1) Monday night CBS and NBC covered the day's
campaigning with their anchors giving brief reports. NBC Nightly News ran
a lengthy piece from Andrea Mitchell on the Indonesian money trail.
On the October 21
World News Tonight, Brit Hume reported President Clinton's reaction to the
fundraising scandals. Hume offered a unique use of the term
"harsh," applying it to Clinton instead of Dole:
"President
Clinton though stayed as far above the fracas as possible. He personally
said not a word about it as he campaigned in Ohio and Michigan today. But
his campaign thought enough of the matter to send out a spokesman to
denounce Bob Dole on it in the harshest terms."
Joe Lockhart, Clinton-Gore Press Secretary: "You know Bob Dole
talking about campaign finance reform is like Dr. Jack Kevorkian talking
about the sanctity of life. It doesn't work. He has no credibility."
2) On Tuesday's World News Tonight (October 22) Brian Ross explored a
convicted drug dealer who got a White House dinner for his $20,000.
Brian Ross:
"At the very time twice convicted Jorge Cabrera was setting up his
latest cocaine smuggling deal last December in the Florida Keys,
Democratic fundraisers were arranging for him to attend a White House
dinner with President Clinton. All it took was a $20,000 campaign
contribution to the Democratic Party...."
"A few weeks after the White House dinner federal agents raided
Cabrera's hideout and seized more than 5,000 pounds of cocaine, leading to
Cabrera's conviction in July. Still, the Democrats didn't return his money
until last week when after a reporter for Newsweek asked about it and the
party finally checked into Cabrera's background. According to Cabrera's
lawyer there are pictures of the drug smuggler at the White House and at
another dinner here in Florida with Vice President Gore. But federal
prosecutors demanded all copies and negatives of those photos and the
Justice Department is refusing to make them public."
3) MRC analyst Steve Kaminski caught this humorous sequence during a story
on Monday's This Morning on who Dole and Clinton might appoint to the
Supreme Court.
CBS reporter Troy
Roberts: "Court observers believe a Bob Dole presidency would move
the court to the right and President Clinton would stick with moderate
appointments should he win a second term."
Clint Bolick,
Institute for Justice: "Bill Clinton has tended to appoint very well
qualified people but people who are quite liberal. I expect that he'll
continue doing that if he gets a second term and the Republican Senate
will have no option but to confirm those people."
4) In most markets Tuesday night PBS aired an edition of Frontline titled
"Why America Hates the Press." The show approached the subject
from the left, using the James Fallows critique as its guide. There was
plenty on the evils of the McLaughlin Group, celebrity journalism,
reporters taking speaking fees and how awful it was for the Washington
Post to put on the front page a story about Bob Woodward's new book.
One theme that
was absent: Any consideration of how liberal bias might be turning people
off. Just take a look at this list of those featured in the PBS show, as
listed in the Washington Post's TV Week on Sunday:
"Michael
Kelly, editor of the New Republic; the New York Times's R.W. 'Johnny'
Apple; James Fallows of U.S. News & World report; Tom Brokaw and
Andrea Mitchell of NBC News; Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press;
McLaughlin Group panelists Jack Germond of the Balitimore Sun, Clarence
Page of the Chicago Tribune; Howard Kurtz, Bob Woodward and David Broder
of The Washington Post; Paul Taylor, a former Post reporter; and National
Public Radio's Elizabeth Arnold and Cokie Roberts."
Not a
conservative in the list. Fred Barnes snuck on a couple of times, but not
to discuss anything about bias.
5) CNN's Susan Rook took a nice little pot shot at Bob Dole last week. In
his Media Notes column on October 21, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz
relayed an exchange from CNN's TalkBack Live (3-4pm ET), though he didn't
provide a show date.
After the
RNC's Ed Gillespie asserted that for Bob Dole "his word is his
bond," Rook shot back: "Which word are we talking about? The
word to his first wife when he said, 'Until death do us part?'" Kurtz
noted that after an audience member called it a cheap shot, Rook agreed:
"Mea culpa. My apologies to Bob and
Elizabeth Dole."
