Wishing Away Whitewater
Whitewater is sort of
diminishing, sort of fading away, it's kind of a shadowy thing
now, it's going away."
- PBS Washington Week in
Review moderator Ken Bode on May 24, four days before
the convictions of Clinton's business partners.
"After all the right wing's
huffing and puffing, the Whitewater `scandal' is dying out in
wisps of smoke. President Clinton's main accuser, David Hale, is
currently tangled up in his own lies at a Whitewater trial in
Little Rock. Hale has had two years in the witness protection
program to practice his story, and it didn't survive two days of
cross-examination."
- Former New York Daily News
Washington Bureau Chief Lars-Erik Nelson in an April 11 Los
Angeles Times op-ed.
"Anybody, it seems to me,
who gives a fair reading, Brian [Lamb], of the press coverage of
Bill Clinton's first three years, cannot say that the press has
been easy on Bill Clinton. The press has beaten the hell out of
Bill Clinton over and over again, and Whitewater, which that
caller mentions, is just one example, and day after day coverage
of that issue, which is legitimate and should be there."
-
U.S. News Senior Writer Steven Roberts on C-SPAN's Washington
Journal, May 17. (13 stories on ABC, CBS, & NBC, Feb. 29-May
20.)
"If Ken Starr is a credible
prosecutor he will bring this to a conclusion and the Clintons
will be exonerated."
- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on the
February 10 McLaughlin Group.
Just a Misunderstood Murderer
Theodore Kaczynski: Unabom Suspect's Tortured
Genius and Lost Promise
- New York Times, May 26
Truth by Day, Lies by Night
"Welfare - $53 billion
instead of the $100 billion in last year's Republican budget.
Medicaid - $72 billion instead of last year's Republican figure
of $182 billion. And Medicare - $158 billion instead of the
$270 billion Republicans wanted to save last year. A major goal
of Republicans in this election year will be to repeat over and
over that they are not cutting funds from Medicare. Republicans
would increase Medicare spending but at a slower rate then
President Clinton wants, so it infuriates Republicans when the
President says they're cutting Medicare."
- ABC reporter
John Cochran on the GOP budget proposal, May 8 World News
Tonight.
vs.
"The GOP proposal would
balance the budget in six years by cutting Medicare by $158
billion, Medicaid by $72 billion, and welfare by $53 billion.
Republicans also are proposing $122 billion in tax cuts,
targeted to a $500 per child tax credit. These cuts are less
severe than those proposed by Republicans in their budget last
year....And moderate Republicans believe they have abandoned the
drastic budget and tax cuts of last year's budget that
contributed to two government shutdowns."
- Reporter Nancy
Ambrose on ABC's overnight show, World News Now, May 9.
Reagan's Dirty Jokes
"Reagan was an exceedingly
likeable guy, just a heck of a nice fellow, despite his
politics. He was funny and loved a good joke, the dirtier, I'm
afraid the more ethnic, the better. I don't think he brought
very much to the presidency, except charisma and success."
- Walter Cronkite on Cronkite Remembers, May 23.
"Moderates" for Carter, Mondale, Dukakis and Clinton
"I think what you have now
in the mainstream media is a bias against power almost. It's a
sense of anti-incumbency that we in the media always zero in on
people who have power and try to hold them up to scrutiny and I
think many times we focus on only the negative and I think
that's what the politicians object to. In a book I've just
written about the presidency and the press I talk about this.
And I do criticize the media for being too cynical in dealing
with politics and public life but I don't think it's so much a
liberal bias I think it's more just an engine of
anti-incumbency....I did a survey of the White House press
corps. And I found that the overwhelming number of reporters in
that press corps identify themselves as moderates."
-
Kenneth Walsh, U.S. News & World Report White House
reporter, on the May 10 Fox Morning News.
Reality Check:
"In 1992, nine respondents
voted for Clinton, two for George Bush, and one for independent
Ross Perot....In 1988, twelve voted for Democrat Michael Dukakis,
only one for Bush, and three did not vote for a presidential
candidate. In 1984, ten voted for Democrat Walter Mondale, no
one admitted voting for Ronald Reagan, and four said they had
not voted for a presidential candidate. In 1980, eight voted for
Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter, two voted for Ronald Reagan,
four voted for independent candidate John Anderson, and three
did not vote. In 1976, eleven voted for Carter and two for
Republican incumbent Gerald Ford."
- From page 263 of
Walsh's new book, Feeding the Beast: The White House Versus the
Press. Based upon Walsh's 1995 personal survey of his fellow
White House correspondents.
Dole: Self-Hating Handicapped?
"Dole has certainly shown
understanding for the handicapped, sponsoring legislation like
1990's Americans with Disabilities Act....But how far does
Dole's empathy extend? He's helped the disabled but fought
family and medical leave that would guarantee employees the
right to care for a disabled loved one. He's been soft on the
workplace and highway safety regulations and gun-control
measures that would prevent many disabling accidents."
-
Former U.S. News White House reporter Matthew Cooper in the June
3 New Republic.
More Election-Year Lies About "Cuts"
"Like many people here in
Stark County [Ohio], a strong political bellwether for national
politics, Mrs. [Judith] Snow has been shaken enough by the
Republican-led Congress to move to President Clinton for now. In
her case, it was Congress's effort to scale back Medicare
benefits. Three-quarters of all voters questioned here in a new
poll think that cutting Medicare was wrong, including nearly
two-thirds of all Republicans."
- New York Times reporter
Michael Winerip, May 27 news story.
"The Republicans' new plan
also seeks spending cuts of $72 billion and $53 billion for
Medicaid and welfare, respectively."
- U.S. News &
World Report, May 20 Outlook section.
"...at least the
Republicans have made an effort to position front and center
this per child tax credit...as the centerpiece of their tax
proposals to kind of moderate the rhetoric of last year which
suggested that they wanted a huge tax cut for the rich which was
going to be used, paid for by big cuts on Medicare and Medicaid
in particular."
- U.S. News & World Report Senior
Writer Susan Dentzer, May 9 PBS News Hour.
Alter's Alternating Views
"No matter what we resolve,
we journalists can't guarantee that tragedies won't
happen."
- Newsweek Senior Writer Jonathan Alter on his
magazine's role in the suicide of Navy Admiral Mike Boorda, May
27.
vs.
"The savagery is actually a
throwback to an earlier era. The [Wall Street] Journal editorial
page resembles nothing so much as rabidly partisan 19th Century
newspapers that routinely - often brilliantly - slandered
anyone on the other side of the barricades....If Robert Bartley,
the Journal's editor, hasn't been sleeping fitfully, he's even
less of a human being than his worst enemies imagine."
-
Alter in the August 23, 1993 Newsweek on the suicide of White
House lawyer Vincent Foster after negative Journal editorials.
Contrast noted by The Weekly Standard.
- L. Brent Bozell III,
Publisher; Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Geoffrey Dickens, Gene
Eliasen, James Forbes, Steve Kaminski, Clay Waters; Media
Analyst
- Kathleen Ruff, Circulation
Manager; Jessica Anderson, Intern
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