says one person who claims to know why she's doing the Walters show at this crucial time. "All those undecideds out there -- if they can hear one idol telling another what a great guy Gore is, you know it's going to swing a lot of votes." END Excerpt Travis added that he's "heard" that "Gore has been granted a walk-on role on Saturday Night Live (a show that has pilloried him and GOP rival George W. Bush) within the next two weeks." The address for the latest column by Neal Travis:
10. Medicare coverage for swallowing a billiard ball And from the Late Show Web page, some of the "also ran" nominations which didn't make the final cut: -- Send someone up to fix the ozone layer with duct tape and a caulking gun George W. Bush is scheduled to appear Thursday night on Letterman's show.-- Brent Baker [5] with morning show analysis provided by Rich Noyes [6]
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Although
the New York-based morning shows were all giddy about the upcoming Mets-Yankees
"subway series," the third and presumably final presidential debate
of Campaign 2000 led each program. All three shows once again featured taped
interviews with George W. Bush and Al Gore, along with wrap-up reports and
punditry. ABC and CBS tossed softballs to Gore, but not NBC's Tim Russert.
Matt Lauer
expressed concern his CNBC/MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews has an anti-Gore
bias. MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens caught this exchange between the two this
morning, in which Lauer implied Matthews can't get past his dislike of Gore.
As this
morning's CyberAlert noted, eight out of the fifteen questions posed by
"undecided" citizens at last night's debate reflected a
left-liberal agenda, while only two could be construed as reflecting a
conservative point of view.
Clarification:
After the debate FNC "uniquely acknowledged" the liberal slant of
the questions, this morning's CyberAlert reported. That declaration of
uniqueness applied to the half hour of post-debate analysis on ABC, CBS and
NBC (simulcast on MSNBC) from 10:30 to 11pm ET.
Martin Sheen
would be "enormously disappointed" if Bush won, but then, Sheen
hoped, The West Wing would be a "royal pain in the ass" to Bush.
Sheen, who plays Democratic President "Josiah Bartlet" on the NBC
series, let loose with his liberal opinions on Rivera Live Monday night and on
today's Today. Sheen called Bill Clinton "terrific and heroic" and
revealed his character is a melding of the best of Presidents Kennedy, Carter
and Clinton.
ABC's
in-kind contribution to the Gore-Lieberman effort. The Friday before the
election ABC's 20/20 will feature an interview conducted by Barbara Walters
with Barbra Streisand, Neil Travis disclosed in Tuesday's New York Post.
Travis learned Streisand "insisted" that in the interview "she
would be given room to explain why she is supporting Al and Hillary and the
Democratic platform."
From the
October 16 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Election Issues
Important to Dumb Guys." Copyright 2000 by Worldwide Pants, Inc.