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"A Sop...To Buy Off the Wing Nuts"; "Dangerously Big Tax Cut"; Bush Won, So ABC's Salinger Leaves U.S.; Awards Issue Runners-Up >>> CyberAlert Countdown Calendar to the 1,000th edition. Today's is the 996th numbered issue, so 4 more to go. <<<
Holiday weekends present an opportunity to hear the real views of reporters who normally don't get a chance to sound off and ABC didn't disappoint in bringing Linda Douglass aboard This Week. She proved again that she sees the world through a liberal prism. Douglass revealed she's afraid the Ashcroft nomination shows that Bush "is indeed a very conservative President," and measuring Bush against a liberal standard, she decided that while "Bush's rhetoric is very inclusive," the "fact is he's proposed no federal programs for minorities. He hasn't talked about using the federal government to broaden the safety net." Here are the quotes in full from the three liberal reporters, with the ones from Thomas and Douglass tracked down and transcribed on Tuesday by the MRC's holiday week on duty analyst, Jessica Anderson: -- Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas on Inside Washington over the weekend: "Well, you know, Attorney General is actually an important job. Why can't they buy off the right wing with unimportant jobs? I mean, this is a sop, I assume, to buy off the wing nuts, but it's like giving, I mean, the Attorney General counts, it matters." -- Wall Street Journal Executive Washington Editor Al Hunt on CNN's December 23 Capital Gang: "I would quickly say that John Ashcroft across the board, I think, Kate [O'Beirne] -- I know we disagree on this -- has been mean-spirited. He's a guy who led fights against special education funds. It went well beyond Ronnie White, and I think Frank Keating, who I would have disagreed with strongly, would have brought charm." -- ABC News reporter Linda Douglass on problems Ashcroft might face in his confirmation by the Senate, December 24 This Week roundtable: "There's going to be a lot of opposition, though, and what is fascinating about this is this choice by George W. Bush to pick a candidate for a position this sensitive which will inflame African-Americans who are already angry at him and who already voted against him nine to one. The African-American leaders are enraged at Ashcroft because of the Ronnie White confirmation that we've already heard about from Senator Leahy because of his opposition to affirmative action, and they see this as a stick in the eye. But it does underscore the fact that George W. Bush is indeed a very conservative President...." "Well, and George W. Bush's rhetoric is very inclusive. He means to be inclusive, and he's used very soft rhetoric in trying to reach out to minorities. But the fact is he's proposed no federal programs for minorities. He hasn't talked about using the federal government to broaden the safety net."
On Inside Washington Newsweek's Thomas argued: "Well, that's what's pernicious here, is seizing on this as a way to get a tax cut. I mean, he doesn't, I don't think anybody really knows where the economy's going, but he's going to try to, he could create something self-fulfilling, talk down the economy because he wants to use that as a tool to get a tax cut that we don't really need and is a bad idea." Over on CNN's Capital Gang, in a quote I got from the CNN transcript page and have not been able to check against the actual videotape, Al Hunt of the Wall Street Journal proclaimed: "The economy is going south more quickly than most experts thought, and the Bush people are going try to use this as an excuse to peddle the dangerously big tax cut. More important, however, is cooperation with the Federal Reserve and that's why Paul O'Neill is such a splendid choice. He's too conservative for my tastes, but he's a man of capacity. he's a man who understands governance and if Bush had picked one of those Wall Street types, there would have been the inevitable unfavorable comparison to Bob Rubin." A tax raising advocate whom conservatives don't consider one of their own is "too conservative" for Hunt? Where does that place him?
Last Friday night, December 22, Rather read an item about how the Florida Supreme Court had ruled that the state legislature and not judges should set recount standards. Rather noted the ruling was in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ending the hand counts because there were no uniform ground rules. Rather gratuitously added: "That ruling by the predominantly Republican U.S. Supreme Court in effect made George Bush the President-elect, but it does not necessarily mean he got the most votes in Florida." In the subsequent CBS Evening News story reporter Bobbi Harley looked at how media outlets are selectively counting 60,000 of 6 million votes cast, the so-called "under-votes." After pointing out how the Orlando Sentinel found a net gain of 130 Gore votes in Lake County, she concluded: "The winning side seems to be more interested in this process, with the Republican Party staffing these reviews with observers and lawyers, while the Democrats seem to be leaving this count to someone else." Why wouldn't the Democrats get out of the way since the media are furthering their partisan cause for them?
Grove and Berselli followed up and ran this item on December 22: Good as his word, Kennedy White House press secretary and former ABC News correspondent Pierre Salinger has fled the country in the wake of George W. Bush's successful campaign for the presidency. A week before the election, the 75-year-old Salinger wrote in the Georgetowner newspaper: "If Bush wins, I'm going to leave the country and spend the rest of my life in France." Yesterday we found Salinger in the southern French town of Le Thor, where his fourth wife, Nicole, runs a bed-and- breakfast called La Bastide Rose. "I'm going to come back to Washington in January to dispose of my apartment in Georgetown," he told us, "but otherwise I'll come back here to live for the rest of my life." As for actor Alec Baldwin and director Robert Altman -- who still haven't kept their promises to get out of Dodge if Bush took the White House -- Salinger said: "I don't know them very well, but if they come here they'll be very welcome. And if you want to come here, it would be very wonderful for us to be together and talk about things." Very tempting. END excerpt
-- News Media Advise Bush To Ditch "Big"
Tax Cut. For the rest of the story, go to: -- Conservative Economists Could Have Helped the
Broadcast Networks Get the Story Right in 2000. To read the entire piece, go to:
To view all the winning quotes as well as the two or three top runners-up and, thanks to Webmaster Andy Szul, RealPlayer video clips for two dozen of the quotes from TV shows, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/bestofnq2000.html [4] To see the 8-page issue typeset as snail mail
subscribers saw the newsletter, access the Adobe Acrobat PDF version. Go
to: Below are the first runners-up quotes. Point totals are in brackets after each quote. First place picks by the 46 judges were assigned three points, second place choices were given two points and third place selections were allocated one point. Here are the results, starting with the "Quote of the Year" runner-up which earned just one less point than the winner in the category: Quote of the Year, first runner-up "But should you be using the national airwaves to promote your
opinions?" Aiding & Abetting in an Election Theft Award, first runner-up "If it turns out that Al Gore wins the popular vote nationally,
there will be intense pressure in this country to have him become the
President. Most people think the guy with the most votes wins. Recounts
are as much an art as a science. You have experts, consultants, who go
around the country doing recounts. If the recount came out on behalf of
Bush and Bush had lost the popular vote nationally they would go to court,
there'd be another recount. It would become endless. And the political
pressure would mount very quickly to, to certify Al Gore as, as the
winner. Especially since you have a potential conflict of interest here
with the Governor of the state that is handling the recount being the
brother of Governor Bush." Kiss Me, Too, Al Award (for Gore Gushing), first runner-up "Let's talk about what they are now calling, Mr. Vice President, 'The Kiss'. You heard about 'The Catch' in that football game, this is 'The Kiss.' You really planted one on Mrs. Gore at the beginning of your speech there. What were you thinking?" "Were you trying to tell the American people that you're really a kind of emotional guy?" "Well, after watching that kiss I know how you survived 30 years,
Mr. Vice President. Way to go! It's nice talking to you." Kosher Kiss-Up Award (for Lauding Lieberman), first runner-up "Labor might not be happy. He is a conservative Democrat and they
probably don't agree with everything he supports, but, you know, Gore is
a pretty conservative Democrat." I Am Woman Award (for Hillary Rodham Worshiping), first runner-up "It was hard in the summer of 1992 for a young woman to stay
objective and not become enchanted by the promise of Hillary. I had spent
my formative professional years undercover in the dark age of Reagan-Bush.
Those were the days when women were not allowed to wear pants in the White
House. Anita Hill had just been whomped. Anti-abortion judges were packing
the Supreme Court. And here was a woman who had kept her own
name!....I'll be voting for her just to make sure Trent Lott doesn't
get another foot soldier for his holy war." Carve Clinton into Mount Rushmore Award, first runner-up "President Clinton, surviving impeachment and remains a colossus
on the world stage as witnessed by his prosecution of the war in Kosovo,
plus the peace accord in Northern Ireland, and peace with negotiations
in the Middle East, which wouldn't have happened without his
prodding." Media Hero Award, first runner-up "The Children's Defense Fund will release its annual report
today, and the figures in it are shocking and disturbing. They say one in
five American children live in poverty. 13.5 million kids in this country
are poor. Marian Wright Edelman, the incredible head of that organization,
will be here to tell us today what can be done about it. And she firmly
believes that mothers, in particular, across the country can get involved
in this fight and should get involved because everybody's children are
all of our children....It's a call to arms really for America's
mothers to get involved in the gun debate. Silence the NRA. Get involved. You say it is all of our fights!" The Real Reagan Legacy Award, first runner-up "His presidency ended more than a decade ago, but politicians,
Democrat and Republican, still talk about Ronald Reagan. Al Gore has an ad
noting that in Congress he opposed the Reagan budget cuts. He says that
because Bill Bradley was one of 36 Democratic Senators who voted for the
cuts. Gore doesn't point out that Bradley also voted against the popular
Reagan tax cuts and that it was the tax cuts that piled up those enormous
deficits, a snowballing national debt." Flirting with Disaster Award (for Proximity to Conservatives), first runner-up Dan Rather: "One issue that is sure to come up in the fall campaign that has already surfaced is Bush cozying up to the self-described religious right, including the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell." Richard Schlesinger: "....Pollsters and pundits and politicians
like to describe the primary season as a search for the soul of a party.
Now the question is: Did George Bush sell his soul to the wrong
group?" The Galloping Ghost of Gingrich Award (for Chiding Cheney), first runner-up "This week we learned that citizen Dick Cheney didn't vote in 14
of the last 16 state elections in Texas. His excuse? He was, quote,
'focused on global concerns.' Was part of his concern Halliburton's
policy abroad of segregating bathrooms for Americans only? Halliburton's
excuse was they were providing for, quote, 'cultural needs.' Didn't
they say something like that in Mississippi in defense of whites-only
toilets?" W is for Woeful Award (for Bashing Bush), first runner-up "When he picked a running mate, he picked a running mate who was
straight out of the red meat, right-wing part of the party. When he was
asked about who he wants, everybody's talking about how he's not
making a litmus test about abortion for Supreme Court nominees, but he
says his two favorite Supreme Court nominees are Scalia and Clarence
Thomas, hardly people that most blacks or Hispanics think are ideal
candidates for the court. There's still some kind of a disconnect
between this wonderful public face, comfortable
with Hispanics or whatever, and the decisions this guy has actually
made." If He Didn't Sink, Send Him Back to the Clink Award (for Portraying a Cuban Paradise Awaiting Elian), first runner-up "Elian might expect a nurturing life in Cuba, sheltered from the
crime and social breakdown that would be part of his upbringing in Miami.
Because Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, works as a cashier in a
tourist resort, the family already belonged to the nation's well-off
stratum, who has access to American dollars. The boy's relatives in
Miami can offer further support: Cuba now even has ATMs that dispense
dollars from foreign banks. The education and health-care systems, both
built since the revolution, are among
the best in the Americas, despite chronic shortages of supplies... Little Havana Banana Republic Award, first runner-up "The 'banana republic' label sticking to Miami in the final
throes of the Elian Gonzalez crisis is a source of snide humor for most
Americans. But many younger Cuban Americans are getting tired of the
hard-line anti-Castro operatives who have helped manufacture that
stereotype -- especially the privileged, imperious elite who set
themselves up as a pueblo sufrido, a suffering people, as martyred as
black slaves and Holocaust Jews, but ever ready to jump on expensive
speedboats to reclaim huge family estates the moment
the old communist dictator stops breathing." Semper Fidel Award (for Jim Avila's Admiration of Fidel Castro), first runner-up "The one thing that most, that I've learned about Cubans in the
many times that I have visited here in the last few years, is that it is
mostly a nationalistic country, not primarily a communist country." Bring Back the Iron Curtain Award (for Admiring Communism), first runner-up "Like these young dancers, Carlos [Acosta] benefited from Cuba's
communist system because it not only recognizes physical talent, it
nurtures it, whether it's baseball, boxing, or ballet." Damn Those Conservatives Award, first runner-up "George W. is one thing, but as long as the Republican Party --
you noted some of them -- is populated by the Pat Buchanans, the Jesse
Helmses, the Jerry Falwells, the Bob Barrs, don't blacks have a right to
be suspicious?" Good Morning Morons Award, first runner-up "I ask the question because this ticket has put a premium on
what's called 'family values,' which for a long time, as you know,
was a code word for intolerance. Need people be concerned about a hard
turn to the social right in the Democratic Party?" Politics of Meaninglessness Award (for the Silliest Analysis), first runner-up "I have an analogy. This came to me the night I saw this. The
death penalty is like Viagra in middle-aged men. Texas uses the death
penalty to remember what it was like in those good old cowboy days. If you
want to send me your hate mail, go ahead, 'cause that's the way I see
it. This thing is insane!" END list of first runners-up in the MRC's "The Best Notable Quotables of 2000: The Thirteenth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." On Thursday: The second runners-up. -- Brent Baker [6]
>>>
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Ashcroft
assault. Bush's nomination of Senator John Ashcroft generated media
anger and angst over the weekend on the talk and interview shows.
Newsweek's Evan Thomas denigrated anyone pleased by the pick as a
"wing nut" as he whined that "Attorney General is actually
an important job. Why can't they buy off the right wing with unimportant
jobs? I mean, this is a sop, I assume, to buy off the wing nuts." The
Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt ruled that Ashcroft was a bad choice
because he "has been mean-spirited." Unlike Al Hunt?
A tax
cut bashed too by Evan Thomas and Al Hunt over the weekend. Both
Washington reporters denounced Bush for warning of an economic downturn
and suggesting a tax cut might be an antidote.
Dan
Rather has added "Republican Supreme Court" to his lexicon which
had long featured the phrase "Republican prosecutor Ken Starr."
One
gone, how many more to go? Several celebrities promised to flee the United
States if George W. Bush won, but so far it appears only former ABC News
chief foreign correspondent Pierre Salinger, who has long spent much of
the year in France anyway, is following through. As reported in the
November 6 CyberAlert, in the November 3 Washington Post "The
Reliable Source" columnists Lloyd Grove and Beth Berselli relayed a
comment to a DC neighborhood weekly: "'I don't want any more Bush
Presidents,' the 75-year-old Salinger writes in the new Georgetowner
newspaper. 'If Bush wins, I'm going to leave the country and spend the
rest of my life in France.'"
Now
online for your Christmas break reading, a fresh edition of MediaNomics by
Rich Noyes, Director of the MRC's Free Market Project. The two new
articles posted late last week:
Yesterday
the winning quotes, today the first runner-up in the MRC's "The
Best Notable Quotables of 2000: The Thirteenth Annual Awards for the
Year's Worst Reporting." The annual end of the year special 8-page
edition of NQ is based upon the votes of 46 judges -- radio talk show
hosts, columnists, editorial writers, magazine editors and media observers
-- who evaluated and ranked quotes in 18 award categories. See item #3 in
the December 26 CyberAlert for the list of judges: