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Jewish World Review March 3, 1999 /15 Adar 5759
MUGGER
This Must Be the New World:
FINALLY, THE BATTLE LINES are clearly drawn.
The attacks against The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, WSJ’s
Dorothy Rabinowitz and Matt Drudge, both direct and implied, in the past
10 days, demonstrate who comprehends, and who doesn’t, the current media
world.
I’ll leave the gnats alone for now, and focus first on The New
York Times, the pedigreed institution that displayed such cowardice in
the Juanita Broaddrick story that its reputation is unmistakably
tarnished.
This is the kind of self-censorship that was
routine in the days before the proliferation of cable TVand thousands
upon thousands of websites. NBC News' president, Andrew Lack, was forced
to explain that no, there was no trouble with the Myers report, it was
just that producers were taking every precaution to make sure her
reporting was exhaustive and thorough—the typical malarkey of a besieged
executive caught in a squeeze.
When the Journal’s Rabinowitz published her own article about Broaddrick
on Feb. 19, a fine piece of work that shocked the mainstream press, The
Washington Post quickly followed with a front-page report the next day.
While Lois Romano and Peter Baker, assisted by seven staff writers and
two researchers, were slightly more skeptical than Rabinowitz,
Broaddrick’s allegations were given the treatment they deserved; after
all, she wasn’t accusing the President of giving her a hickey 21 years
ago.
It’s true that the Post and Times are rivals and both papers compete for
scoops. And the Times hasn’t been completely in the tank for Clinton: In
’92 it was Jeff Gerth who first reported about Whitewater. If his prose
had been clearer, perhaps the explosive story, which more than just
hinted at the rampant corruption of Arkansas politics, would have
prevented Clinton’s election. Most greeted Gerth’s groundbreaking work
with a yawn; it was too arcane, too confusing for the public, and other
media, to grasp. So when Jerry Brown, who fully understood the
implications, brought up Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater involvement in
debates that spring, the future president threatened to punch him out.
In
fact, David Kendall, Clinton’s personal lawyer, is given top billing in
the story, with his blanket denial, "Any allegation that the President
assaulted Mrs. Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false."
Maybe it is, but how can Kendall be sure?
Because Bill Clinton, an
admitted liar who was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice,
told him so? Kendall didn’t even know Clinton in 1978; so he’s just
passing along the President’s word, which, as most Americans know, is
not his bond. The first half of Barringer and Firestone’s article
emphasizes the "problems" with Broaddrick’s accusations, dismissing them
as "fodder for Mr. Clinton’s legal and political opponents."
It’s not until nearly the end of their story that the reporters even
mention Rabinowitz’s piece, and there she’s merely described as one of
Journal editor Robert Bartley’s "columnists." In fact, Rabinowitz is on
the Journal’s editorial board and is one of the most respected
journalists in the country.
Because of Rabinowitz’s arduous
investigative reporting on false child-abuse charges, a number of people
have been released from jail: the Amiraults in Massachusetts; a slew of
people in the Wenatchee, WA, "modern witch" trials; and Grant Snowden in
Florida. In a piece for Harper’s, she wrote about Kelly Michaels in New
Jersey, and she was exonerated. In all of these cases, Rabinowitz was up
against powerful local prosecutors who had a stake in her failure. In
this context, calling Rabinowitz a "columnist," is dismissive,
relegating her to the status of say, the Times’ own Anthony Lewis, a
slur that’s unforgivable.
Incredibly, Times managing editor Bill Keller gives this reason for why
his paper was so lackadaisical, to be charitable, in reporting
Broaddrick’s accusations. "[W]e talked long and hard about whether to
publish anything," Keller said. "The merits of the allegations are
probably unknowable. Legally, it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Congress
isn’t going to impeach [Clinton] again. And frankly, we’ve all got a bit
of scandal fatigue." Scandal fatigue. Hmm, I’ll bet if a 20-year-old
rape charge against House Speaker Dennis Hastert were alleged, that
"scandal fatigue" would disappear. Keller, given his lame excuse for his
paper’s laziness, deserves to be fired.
Already, the delay of NBC’s "Dateline" report on Broaddrick has shown
its consequences. Last weekend, Tom Harkin—Tom Harkin!—told an Iowa
newspaper that had he known about the rape allegations during the Senate
trial he might’ve voted for conviction. And James Jeffords, the Vermont
Republican in name only, landed in hot water when he told WKDR radio in
Burlington, "If something that happened 21 years ago with a woman who
invited, at least under her story, the President to her hotel room and
she was not happy with what happened, I don’t know why that’s not a
private matter." In other words, she wanted that attorney general bone.
Jeffords later apologized.
Yes, he’s made mistakes—publishing
rumors that Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife, which he quickly retracted,
is the most famous—but visionaries always do. Drudge’s work is far more
solid than it was even 18 months ago; his influence in the media grows
exponentially.
A journalist who doesn’t check "The Drudge Report" on the Internet each
morning isn’t doing his or her job.
Last Thursday, Drudge reported the spat that’s broken out between the
news bureaus of the Washington Post and New York Times. According to
Drudge, a "senior Times staffer" said that Post reporters have "turned
sloppy" and are "cutting corners" in order to beat their paper. An
anonymous Post staffer told Drudge: "Don Van Natta and James Bennett,
and all of the other ‘great’ New York Times reporters, should stop
kissing Clinton’s [behind] and get back on the news beat. And they should
stop criticizing our work!"
In addition, on Feb. 22, Drudge accused Time of making up a quote in its
glancing report about Broaddrick. The magazine said that Broaddrick
called Lucianne Goldberg "crazy," a charge the nursing home owner
disputes.
"That is a terrible lie," she told Drudge. "I would never say
that. That is such a lie." Time’s managing editor, Walter Isaacson,
said, "I double-checked the quote with the correspondent, who had it in
his notes and in his file on the record. I didn’t think it was the worst
thing in the world. I like to think we’re all a bit crazy!" Goldberg
shot back: "The only thing crazy is putting insults into a rape victim’s
mouth!"
I imagine that like Bill Keller, most of the mainstream press has
"scandal fatigue" and as a result the Broaddrick story will disappear
rather quickly, at least in the short term. (In the 2000 elections, when
people refer to Clinton as a "rapist," how will Al Gore respond? After
all, says the Veep, his boss is one of the "greatest American
presidents.")
On Feb. 26 he wrote: "This woman’s story is different. I
believed all the rest. I believed Gennifer Flowers, Paula Corbin Jones,
Monica Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey. I don’t believe Juanita
Broaddrick." Fine, I find Broaddrick entirely credible, but if Press
doesn’t that’s his business. What I want to know is why, if he believes
that Clinton dropped trou in front of Jones and asked her to "kiss it,"
and fondled Willey in the White House, how on Earth could he argue
vociferously, day after day, for Clinton’s acquittal in the Senate?
Press, who’s a never-say-die liberal, and therefore an honorary
feminist, is willing to have a man who sexually harasses women as
president? That’s pretty quirky thinking.
JWR columnist Don Feder, in the Boston Herald last Friday, had a different take:
"Instead, Broaddrick says, the feminist icon threw her on a bed, bit her
lip and raped her. As he was leaving the room, Broaddrick relates,
Clinton adjusted his sunglasses and told her to put ice on her lip
before it swelled. He felt her pain... How proud Senate Democrats and
Hollywood donors must be for helping this president cling to office in
the face of clearly impeachable offenses (perjury and obstruction of
justice)."
In an editorial on Feb. 22 The Wall Street Journal belittled its timid
competitors and wondered why Broaddrick’s relevant story—about the
President of the United States!—wasn’t followed with the same
dog-eat-dog tenacity of say, Newt Gingrich’s bogus IRS violations. The
Journal asks: "Why would any red-blooded journalist not want to get the
story?" They left unsaid that most Beltway reporters are comfortable in
their jobs, bored with Clinton’s crimes, sexual and otherwise, and are
looking for something else to attack. Like the GOP wanting to screw the
middle class with their tax-cut plan.
The editorialist continues, getting to the crux of the problem that
mainstream reporters and editors face: "Journalists today worry a lot.
They worry about the political damage that might be done by their most
volatile stories. And now they worry that the Internet is eroding their
professional judgment. But more than anything, the Internet is proving
the public voracious in its desire for information, whether about
airline fares, stock quotes or general news... What the public most
needs now are journalists whose first instinct is to find reasons why
they should publish real news, even Juanita Broaddrick’s, rather than
spend their hours convincing themselves that no one else should know
about it."
Now back to the gnats. Microsoft’s Slate, the once-again-free online
magazine that doubles as a receptacle for out-of-work journalists, has
been particularly critical of the Journal’s editorial page in general
and Rabinowitz in particular. Timothy Noah, who I noted last week once
worked for the Journal, continued last week to badger Rabinowitz, this
time for encouraging Broaddrick to speak to The New York Times. He
allowed that that advice wasn’t necessarily unethical, just "puzzling,"
considering the competition between the two papers. He applauds his
former boss, Alan Murray, for keeping the Journal’s news pages clean of
the Broaddrick rape accusations. Murray told Noah, "I don’t really have
any comment on what the edit page did. They do their thing, we do ours."
Noah follows with this smug statement, which is typical of his ilk:
"Which is what Journal news employees are instructed to say whenever the
editorial page causes them cringing embarrassment."
I wonder what Slate employees are "instructed to say" when Noah’s
writing, not to mention Jacob Weisberg’s, causes them "cringing
embarrassment."
Michael Hirschorn, contributing to Slate’s "Breakfast Table" last
Thursday, told his correspondent Mim Udovitch, "While I join [Noah] in
his contempt for the Wall Street Journal’s reliably ridiculous Op-Ed
page, I don’t think the WSJ’s coverage of Juanita Broaddrick is quite as
risible as he’d like us to think." How charitable of Hirschorn, who’s
temporarily taken up quarters in New York’s Slate offices. I, for one,
don’t think Hirschorn’s tenure at Spin, where under his editorship
notables like Hole and Korn were given presidential treatment, was quite
as "risible" as my colleague John Strausbaugh thinks. What I do find
offensive is this pearl of Hirschornian wisdom: "I’m thrilled the
Republicans are looking like idiots right now, but I would find it truly
depressing if Clinton’s deviancy is defined down to the point of
irrelevance."
Slate’s reptilian editor Michael Kinsley attempts a wry, British view at
all this nahsty business. Taking a cue from Clinton’s moronic press
spokesman, Joe Lockhart, Kinsley writes, "When you’ve heard the
president preposterously accused of murder so often, you just yawn when
he’s accused of rape." Now, unlike Lockhart, who irresponsibly accused
the Journal’s editorial page of calling Clinton a murderer, Kinsley
refers to the far-right fringe fanatics, the men and women who go far
beyond what most opponents of the President say. Really, does Kinsley
really think that The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol or The New York
Times’ William Safire, charter members of the Hillary Clinton/Sidney
Blumenthal "vast right-wing conspiracy," has ever indulged in such
hyperbole? But when it comes to aiding his president, Kinsley will
apparently distort basic facts.
What an awful man.
(Kinsley, by the way, was the object of ridicule in Seattle’s Feb. 28
Stranger, in a feature about the powerless in that city. "Kinsley is
distinguished in the field of powerlessness for editing a magazine that
nobody reads. Oh wait—his mom reads it. Michael and his mom are very
close.")
Hey, now that Sidney’s been muzzled, somebody had
to pick up the slack in the Clinton propaganda machine, right?
Drudge takes his licks for using anonymous sources, as if that practice
isn’t used by every single daily and weekly in the country.
Here’s an
example of Drudge’s slipshod journalism: "‘It is not clear,’ Drudge
wrote, ‘if White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart has been in personal
contact with NBC News President [Andrew] Lack, or to what lengths
Lockhart has gone to keep the story bottled up.’ In other words, ‘I make
this stuff up as I go along.’"
I guess Alterman thought it was fair that
Lockhart fabricated the charge that The Wall Street Journal said that
President Clinton was a murderer. He also ignores Drudge’s probably
accurate hypothesis that Lack did intentionally suppress the airing of
"Dateline" until after the Senate trial. And when it was televised, it
was paired against the Grammys on CBS. Like the Times, Alterman neglects
to mention that the Post front-paged the Broaddrick story the day after
Rabinowitz’s piece was printed, in addition to a media story by Howard
Kurtz. Instead, it was Alterman’s personal demon, Rupert Murdoch’s New
York Post, that "flogged" the story over the weekend.
Alterman is a despicable man, one whose "journalism" is every bit as
biased, hysterical and without merit as what he attacks. When he was
asked by Salon’s Susan Lehman for a comment on the Christopher Hitchens
flap, Alterman responded: "I profoundly disagree with my friend
Christopher’s decision to do this, as I disagree with virtually
everything he has said and done since the Lewinsky matter began.
However, I don’t believe in attacking my friends through the media.
That’s all I have to say." That must have caused quite a chuckle in the
left-wing coffeehouses and bars: It’s well-known that Alterman doesn’t
have any friends.
It’s reassuring to know that Alterman is on a first-name basis with
Springsteen. I wonder how he’ll square the rocker’s millionaire
lifestyle with his own radical politics? But wait, silly me: Alterman’s
already crossed the Michael Moore line of hypocrisy, enjoying the
affluent lifestyle of a pundit while championing the downtrodden. A
generation ago there was a phrase for frauds like Moore and Alterman:
limousine liberal.
After this dreadful discussion of Alterman, it’s time for a newsprint
shower. From The Wall Street Journal’s editorial of Feb. 26: "This
Presidency, it seems to us, is increasingly bereft. It can show up in a
San Francisco or Los Angeles and beat yet more money out of the party’s
financial robots. It can send its Secretary of State somewhere to talk
about Kosovo. But with every dreadful shoe that drops—and of course
there will be more—the President’s political capital expires.
"Now, with Juanita Broaddrick standing among them, the Washington
political community appears to be averting its eyes. More than anything,
the city looks like one of those small towns in a Western movie where
something quite awful is happening out in the street, and one house
after another draws the curtains to shut out the sight. Mrs.
Broaddrick’s account may fade from the news, but it is going to stay
with us for quite
The Mainstream Is Left Behind
A brief recap: The ruckus began weeks ago when Drudge posted the news
that Lisa Myers’ NBC "Dateline" interview with Broaddrick, in which the
affluent Arkansan alleged that Bill Clinton raped her back in ’78, had
been put on ice by the network’s brass—perhaps due to White House
pressure—and wouldn’t air as scheduled on Jan. 29, during the Senate
impeachment trial. Had it not been for Drudge and the avalanche of
protests to NBC through the Internet and talk radio devotees, it’s
entirely possible the story, which did run on Feb. 24, never would’ve
been seen by Americans.
Danny Hellman
Journalists Joe Klein and Sidney Blumenthal cheered Clinton’s manliness.
But the Times, apparently pissed that they’d missed out on breaking
Broaddrick’s chilling charges in the "respectable" press, didn’t even
mention the story until the following Wednesday, Feb. 24, the day NBC
would finally air Myers’ story. Buried inside, Felicity Barringer and
David Firestone’s piece, headlined "On Tortuous Route, Sexual Assault
Accusation Against Clinton Resurfaces," was a disgraceful, distorted
article that could’ve been dictated by the White House War Room.
Blumenthal
In a tepid editorial last Saturday, Feb. 27, the Times urged Clinton to
be more forthcoming, saying that by speaking through Kendall he "seems
increasingly a stranger." The writer correctly complains that Clinton’s
press conferences have been few, and when they have occurred he’s been
shielded by foreign dignitaries. But amazingly, the editorial concludes
with praise for NOW’s Patricia Ireland, silent for so long during
Oralgate—as opposed to the Clarence Thomas hearings and Bob Packwood
investigation—for urging Clinton shill James Carville to lay off
Broaddrick. "Ms. Ireland’s statement suggests that the feminist
establishment may be recovering its ability to speak to the question of
Bill Clinton’s conduct." Right. I’d say Gloria Steinem and Barbra
Streisand have still to be heard from. And where’s the millionaire
feminist and populist Michael Moore, the media fraud who thinks Hillary
Clinton’s "a real babe"?
Kendall
As for Drudge, according to what slow-learners still refer to as "the
paper of record," he’s just a scummy "Internet gossip." If it weren’t
for Drudge’s continual reporting of NBC’s reticence in airing Myers’
interview with Broaddrick, the mainstream press would never have
published stories of their own. Drudge isn’t a "gossip." He’s a
journalistic pioneer who’s had an inestimable influence on the process
of news-gathering and reporting.
Drudge
But the droppings of some pundits have dribbled out. Take Bill Press,
the Crossfire cohost who also writes a mind-numbing column for the Los
Angeles Times.
Press
Michael Kelly, writing in The Washington Post on Feb. 25, citing NBC’s
Lack as saying their report was "rock solid," reminds readers that
Broaddrick’s story is believable simply because of Clinton’s highly
public reputation as a practitioner of sexual harassment. At this point,
no one would argue with that, certainly not the thousands of men who’ve
been dismissed from their jobs for lesser crimes. Kelly focuses on David
Kendall’s quick dismissal of the story. He writes: "But Kendall of
course doesn’t really care whether Broaddrick’s story is true or not. He
doesn’t really care whether the president is a rapist or not. He doesn’t
really care, because he figures you don’t really care either—at least
not enough to do anything about it."
Kelly
Tell me, Michael, in the wake of the Broaddrick story, which you said
"would take tortured logic and some very Byzantine reasoning to concoct
a scenario, at least, in which the charges could be shown to be false,"
who are the real idiots now? Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
Joseph Lieberman, Bob Kerrey, not to mention liberal stalwarts like
Teddy Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Barbara Mikulski, all of whom voted for
Clinton’s acquittal, or the Republicans who voted for the President’s
removal? Look in the mirror, pretend you’re not a member of the media
elite and honestly say that you can countenance that the president of
the United States is a rapist.
Moynihan
But now let’s really get in the gutter. Eric Alterman, an entirely
dishonorable journalist, took the space granted him in the March 15
Nation to join the Broaddrick fray. His piece is filled with the
predictable invective against any writer or news organization to the
right of—surprise!—himself, and is littered with inaccuracies as well.
His opening sentence will surely rank in the Top 5 Inanities written in
connection with Oralgate over the past year. Buckle your seatbelt: "Now
that the Constitution has been rescued and sexual McCarthyism
discredited, perhaps the most durable legacy of the Lewinsky mess is the
central location of the right-wing slime machine on the American
political landscape."
Kristol
Celia McGee reported the unwelcome news in the Jan. 19 Daily News that
Alterman is currently working on a book about Bruce Springsteen called
Reason to Believe. McGee writes, "The Scarsdale native said he’s been
obsessed with the Boss since he was 15. He finally met him in the
greenroom of Charlie Rose’s show last year, when Springsteen manager Jon
Landau introduced them. ‘I’m hoping to get cooperation from Bruce’s
people.’"
Springsteen
JWR contributing columnist Russ Smith --- AKA "MUGGER --- is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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