MEDIA WATCH MEMORIES 2001
PART II: MAY – SEPTEMBER 2001
1) May 1 Edition
Later, I caught
part of Letterman's monologue, which apparently was only the
prelude to a Top Ten List that focused on Al Gore's weight. I
read the list on line, which is a good thing, because after
hearing Letterman's monologue, I would have kicked in the TV
screen if I had stayed for the Top Ten List. Letterman, who
just weeks before had been a guest at Al's college class, stood
there and said that Al had gained 40 pounds and "his ass is
so big it hides the quad. Unlike Clinton, he's worried
about getting into his OWN pants."
Things were no
better on The Tonight Show, as Leno decided to go after Bill.
Guess it must have been a slow night. He showed a clip of a
girl named Brandy thanking people, with cuts to a clip of Bill
with a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous look. At least
Bill looked alive, in contrast to the Smirk's usual vacant
stare...Although we really didn't get a chance to see Smirk's
face at that reading down in Texas which he called
"fantastic" and which was full of sexual
descriptions...
2) May 4 Edition
On Brian
Williams on CNBC I caught a panel which included Laurence
O'Donnell, Jim Warren of the Chicago Tribune, and Sen. Kay Bailey
Hutchinson. Williams asked if Bush was getting a free ride.
Jim Warren said the press was being "unduly respectful"
of Bush, partly because of the brilliant discipline, wanting
access, and the "fatigue of the last few weeks of Clinton's
administration." O'Donnell said that reporters would
love to find a chink in the machine being run by Andrew card and
"if there was a negative story, they would write it."
Hutchinson, of course, said that she hoped the press would
realize that they "didn't have to be negative." Ugh!
Even Jim Warren had to drag in Clinton. My question: What
does Clinton have to do with what Bush is doing?? Why are
reporters so "fatigued" when it was they who were so
obsessed with signing onto to GOP smears? And what is this
nonsense about there being no "negative" stories to be
found?? How about the entire Florida election? How
about the stupid flip-flops with regard to China, including the
latest by Rumsfeld? How about the quid pro quo's of Mitch
McConnell and his wife? And the links to Enron and the California
energy price hikes and "crisis?" How come I can find
all these negatives to talk about and the so-called professional
journalists can't get beyond how "funny" Bush's jokes
are?
3) May 11
Edition
Then Howard
Fineman materialized. Matthews was all hot about energy.
Fineman said that before the Inauguration, a "wish list
found its way to the Interior Department and Dick Cheney's Energy
Task Force." The list was from mining, oil, and gas
reps. They met with Cheney in January and at the time there
wasn't any energy plan. Matthews asked if Bush et al are
"trying to go real right then adjust it." Fineman
said the "political handlers at the White House know they
have to put a lot of parsley around the smell--it's not the core
of their philosophy, but politically they know they have to do
something."So, according to Fineman, I guess the GOP
dislikes parsley? :)
4) May 29
Edition
Geraldo wasn't
on, but apparently tomorrow he will be delving into "The
Gold Club" the most profitable strip club in the nation.
This is what the guy who delivered the goods during all the
Clinton scandals and defended him to the end is reduced to?
Who's passing out the story assignments--Jack Welch himself??
5) June 1
Edition
On to Jenna!
Jane Parshall said it would get a lot of attention because she's
the President's kid, but like all parents, the Bushes are "wounded"
and they would take care of it behind closed doors like any
family. Question: How many times has this been "taken care
of" behind closed
6) June 8
Edition
Hardball
revisited--Matthews had mentioned in his opening that he would be
discussing the Civil Rights Commission report by sneering
"For what it's worth--...or is it another political
smear?" Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) faced off against Rep.
Mark Foley (R) and she was LOUD! She called what happened
"a dereliction of duty in the face of increased voter
turnout. "There's no question in my mind--the election
was STOLEN in Duval County...The Supervisor for the state did not
spend a dime on voter education, but we spent $4 million purging
'felons,' some who had never been arrested...They knew people
were being taken off the rolls...The company told them--they did
not CARE that thousands of black voters were
disenfranchised..." Foley said that there wasn't any
racism and Corrine broke in to say "I didn't say racism--I
said they were involved in stealing the election--Motor Voter is
directly under the governor."…Corrine wouldn't be
sidetracked by the little weasel, and she answered, "The
point is--it's the governor's responsibility to oversee the
election."
7) June 12
Edition
The News Hour
(PBS)--I caught the Mark Shields/Paul Gigot discussion about the
alleged "vandalism" story…Then Jim Lehrer
descended even lower down the evolutionary scale. He said he had
mentioned the original vandalism story "as a given and it
hasn't been mentioned since. It's a caution light for all of
us." Better late than never, right Jim?? Shields
interjected: "To this day, we don't have a name" of
anyone who reported anything. Then the unctuous Gigot offered
that "We formed a stereotype in the early days of the
Clinton Administration in our minds of the White House as a
fraternity house, partly with good reason, and we overplayed the
story." To the bitter end, these so-called analysts can't
take responsibility for erroneous reporting and want to turn
everything back on the "victim." Typical.
8) June 19
Edition
O’Reilly --
Jerry Nadler (D-NY) described the push to privatize Social
Security as "a disaster." He said there is no problem
with Social Security as it is now structured and in 15 years it
will be using reserves that were built up precisely for that
purpose. Rob Portman (R-OH) said there was a demographics crunch.
Nadler countered that if you make the assumption of growth for
1.3% then it will run out in 38 years, not 16 years and
privatizing won't help that at all. Also, if you take into
account that Social Security pays current recipients, then Social
Security is earning about 7% and if you applied the same
conditions to the stock market, it's returns would be down to the
same level as Social Security has--2.2%.
9) June 21
Edition
Larry
King—Guest Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) totally bamboozled
Larry. Larry asked about Bush in Europe and Jon answered,
“WOW! The first thing he’s going to get is one of
those drinking fountains he saw in the bathroom…”
Larry couldn’t tell whether Jon was kidding or not! “So,
he did well!” exclaimed Larry. “He did
TERRIBLE,” Jon shouted. “He’s a uniter not a
divider. He did unite them—This is a continent that
can’t unite on currency…He got SWEDEN angry! Now they
can’t stand us! I like my Presidents to have more
travel experience than the average college senior!” He
did a great bit on SDI, describing the lasers, and satellite
positions, and how complicated it is versus the Bush policy on
energy: “The one is very imagineering---energy? Well, we can
dig a hole in the ground!” Jon described election night as
“a magical night” since they had written for either as
winner and wound up running out of jokes when it was indecisive.
He said Bush “plays that whole Texas twang, regular
guy—who’s father was President—He’s
affirmative action—he’s a quota--- (representing a)
legacy.”
10) July 7
Edition
Hardball—A
“different kind of Hardball” with Mike Barnicle
“interviewing” Chris Matthews. It was SOOOOO
CUTE!! Barnicle led off by saying cartoonists are picturing Bush
as smaller and smaller, and Matthews wondered if we had a
“disappearing President.” Matthews said Clinton
was “obnoxious” about always being out and always
“showing up” but thinks Bush has “faded” too
soon and he should meet people in the suburbs and on college
campuses. Does Chris mean Bob Jones University when he
refers to “college campuses?” Matthews also
revealed that he hopes Bush succeeds just so he can stuff it to
the “elitists.” For some reason, Matthews seems
to believe Bush is an average Joe because he can’t speak
English but conveniently forgets the money and family ties that
have gotten him where he is today. I guess in
Matthews’ world, elitists are those who actually have some
brains. Or, he is acting out his inferiority complex over
his working class roots a la Peggy Noonan.
----
C-Span—I
caught a rerun of Bill Clinton’s speech at the Professional
Performing Arts school commencement ceremony. Bill
recounted how moved he was by the letter he received and told how
he loved the arts. He related how he sang when he was young, but
how at puberty his vocal range went “from 3 octaves to 3
notes.” His message was that while finding their
individuality through the arts, the students had to remember that
it was interconnected to the “common humanity” found in
all people. Boy, do I miss this guy…
11) July 10
Edition
CBS Radio
Morning News—Imagine waking up to hear a cheery reporter
delivering the news that president Bush finds it
“amazing” that the Presidency is not a 9-5 job and
actually follows the president around on the weekends!! Just
finding out after how many months on the job??Is this is how
Poppy ran the White House? Isn’t this weird??
---
C-Span—I
caught a tape of a 6/24 Democratic Action Rally in L.A. thrown by
the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action.
Standing in front of a banner reading “Wake up
Democrats,” Rob Reiner described the selection and
called it a “tragedy.” Reiner reminded the crowd
that Gore won the election by 600,000 votes AND the electoral
vote. Then he addressed his “Nader friends,”
saying that it was the most “disingenuous thing to say, that
Ralph Nader, who claimed to tell the truth, told the biggest lie
of the campaign—that there is no difference between Bush and
Gore—and we’re seeing the effects now. Reiner
described how for 7 years he has worked to help children get a
good start in life, cited studies about the benefits of helping
children in early childhood, and then shouted, “Every single
effort we’ve made has been killed by the
Republicans—Gore had set aside $50 million for early
childhood intervention.” Then he said, “We have
to rally the troops—otherwise, we’ll be here a year
from now with no right to complain.”
---
Hardball-Chris
Matthews was there with Tom Squitieri of USA Today, Former Rep.
McCollum (forget his first name, but he was a Repug), that
reporter O’Donnell, and a quote from Sally Quinn, not
exactly Snow White herself. Topic? Condit. Reaction: Wanted
to take a heavy lamp to Matthews’ hysterical head. Verdict:
Tune out. I refused to even go near O’Reilly on FOX.
I watched the end of a movie with a big dog that played football.
12) July 13
Edition
Brian Williams
MSNBC--On the Salvation Army flap, Williams said, “It was
the President trying to get around the law.” An ACLU
rep was incensed because Bush was making the Federal Government
“an agent in promoting discrimination—that’s not
what the Federal Government should be about.” But this
is the Bush Administration—where all the rules have changed!
Howard Fineman said that Bush had
“miscalculated”—much too polite Howard!!
---
The Daily
Show—“After visiting 34 states and half of Europe
including Slovenia,” began Jon Stewart, “Bush finally
visited a place well known by his grandfather – where he
picked up some indentured servants.” Jon showed the
clip of Bush messing up the pledge of allegiance. “At
this point, Maria, a new Guatemalan citizen, informed Bush that
he had missed “questions 1 & 2 on the citizenship test.
Then Jon said, “Did you see the people behind him—they
looked like the wanted to get back on the boat and leave!!”
---
PBS/The News
with Jim Lehrer—Carl Gottleib from the Project for
Excellence in Journalism was on to discuss problems with
journalism. Wolf Blitzer, of all people, was one of the panel,
trying to make himself even more serious for PBS. Blitzer
quoted the Maureen Dowd column about the Condit story being as
important as things like the Patients’ Bill of Rights and
how the role of the press is “to force the truth.”
Gottleib said that the Condit coverage has “cleared the
bar” and he said the saturation coverage alienates viewers
and eats at the credibility of journalism.… How about when
they get the facts about Bush hidden from them and just get
“happy news” about the election fraud?? Phil
Bronstein of the San Francisco Chronicle (and Sharon Stone’s
husband) said that the public is “not stupid” and the
press always responds to the public. Err, that seems to be the
problem, Phil—the public wants dumbed down news and
that’s what you’re giving them!! It was all a
bunch of pompous people, stroking each other—Gottleib was
playing nice, but it looked to me like he thought they were all
full of it!!
13) July 17
Edition
Reliable
Sources—Howie Kurtz was joined by Michael Isikoff, Bernard
Kalb, and someone else on the panel. Molly Ivins was the
featured guest. On the Levy case, she said the media obsession
would ultimately contribute to “the long slide. The
subject switched to politics. Molly Ivins gave the press a
“D” for covering Bush. She likened the Washington press
corps to a “hen yard”-cluck, cluck, cluck. Everybody
says what everybody else says.”… “It’s
not-what you’re not covering…and sins of omission are
always a sin for journalists (sic) but what is covered is sloppy
and there will be trouble at the other end. She cited the
“$300 tax cut—40% won’t be getting it. In
the black and brown community, word is getting around that
telemarketers are on the phone offering loans against the tax cut
at 1,000% interest.” Howie Kurtz thanked her for her
“Texas reality check.” Then he mumbled something
about “doing the same thing,” which I interpreted as
the Washington media blowing off the reality check.
During the Back
Page segment, Kalb commented on the Bush trip to NY. He said
“if Bush saw it as doing good works, the media saw it as
naked politics.” Kalb said it’s the media’s
job to see through the photo ops. Bernard, I know
that—why don’t you tell your media buddies??
14) July 27
Edition
Greenfield at
Large—What a scary show!! Bill Baldwin, editor of
Forbes Magazine, said “the smaller the surplus, the less
likelihood it will be spent—it should be spent on something
like missile defense.” Baldwin looks crazed. Matt
Miller, a columnist as well as the host of “Left, Right,
& Center” said, “Bush is moving spending down
RADICALLY—more than even traditional conservative notions
which make spending in missile defense and healthcare difficult.
James Surowiecki of the New Yorker said, “If we go into
deficit spending again long term, it won’t be good for
interest rates.” Baldwin returned, “Deficits are
great—you have Treasury bonds, you’re money is safe.
There are no Treasury bonds without defense.” But
wait—I thought we were all supposed to want Social Security
to ditch bonds and gamble in the market???
Miller said it
best: “Bill Clinton’s surplus—the goal was
to make it safe for government to be able to think big, so
government could get its house in order and spend on needed
programs. The amazing thing about Bush is that without the
popular vote, he got a tax cut that eliminates the chance to do
things with the surplus. How our ambitions have shrunk ever as we
got out of the sea of red ink. George Bush’s father
put out a health plan as big as Bill
Bradley’s—Bush’s is a fraction of it.” On
Social Security: “The worry is that in 2010 and very
soon after, when 76 million baby boomers hit their rocking
chairs, the cost of benefits and healthcare costs will go through
the roof.” Surowiecki—“It makes you wonder
why we’re giving away the surplus.”
Miller—It’s going to be that much harder 10 years from
now once boomers retire—to get progressive things done now,
like covering the uninsured.” General consensus—Means
testing, folks.
---
The Daily
Show—U.S. vs. Them—Bush, taking a “courageous
stand against the forces of Big Climate.”
---
CBS
Radio—this A.M., I heard a brief mention of how Bush will
ignore the biological weapons agreement, because it works against
“the interests of the country AND…business
interests.” I nearly fell out of bed—I wanted to
hear more about these “business interests.” Everything
this Administration does is solely in the interest of business,
isn’t it? Odds are we will never get any story on the
mysterious “business interests.”
---
Michael
Savage—One of the most hateful personalities on the radio is
Michael Savage. Today, he mused, “Isn’t it strange that
only Democrats have sex scandals?” I was so damned mad
I dashed off an email explaining how that was because the
corporate media refused to air any
of the
GOP’s dirty laundry and attached a copy of the “GOP
Hypocrisy Hall of Fame” which lists about 15 GOP biggies and
their various transgressions. I added on Tim Hutchinson
for good measure… Guess what? The e-mail on his
home station’s website bounced…
CNN Headline
News—Tipped off by the Mike Malloy Show, I tuned in to see a
segment called “Cutting Loose” which showed our
esteemed Secretary of State Colin Powell rolling around on the
floor of a stage singing “El Paso” at the Asia Pacific
Summit with his “Japanese counterpart” (a woman)
playfully slapping him and then flopping down on top of him.
I didn’t see FOX pushing this display of the Bush
Administration’s “dignity.”
---
Tim
Russert—Guests were James Carville and Michael Murphy,
McCain’s campaign manager.Carville said, “We’re
busted and distrusted” as far as Bush’s first six
months go, calling Smirk “arrogant and isolationist.”
Carville on the tax cut: “Over 2 trillion dollars in
10 years, phony bologna accounting. The military is
befuddled because they don’t have the money. They
can’t rebuild the military because they can’t pay for
it. The most egregious part of the cut is going to the top
1% in the future. We don’t have to live with it.This
man has broken more campaign promises than President Clinton did
in 8 years. His word is 1/16 as good as President
Clinton’s.”
---
C-SPAN guest
Paul Gigot: An irritated caller accused the C-SPAN hosts of bias,
saying that they would criticize some guests who made critical
comments, and gave others guest softball questions.With Gigot, it
was definitely “Softball Question Day.” Another
caller asked Gigot if he could honestly say that there
wasn’t an effort to suppress the minority vote in Florida
and if the shrillness of the WSJ would change and mentioned Vince
Foster. Gigot said there “wasn’t any systematic
attempt” to minimize the vote; in terms of the shrill tone
of the editorial page, he said they did it DELIBERATELY to have
an impact—he said they felt terrible about Vince Foster, but
thought what they wrote was “pretty mild.” So,
it’s definite that the WSJ will continue to have, what Gigot
calls, “an edge.” You are warned—but,
face it, this is the guy who approved of the GOP thugs closing
down the vote counting office in Florida, so there’s no
surprise there.
---
FOX,
CNN—both covered Bill’s speech (Harlem). CNN’s
preview coverage mentioned the $800,000 first choice office and
the fact that there was a protest. But Joe Lockhart said
that sometimes first choices aren’t the best and look at how
happy Bill is to be in Harlem. Fact is, Bill looks absolutely
incredible—about 10 years younger than when he was in
office! The CNN anchors, Lou Waters and Natalie Whoever ?
commented that Joe Lockhart and Bill a looked a lot more relaxed
than during the scandals. Duh! While waiting for the
speech, FOX was doing its continuous Chandra/Condit coverage.
16) August 3
Edition
Hardball—Matthews
started with Condit, but moved on to the Patients’ Bill of
Rights featuring Dick Armey. Armey called the
Patients’ Bill of Rights one of the “most
heartwarming” things of the week and said the GOP always
held “the patients…first in their hearts.” Barf!
Give me a break!!! Matthews, citing some unnamed poll, said
Bush was 4 points up, Congress was 10 points down, and Bush was
doing well on leadership, a little bit down on energy, and Armey
said Bush was doing well because he is a “straight-shooting
guy.”
…Matthews
asked why the negativity against Bush in the media isn’t
working. He mentioned the “simian” representation of
Bush and how Bush is getting smaller and smaller in cartoons.
Armey said that the negativity wasn’t working because people
were excited because Bush didn’t hang with the “Eastern
mucky mucks” and was honest, especially after eight years of
“slickness.” Matthews just fawned all over Armey
and never contested one statement, not one. Which just goes
to show that, contrary to what Chris says, there really
isn’t any negativity toward Bush on most of the radio and
talk shows. It’s only the cartoonists and comics
taking a hard look at Bush.
Run the Numbers.
Seventy-two percent said Bush had too many wealthy people in his
administration, and two-thirds thought he was too close to big
business. Matthews was going to discuss Bush’s
successes and weak spots in the polls, but I decided it
wasn’t worth taking the time to hear the spin.
17) August 7
Edition
Hardball—by
far the worst show of the night. Chris Matthews continues to
deliver a ratcheted up snideness against Dems, while protecting
Bush. Last week he said he was going easy on Bush because he
hasn’t made up his mind about how he feels about him and was
giving him the benefit of the doubt. Believe me, he’s
made up his mind, even if it’s just to smear every Dem in
the news. He added a new guest to his panel tonight, a
Deborah Orin from the New York Post, which really shows where
he’s coming from. I caught Matthews, Orin, and Larry
O’Donnell, who usually is fairly sane, lambasting the New
York Times. Matthews was offended that the Times seemed to
be “against” Bush and listed all his accomplishments.
Orin agreed, saying that a victory in the House still is a
victory, but the Times won’t call it that. She then
slammed the Clinton White House for running 24-hours a day, while
“Bush seems to be getting things done in a normal day.”
She positively glowed as she said that Bush wants to spend time
with his WIFE and Matthews said Bush liked down-home types and
wasn’t into hanging out with the powerful in Washington.
What a load of manure!! Note to Orin on the “normal
day”: It takes more time and effort to correct 12 years of
Republican destruction than for a guy like Bush to destroy 8
years of hard-won accomplishment. Hey, in 6 months
he’s already got us messing with the Medicare trust fund!!
Great accomplishment, right Deborah???
…It was on
to Al Gore. Right from the beginning, Matthews sneered at
Gore, mockingly describing his resurfacing as a “jaunty
stage persona, is this beard for foreign consumption
only.” O’Donnell took the bait, saying the beard
was “a very conspicuous attempt to bring an image that
he’s a scholar, like he’s really separating himself
from politics.” Matthews then asked, “Who will be
the first reporter to do a smarmy story describing Gore as being
“tan, … comfortable in his own skin now.” Then
Matthews took off on a New York Times editorial saying that if
not the party leader, Gore should be an “elder
statesman” commenting on issues. Matthews sneered at
this, and Orin asked, “Don’t you want to see
what’s on Gore’s feet?? Maybe socks and
sandals?” O’Donnell joined in the fun by saying
that Gore “wants to make it look like he’s undergone
some existential transformation.”
It is now clear
to me that Gore will be getting the Clinton treatment from now
on. He will be mocked, put down, and sneered at, and turned
into a caricature of his true self. The guy went to Europe.
He grew a beard. “Existential transformation???”
What a load of crap!!
18) August 14
Edition
20/20—I had
to force myself to watch bits of the Bush “walk around the
ranch” puff piece done by Claire Shipman, who was supposedly
booted from another network for being too pro-Gore, but has since
apparently learned her lesson and is now spinning for Bush on
ABC. “He knows every tree and rock and every passing
cow as if he put them there himself.” “So this is
really a working vacation!” “He seems fully
consumed by his duties and not given to introspection.”
(Is that good or bad, Claire??)
19) August 17
Edition
The Daily
Show—Jon Stewart did a huge takeoff of the NEW CNN Headline
News. “What a great way of seeing everything without
retaining anything,” he chided. He showed Andrea
Thompson doing a story on a bride being shot at her wedding,
cupped his hand to his ear and announced,
“Quiet…I’m just being told now…WE’VE HIT
ROCK BOTTOM!” Then he said CNN was for everyone who
wants their news “fast, informative, and good looking”
and showed pics of all the sexy gals and guys on the tube these
days, including lots of leg, a FOX specialty.
20) August 21
Edition
…C-SPAN,
Daniel Ellsberg… He is not happy with the state of the press
today. He recalled how back in 1971 at the time of the
Pentagon Papers, the newspapers defied the Attorney
General’s and President’s view that they were violating
the law. It was an amazing time in history where
“every major paper decided to trust their own judgment and
not that of the President.” He set the scene: This was
a time when “not one government official during the course
of the Vietnam War who thought the war was disastrous resigned.
Only one Senator read the secret documents into the record, and
one Representative made a statement in the House. BUT…BUT…17
newspapers acted in a unified act of disobedience to cover the
story of the Pentagon Papers.”
21) August 24
Edition
The Daily
Show—Jon Stewart did a scathing segment on the Bush
Vacation: Lost in America. He showed a clip of Bush signing
a burley Harley factory worker’s crotch, then moved on to
the Middle East. After reporting how Bush refuses to comment
after being asked repeatedly about the tensions, up went the
graphic with Bush’s whining, “Every time I talk to
y’all, you ask me about the Middle East!” To
which reporters reply, ‘Sorry to bother you, MR.
PRESIDENT.’” You had to see it—it was very
funny! Especially the Bush signature on the crotch…
MSNBC News with
Brian Williams—happiest graphic of the night: a goofy
picture of Bush in the upper left hand corner, the rest of the
screen filled with a chart depicting the falling surplus…big
arrow DOWN! To actually see Bush LINKED to something bad
happening…what a relief!!
22) August 28
Edition
8/24 Bush Press
Conference-- Bush’s mouth went into twisting contortions as
he was being asked about the disappearance of the surplus outside
of Social Security and the fact that the missile defense costs
were not included in the budget. That’s when he said he
would use Social Security funds during economic recession or for
war. Bush was “sorry that Mitch Daniels isn’t
here to lay out our forecasts” when a reporter questioned
the 3.2% growth forecasts for 2002 and 2003. Of course, he
was sorry because he couldn’t answer himself. Instead,
he said the tax “rebate” was in place to stimulate the
economy and that Congress has to “readjust” its
spending attitudes. And then came the best part: “If
I’m off by a point or two, then it’s up to Congress to
reset its sights.” He tossed of that “point or
two” like it meant nothing!! Crowing about the
“fiscal straightjacket” for government, Bush said,
“That’s great news for Congress!”
---
Greenfield at
Large--Greenfield ended with a comment on what he saw was the
“key” to a second Bush term: the best thing to
happen would be if the Dems took over the Congress in 2002.
Why? Because the president has someone to blame and
historically, that’s the way it has worked. How
depressing!! If we win, we lose!!!!
23) August 31
Edition
Hannity &
Colmes—a new low tonight for the H & C gang!! Of
course, most of this mess was devoted to Gary Condit… Hannity
proclaimed that “This is a consequence of Clinton and not
getting him out of office!!” …Dick Morris showed
up, rehashed Clinton, called the “Clinton
episode”…”chilling”…“Kathleen
Willey—she was the personification of the innocent
victim.” Don’t you love it when Morris comes on
to spew?? This time he made a comment that even woke Alan Colmes
up—referring to Condit, he said, “If he hadn’t
committed murder, he couldn’t be lying about the
affair.” Colmes screeched, “That’s not
fact!!” and Morris spat back, “It’s opinion and
that’s what we do on this show!” Isn’t there
any way to get this pig out of here?? Where are the
defamation laws?????
24) September 11
Edition
FOX News Edge--John Podesta was on with Steve
Forbes. Podesta said Bush has to get things on a better fiscal
footing, particularly in the out years, with those big tax cuts
looming. Forbes said the “villain” was Alan
Greenspan for tightening up and now not pumping more money into
the economy. He said the tax cut should be moved UP to right NOW!
Vesper kept saying it was a “boom-bust cycle” and
didn’t have anything to do with Bush. Susan Page of
USA Today said it’s mostly about politics and Vesper said
the Dems would look like whiners if they didn’t have a plan.
Podesta said they had a plan that worked for eight years and Bush
has done a U-turn on it that explodes out in later years.
The Daily Show—Thank goodness, they’re
back! Opening salvo: “Are you employed??Then
you’re the only one!!” Jon did a scathing bit on
Bush, the economy, and “leadership,” showing a clip of
Lott, Hastert, Bush, and Cheney marching up to the podium and
laughing followed by Bush declaring how worried he is about
unemployment. (The sincerity is simply excruciating!) Jon took
his head in his hands and said, “We’re doomed! Unless
Bush has a plan…” which turned out to be
“we’re going to do something about it.” Oops!!
Well, Lehman Brothers is telling Lou Dobbs on the
Moneyline rerun that there’s going to be another leg down
for the economy. So, either Bush comes up with a plan
pronto, or we’ll have plenty more nights when Jon Stewart
says, “WE’RE DOOMED!”
---
---And that was the last word from MEDIA WATCH as we
wrapped up on the night of September 10, 2001….
…Have a DIFFERENT New Year…
Copyright 2001,
Gloria R. Lalumia