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<FONT FACE="Arial, Helvetica" SIZE=1><A HREF="http://www.jewishworldreview.com" target="_parent">Jewish World Review</A> Feb. 14, 2001 / 21 Shevat, 5761</FONT>
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<B><i> Cal Thomas</I></B>
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<FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#0689A0"><B>
Press trying to get its integrity groove back
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<FONT FACE="Helvetica, Arial" SIZE=3 COLOR="3366FF"><B>http://www.jewishworldreview.com --</B></FONT>
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DURING the Clinton years, most of the American media played the role of Gov. George Wallace,
who famously stood in the schoolhouse door in a vain attempt to keep blacks from integrating
Alabama schools. The press stood in the information doorway, refusing to adequately investigate
and report on many of the Clintons' misdeeds and attacking their opponents in order to keep those
hated Republicans from taking over government and put forward more conservative economic and
social ideas.
<P>
Like Wallace, who in later years repented of his actions, the mainstream press is now engaged in a
desperate attempt to regain its lost virtue after playing the whore to the Clintons. They now claim to
see what many others saw all along, never acknowledging their original blindness, or the reason for
it.
<P>
Last Sunday, the lead editorial in The New York Times, which saw, heard and spoke virtually no
evil of the Clintons while in office, now says, "we sense a national need to come to grips with the
wreckage, both civic and legal, left by former President Clinton.'' One might reasonably question
why such a great and influential paper ignored the wreckers while they were ransacking the
Constitution. A few newspapers, like The Washington Times, were not taken in and did some great
reporting, which was mostly ignored or dismissed by the mainstream press or, reluctantly reported,
but quickly forgotten.
<P>
For eight years, the editorial pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times and the networks, which regularly take their cues from these newspapers, labeled as
"Clinton-haters'' anyone who questioned the integrity or virtue of America's "royal couple.'' Only
now, with the Clintons' looting of the White House and growing concern that the ex-President may
have "sold'' a pardon to fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, does the major media claim to have been
miraculously delivered from their self-imposed blindness and to see the Clintons' serial misdeeds.
<P><P><P><A HREF="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1200/appeal.asp"><IMG
SRC="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/images/appeal125.gif" hspace=5 vspace=0 align=left border=0> </A>
<P><P><P>
Major editorial pages now use words like "tawdry,'' "crass,'' "sleazy,'' "unethical,'' even "illegal.''
The "Clinton-haters'' have used such words for more than eight years. Do they now carry weight
because The New York Times has discovered them? Why weren't they appropriately descriptive
when the "Clinton-haters'' used them?
<P>
Now that Clinton is gone, the same people who defended him, even through impeachment, now
think they can pile on and no one will notice their indefensible behavior during his two terms.
<P>
Remember when they told us that Clinton's conduct was "only'' about sex? When the
"Clinton-haters'' noted his sexual practices were only part of a pattern of immoral and illegal
conduct, they were dismissed or negatively labeled. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was
trashed as a self-righteous, voyeuristic hypocrite who was consumed by the minutiae of Clinton's
sexual practices like some Internet chatroom dirty talker. Now we're learning, far too late, that Starr
and others were slimed so the slime on the Clintons would be less noticeable.
<P>
In the Nov. 27, 1999 issue of Editor and Publisher magazine, JWR columnist Nat Hentoff wrote
about "how the press saved Clinton's presidency,'' ignoring violations of the Constitution far more
serious for the future of our constitutional republic than lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky
and obstructing justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Hentoff quotes Robyn Blumner, another JWR columnist and member of the editorial board of the St. Petersburg, (Fla.) Times, who
wrote, "One would be hard pressed to find a fundamental constitutional right that Clinton has not
attacked in the courts.''
<P>
Hentoff asks, "How many other members of the press know that?'' It's a good question that should
continue to be asked even as much of the mainstream press works overtime in an attempt to get its
integrity groove
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