Guest Raises Wilson Claims with Schieffer Who Sticks to Cheney --7/19/2004

1. Guest Raises Wilson Claims with Schieffer Who Sticks to Cheney
When Bob Schieffer told RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie how he hears Republicans questioning whether Dick Cheney should remain on the ticket, Gillespie brought up on Face the Nation how "Joe Wilson, who led the attack against the Vice President and the President for more than a year has been entirely discredited in bipartisan fashion, by the way, unanimously by the Democrats and the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee." Gillespie reminded Schieffer: "He was on this program, Bob, and in fact, CBS News itself, on 30 different occasions, has reported on his allegations, 15 of him on camera, including this program, and yet at some point, I think it would be helpful to have the viewers informed." But Schieffer didn't care about that. Instead, he turned for a response from his other guest, DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, and then asked McAuliffe about how "many Democrats are saying that Dick Cheney has become your Newt Gingrich this time around. What do you mean by that?" On CNN's Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer pressed Wilson to respond to the Senate report.

2. Ted Koppel Not Sure If Stephanopoulos Prefers Kerry or Bush
Ted Koppel insisted, at the ABC News session last week with the Television Critics Association, that in a media world where you've got people like Sean Hannity "who not only make no secret whatsoever of where their political sympathies lie, but feel it is their role as journalists to push that particular line of thinking forward," he doesn't know for whom ABC's George Stephanopoulos will vote in the presidential election: "I don't know that George will ultimately vote for Kerry and not Bush." Koppel lectured, as quoted by San Francisco Chronicle TV reporter Tim Goodman: "Judge him on the basis of what he's doing, not on the basis of what you think he might be thinking at home at night." On the Iraq war front, late last week Koppel told CNN's Howard Kurtz that he felt war with Iraq was justified, but not the timing.

3. FNC Picks Up on Evan Thomas Admission Media "Want Kerry to Win"
You Read It Here First. The July 12 CyberAlert reported the recognition of the obvious. The media "wants Kerry to win" and so "they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic," Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend. Fast forward to Saturday, and FNC's Eric Burns set up Fox Newswatch: "Inside Washington is a TV show seen on the CBS station in Washington and on various PBS stations across the country. Here is what Newsweek editor Evan Thomas said on Inside Washington last week..."

Correction: Item #4 in the July 16 CyberAlert, on an NBC Nightly News story about Joe Wilson, reported that NBC's Andrea Mitchell "made only a quick reference to how 'the British this week, citing their own sources, said they still believe Saddam tried to get uranium.' That was an angle ignored in all the Tuesday night stories about the British report." In fact, the stories on the "Butler Report" ran on Wednesday night and while the ABC, CBS and CNN evening newscast stories ignored that part of the British assessment of pre-war intelligence, on the July 14 NBC Nightly News, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth observed, reporter Keith Miller gave a line to the support for the statement President Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union address: "Butler did back up British claims that Iraq sought uranium from the African nation of Niger, even if the material was never purchased."

Guest Raises Wilson Claims with Schieffer
Who Sticks to Cheney

A guest on Face the Nation raised how the Senate Intelligence Committee report had undermined Joseph Wilson's claims, which have been promoted on Face the Nation, but Bob Schieffer refused to correct the record. When Schieffer told RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie how he hears Republicans questioning whether Dick Cheney should remain on the ticket, Gillespie brought up how "Joe Wilson, who led the attack against the Vice President and the President for more than a year has been entirely discredited in bipartisan fashion, by the way, unanimously by the Democrats and the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee." Gillespie reminded Schieffer: "He was on this program, Bob, and in fact, CBS News itself, on 30 different occasions, has reported on his allegations, 15 of him on camera, including this program, and yet at some point, I think it would be helpful to have the viewers informed."

But Schieffer didn't care about that. Instead, he turned for a response from his other guest, DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, and then asked McAuliffe about how "many Democrats are saying that Dick Cheney has become your Newt Gingrich this time around. What do you mean by that?"

Wilson did get a platform on the October 5, 2003 Face the Nation to issue his now disputed claims about whose idea it was to send him to Niger and what he found.

NBC's Meet the Press has given Wilson two Sunday interview appearances and yet on Sunday, for the second week after the July 10 Washington Post story which outlined how the Senate report undermined Wilson, Tim Russert failed to update his viewers. Instead, he featured an interview with Bush-hating Senator Robert Byrd who came aboard to plug his new book, Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. Check its Amazon page and you'll learn this "book" is a mere 128 pages. See: www.amazon.com [1]

CNN's Wolf Blitzer did advance the Wilson story on Sunday, getting him to appear live on Late Edition. Blitzer plugged the upcoming segment: "In just a moment I'll speak live with the former U.S. Acting Ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, about the reignited controversy over his role in gathering pre-war intelligence. It's his first television interview since the Senate Intelligence Committee report came out."

Blitzer set up his session with Wilson: "The situation here in Washington is confusing to say the least. From London to Washington, fresh questions about what the United States and its allies knew about Iraq when President Bush was making his case to invade that country. One person who challenged the administration finds himself back at the center of a firestorm over intelligence and war. That person, the former U.S. Acting Ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson. He is joining us now on Late Edition. Thanks very much for joining us, your first television interview since the Senate Intelligence Committee report came out, which raises serious questions about your credibility in this whole matter."

For the next 14 minutes or so, Blitzer went point-by-point "through some of the specific questions that they raise in that report, which was unanimously adopted by the Democrats and the Republicans," but Wilson didn't give any ground.

For CNN's transcript of the July 18 Late Edition: www.cnn.com [2]

Wilson appeared at the top of the 1pm EDT hour, the second hour of the two-hour program, so scroll down to the half-way point.

Other Wilson matter citations from over the weekend:

-- Fox News Sunday: Host Chris Wallace asked CIA Director John McLaughlin about the Senate findings on Wilson and even just what the CIA learned from Wilson's trip to Niger, but McLaughlin demurred from comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

-- In its Saturday "Free for All" section, the Washington Post ran a letter from Wilson disputing the Post's July 10 news story by Susan Schmidt. For the letter headlined, "Debunking Distortions About My Trip to Niger," see: www.washingtonpost.com [3]

-- On Sunday, Washington Post Ombudsman Michael Getler responded to criticism of the Schmidt story from Wilson in his Saturday letter and fueled by a left-wing blogger:
"I didn't find the criticism of this story persuasive. The story, in my view, reflects the points, interviews and conclusions laid out in the Senate study.
"Wilson, in his letter, refers to 'the Republican-written' report. It is a bipartisan report. Wilson says 'the decision to send me to Niger was not made, and could not be made, by Valerie.' Neither the report, nor the story, says she made 'the decision.' The story says Wilson was 'specifically recommended for the mission by his wife.' The report says 'interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife...suggested his name for the trip.' A reports officer in her division told the committee she 'offered up his name.' There are other references as well to Plame's role.
"Wilson takes issue with Schmidt's reporting that his report on the trip to Niger 'bolstered the case' about purported uranium sales to Iraq. But the study concludes that Wilson's March 2002 report, which noted that the former prime minister of Niger said that in 1999 he was approached by a businessman insisting he meet with an Iraqi delegation (which he did not do), 'lent more credibility to the original CIA reports on the uranium deal.'"

For Getler's July 18 column in full: www.washingtonpost.com [4]

-- The Schieffer/Gillespie exchange on Face the Nation:

Bob Schieffer: "What, where is all this stuff about Cheney leaving the ticket coming from? I'm told that everybody in the White House says that this ticket is etched in stone and yet I hear these reports when I go out and talk to Republicans around-"
Ed Gillespie: "Well, Bob, we know where it's coming from. We saw it, I tell you, I have pitched my fair share of the stories as you know over the past 20 years in this town, and whoever that anonymous Democratic congressman was who was quoted in the New York Times a couple days ago as saying, you know, Democrats are talking about Cheney being off the ticket and got the New York Times to put this rumor on the front page, deserves a lot of credit. I mean, he took them for all they're worth."
Schieffer: "Well, I want to ask you this, though. Could this possibly be some of this coming from Republicans who are not in the White House but outside the White House who are nervous about this being a very close election? Because when I go out to give talks, when I talk to people on the Hill, they talk about: Should Cheney be on the ticket?"
Gillespie: "Bob, the Vice President was in Minnesota and Iowa right around the same time I was out there. The crowds were fantastic. I followed him actually and so I had people come up to me and say he was just great, so excited to see him. Rank-and-file Republicans are appreciative of the, of the experience, the gravitas, the seriousness with which Dick Cheney approaches the job of Vice President. They're very supportive of him. Democrats have had a concerted effort for over a year now to attack the Vice President in some of the most scurrilous fashion with a lot of information that's inaccurate.
"I'll tell you what, we just talked about the Senate Intelligence Committee report, which found that Joe Wilson, who led the attack against the Vice President and the President for more than a year has been entirely discredited in bipartisan fashion, by the way, unanimously by the Democrats and the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee. They found that he fabricated stories, that he talked about seeing documents that he never even saw. He says that he used a little literary flair. Pretty serious business to be using a little literary flair about. He says he misspoke when talking to The Washington Post.
"He was on this program, Bob, and in fact, CBS News itself, on 30 different occasions, has reported on his allegations, 15 of him on camera, including this program, and yet at some point, I think it would be helpful to have the viewers informed -- and I've got the Senate Intelligence Committee report here -- that he was completely been repudiated and let them know that those 30 reports, the 15 times he was on camera he was basically making stuff up."
Schieffer to Terry McAuliffe: "Do you think that's right?"
McAuliffe: "I'll let Joe Wilson speak for himself. I saw the editorial he wrote yesterday in the Washington Post defending himself. He wrote a six-page letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you know, I'll let Joe Wilson speak for himself. Our issue as it relates to the-"
Gillespie: "But the Kerry campaign is letting him speak for them. He is an adviser to the Kerry campaign and they continue to post his now-repudiated allegations on their Web site."
McAuliffe: "There have been serious issues about intelligence. Let's see the 9/11 report which will be out this week."
Schieffer to McAuliffe: "Let me go back to the Vice President. Some in the Republican Party -- maybe you were one of those who says that Dick Cheney-"
McAuiliffe: "In the Democratic Party?"
Schieffer: "In the Democratic Party."
McAuliffe: "We'll let, we'll make some news here today."
Schieffer: "Yeah, that would, who are saying that Dick Cheney has become your Newt Gingrich this time around. What do you mean by that?"

Previous CyberAlert items about the Wilson matter:

-- July 14 CyberAlert. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report released on Friday discredited Joseph Wilson's claim that his wife, a CIA operative, had nothing to do with the decision to send him to Niger to check claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium and the report determined that what he found actually backed up the statement made by President Bush in his State of the Union address about Iraq's quest. But since the Washington Post on Saturday outlined the explosive revelations in the committee's report released on Friday, other than FNC and Fox News Sunday, few media outlets have bothered to update viewers on the serious doubts raised about Wilson's claims which the media so eagerly publicized over the past year. NBC's Today has been silent, but in May brought Wilson aboard twice to plug his book, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity. See: www.mediaresearch.org [5]

-- July 16 CyberAlert. Five days after the Washington Post revealed how the Senate report released last Friday had undermined Joseph Wilson's claims about how his wife, a CIA operative, had nothing to do with the decision to send him to Niger to check claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium and that the report determined that what he found actually backed up the statement made by President Bush in his State of the Union address about Iraq's quest, NBC Nightly News on Thursday became the first broadcast network to give air time, in a story by Andrea Mitchell, to the undermining of Wilson's anti-Bush crusade which so animated the media for the past year. Friday's Today, however, didn't air Mitchell's story even though the program in May twice interviewed Wilson. NBC anchor Brian Williams framed the story only around how Wilson is "defending cracks in his story" and Mitchell failed to pick up on how the Post reported that "the panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts." See: www.mediaresearch.org [6]

Ted Koppel Not Sure If Stephanopoulos
Prefers Kerry or Bush

Ted Koppel insisted, at the ABC News session last week with the Television Critics Association, that in a media world where you've got people like Sean Hannity "who not only make no secret whatsoever of where their political sympathies lie, but feel it is their role as journalists to push that particular line of thinking forward," he doesn't know for whom ABC's George Stephanopoulos will vote in the presidential election: "I don't know that George will ultimately vote for Kerry and not Bush." Koppel lectured, as quoted by San Francisco Chronicle TV reporter Tim Goodman: "Judge him on the basis of what he's doing, not on the basis of what you think he might be thinking at home at night."

On the Iraq war front, late last week Koppel told CNN's Howard Kurtz, for an interview which ran on Sunday's Reliable Sources, that he felt war with Iraq was justified, but not the timing: "I didn't feel that the war had to be prosecuted at the time that it was prosecuted. I felt that we could well afford to wait. I didn't think the threat to the United States was as imminent as the Bush administration did. But did I feel that there were ample reasons for going to war against Iraq? Absolutely. Felt it then, feel it now."

Kurtz tried to get Koppel to agree that before the war there was "a climate in the American media at the time that to raise those questions and to challenge the President of the United States as he was gearing up to take the country to war, would have been seen as unpatriotic?"

The MRC's Tim Graham alerted me to a July 14 San Francisco Chronicle article by Tim Goodman about remarks made by top ABC News talent to the July 12 session in Los Angeles with the Television Critics Association. Goodman recounted:
"When someone wondered if, as the election approaches, Stephanopoulos won't be seen as partisan based on his past, Koppel rose up in defense: 'I'm a little bemused,' he said, 'by the fact that you would ask a question like that in a media environment in which you've got your Sean Hannitys out there, you've got your Bill O'Reillys out there. You've got a ton of people out there who not only make no secret whatsoever of where their political sympathies lie, but feel it is their role as journalists to push that particular line of thinking forward. What George is saying, 'Hey, no secret. You know, I've worked for a lot of Democrats over the years. You may even be right.' And I don't know that George will ultimately vote for Kerry and not Bush. But judge him on the basis of what he's doing, not on the basis of what you think he might be thinking at home at night.'"

For Goodman's story in full, with Koppel's take on Fahrenheit 9/11, see: www.sfgate.com [7]

For a photo of ABC News President David Westin, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel and George Stephanopoulos at the gathering of TV critics at the Century Plaza Hotel on July 12: story.news.yahoo.com [8]

On Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN aired a taped interview with Koppel which Howard Kurtz conducted on the Nightline set. In the wake of Koppel's controversial "The Fallen" listing of all of those killed in Iraq, Kurtz pressed him for his view of the war.

Kurtz: "Were you a supporter of the war? Did you believe that Saddam Hussein needed to be toppled?"
Koppel: "I believed that war might at some point be necessary. I did a 90-minute Nightline town meeting, the title of which was self-explanatory. And that was, 'Why Now?' I didn't feel that the war had to be prosecuted at the time that it was prosecuted. I felt that we could well afford to wait. I didn't think the threat to the United States was as imminent as the Bush administration did. But did I feel that there were ample reasons for going to war against Iraq? Absolutely. Felt it then, feel it now."
Kurtz: "With the luxury of hindsight, were the media -- were all the journalists who were covering this, were they skeptical enough? Were they aggressive enough about the claims of weapons and related support for terrorism that Dick Cheney and George Bush were making in the run-up to war? Did the media do their job?"
Koppel: "I think we were probably a little bit too timid across the board. But looking back on it now, Howie, I don't know of anyone back then, not the French, not the Germans, not the Russians, certainly not the British, not American intelligence, I know of no one who did not believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
"And in fact, the last time that international folks were in there, back in 1998, it was quite clear that he still had them. And it didn't make common sense. Why, if the man could avoid invasion by the United States simply by letting folks come in and see that he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction, why not do it? I don't quite understand that one to this day."
Kurtz: "But wasn't there a climate in the American media at the time that to raise those questions and to challenge the President of the United States as he was gearing up to take the country to war, would have been seen as unpatriotic?"
Kurtz: "I have no doubt that that was an element. But let me put it to you another way. Let us say that President Bush and the others had said, 'All right. We'll wait for a year. We'll let the U.N. weapons inspectors do what they have to do.' What do you think would have been the result of that at the end of the year? At the end of the year, the U.N. weapons inspectors would have come out, shaking their heads, saying, 'You know, we can't find any weapons of mass destruction.' Do you think anyone in this administration at that point would have said, 'Oh, well, if you can't find them, they must not be there'?"

FNC Picks Up on Evan Thomas Admission
Media "Want Kerry to Win"

You Read It Here First. The July 12 CyberAlert reported the recognition of the obvious. The media "wants Kerry to win" and so "they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic," Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend.

Fast forward to Saturday, and FNC's Eric Burns set up Fox Newswatch, FNC's weekly show which examines the media: "Inside Washington is a TV show seen on the CBS station in Washington and on various PBS stations across the country. Here is what Newsweek editor Evan Thomas said on Inside Washington last week:"
Clip from the July 10 Inside Washington: "Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards -- I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox, but -- they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points."

Panelist Cal Thomas, no relation as he was quick to make clear, cited some of the glowing coverage for John Edwards, including that delivered by Newsweek, and observed: "He's just outed -- if we need any more evidence -- the entire media establishment as being exactly what some of us have thought they were for a long time."

Indeed, the July 12 CyberAlert went on to note how Evan Thomas' magazine sported a smiling Kerry and Edwards on its cover with the yearning headline, "The Sunshine Boys?" Inside, an article carrying Thomas' byline contrasted how "Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine." The cover story touted how Kerry and Edwards "became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence." Time also gushed about the Democratic ticket, dubbing them "The Gleam Team." Sunday Washington Post headlines: "Kerry Vows to Restore 'Truth' to Presidency" and "Energy, Enthusiasm Infectious as Democrats Take Message to Battleground States."

For links to those Newsweek stories and for a RealPlayer video clip of Thomas conceding the media's pro-Kerry wishes, see the July 12 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org [9]

# John McCain is scheduled to appear tonight, Monday, on NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Scheduled for Tuesday night: Bill Maher, whose HBO show resumes this Friday.

-- Brent Baker [10]