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"Partial-Birth" Avoidance; Another Car Bomber; Reno Warned of FALN >>> "No Exposure for Gore's Dueling Poseurs: RNC Discovers Gore Arms Control Flip-Flop, But Media's 'Ad Watch' Hounds Remain Silent." The latest MRC Media Reality Check fax report by Tim Graham is now up on the MRC home page thanks to Kristina Sewell and Sean Henry. To read several quotes from Al Gore back in the 1980s contrasted with his current posture, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/reality/1999/fax19991021.html
NBC Nightly News began with the Jet Propulsion Lab's forecast of a bad winter followed by a one sided panic piece from Robert Hager about how "many scientists believe" extreme weather is driven by "gradual global warming and that's what exaggerates the weather, makes the hot hotter but also makes the storms more violent." -- Rather/Abortion. Dan Rather danced all round in taking 24 seconds to read this item: "For the third time in four years the U.S. Senate tonight approved a measure to ban a type of late-term abortions. President Clinton says he will veto it, just like the others, if and when it gets to his desk. Supporters of the ban refer to these abortions as quote 'partial-births.' Opponents say it's all really aimed at reversing a woman's legal right to choose whether or not to have an abortion." Of course, when championing "campaign finance reform" on Wednesday night Rather didn't hesitate to use that term and did not add anything about how "opponents say it's all really aimed at shutting down many group's legal right to convey their views to voters before an election." (Good Morning America news reader Morton Dean showed similar reluctance to use the "partial-birth" term on Thursday morning, MRC analyst Jessica Anderson noticed: "More emotional debate is expected in the U.S. Senate today. Under consideration is a bill to ban a late-term abortion procedure, which opponents call partial birth abortion. The White House says if it passes, President Clinton will veto it for the third time.") -- Global warming
panic. Picking up on the forecast of a winter with more bad weather,
NBC's Robert Hager recounted how there have been record floods and
droughts recently and asserted we're in for more. Plenty of time for panic, but none for viewers to hear from any one of many scientists who don't share the liberal political agenda promoting global warming fears.
As noted in the October 20 CyberAlert, on October 19 FNC's Carl Cameron briefly noted the revival of the Bush drug story via the book, Fortunate Son: The Making of an American President, which was first promoted by Salon.com back in August. Back then all the networks ran stories, but this time only FNC even mentioned it as the MRC analysts have seen nothing on any of the ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC or NBC morning or evening news shows. For a rundown of the August coverage, read my August 23 Washington Times op-ed, "Bush Talks, Clinton Walks." Go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/oped/news/washtimes19990823.html On the October 21
Special Report with Brit Hume reporter Mike Emmanuel summarized the Dallas
Morning News discovery about how J.H. Hatfield served five years of a 15
year sentence for paying for a car bomb to kill his boss. He was paroled
in 1993. Emmanuel added: ++ To see a picture of the bombed car and video of this FNC story in RealPlayer format, go to the MRC's home page where MRC Webmaster Sean Henry will post it Friday morning. Go to: http://www.mrc.org. For more details, here's an excerpt from the October 21 exclusive from Dallas Morning News reporter Pete Slover: AUSTIN -- The author of a book alleging that Gov. George W. Bush covered up a 1972 cocaine arrest is himself a felon on parole, convicted in Dallas of hiring a hit man for a failed attempt to kill his employer with a car bomb in 1987, records show. James Howard Hatfield, 41, was convicted of solicitation of capital murder, served five years of a 15-year sentence in a Texas prison and was paroled in 1993, state and Dallas County criminal records show. Author J.H. Hatfield flatly denied in an interview that he is the same man. But a parole officer in Arkansas confirmed Wednesday that Mr. Hatfield the author is Mr. Hatfield the ex-convict, who is on parole from Texas through April 2003. In his new book, Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President, Mr. Hatfield quotes three anonymous sources saying that Mr. Bush was arrested for cocaine possession but that Mr. Bush's father arranged for the charges to be dropped and expunged. The Bushes and Houston courthouse officials from that era have denounced the account as false. The Bush campaign had no comment on the revelations about Mr. Hatfield's past, said spokeswoman Mindy Tucker.... The biographical materials released with Mr. Hatfield's books and his earlier works reveal many similarities between the author's background and that of the convicted man, as revealed in his criminal and parole records. Both Hatfields share the same month and year of birth, lived in Dallas at the same times, and both now reside in the same region of Arkansas. When questioned about those similarities, Mr. Hatfield declined to give his Social Security number, address or any other information to distinguish him from the convicted man. And the author, who would not disclose his date of birth, also refused to fill in gaps in his employment record corresponding to years that James Howard Hatfield was in prison. Told of Mr. Hatfield's background, an attorney for the book's publisher said Wednesday that the company had no knowledge of the criminal history. "If it's true, we're going to be shocked," said David Kaye, general counsel for St. Martin's Press. He declined to comment further. Dallas court records show that in July 1988, Mr. Hatfield pleaded guilty to paying Charles Ray Crawford $5,000 to bomb the car of a manager at a financial firm for which he had recently quit working. The bomb exploded in the parking lot of the Cotton Exchange Building in Dallas in February 1987, but the two people in the car were not injured. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, Mr. Hatfield earned extra credit for time served and was released in April 1993. State records show that he was briefly sent to a federal penitentiary in Oklahoma to serve time for a charge related to the 1987 bombing, but details were not available.... END Excerpt To read the whole
article, go to: http://www.dallasnews.com/specials/bush_campaign/ Given that Hatfield is still on parole for a sentence that does not end until 2003, and recalling how those in the FALN who were pardoned were involved in car bombs, there's still time for Clinton to pardon this guy.
But not a word on any morning or evening show on ABC, CBS or NBC, nor on CNN's The World Today or Inside Politics. Only FNC found it newsworthy. In an October 20
piece on Special Report with Brit Hume reporter David Shuster told
viewers: Shuster added:
"When the eleven Puerto Rican terrorists were freed, documents
revealed that the FBI, police departments and other law enforcement
agencies had all urged President Clinton not to let this happen. But now
it appears the Justice Department was also against it. By mistake, a
letter covered by executive privilege was turned over to the committee
saying the Justice Department recommended a denial of clemency in 1996.
Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah wanted to know about 1999. The witnesses
repeatedly refused to answer." The Fox Report, an hour later, ran a short item on this topic, MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth noted. Thursday night, October 21, Shuster followed up by reporting that Holder claimed the Reno report reference to an increased threat was not referring to those given clemency but to those finishing their sentences. Shuster, however, observed that Holder and his staff "couldn't identify the names of any Puerto Rican prisoners the report was supposed to be referring to. Some Puerto Rican nationalists have been released for time served, but that's because they were convicted of non-violent crimes. Republicans said that Justice Department explanations don't make any sense and charged that Holder had his opportunity earlier this week in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee."
-- "Elizabeth
Dole. How do you decide after all that passionate campaigning, all those
chicken dinners, that it's time to hang it up? Well, one way you decide is
when George W. Bush has vacuumed up all the money. So yesterday we asked
Elizabeth Dole if she felt the system had let her down by making it
impossible to raise the kind of money she needed to compete." I just wish ABC would stop monopolizing all the news money so there would be some left for an unbiased network.
In this latest
highlight from Gumbel's career as a liberal advocate, back in a January
7, 1994 Today interview with Mother Jones magazine editor Jeffrey Klein he
lavished praised for Bill Clinton's policies: To watch this quote and #5 as picked by MRC Communications Director Liz Swasey, which will be posted Friday morning, go to: http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/gumbel/gumbelvideos.html
In Thursday
night's episode he appeared before a Senate committee to defend the sex
and violence in his movies. Reacting to grilling by a big, white Senator
with a Southern drawl, "Dragon" shot back:
>>>
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Thursday night ABC's World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News led
with the 19 percent fall in IBM's stock price. "CBS's Anthony
Mason reports on the day big blue bled," quipped Dan Rather who later
refused to accept the term "partial-birth" abortion. ABC's
second story: How the FDA will now allow ads making a connection between
soy and a healthy heart so soy, reporter Bill Redeker trumpeted, is now
"poised to become the food of the next millennium."
The author of a book alleging George W. Bush was once arrested on a drug
charge, J.W. Hatfield, is a felon who once paid for a car bombing, the
Dallas Morning News reported Thursday in a story picked up by FNC's
Special Report with Brit Hume and the Fox Report.
"The Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN, 16 of whose members were
pardoned by President Clinton in August, poses an 'ongoing threat' to
national security, according to a September report by Attorney General
Janet Reno released yesterday during a combative Senate hearing on the
clemency decision," Washington Post reporters David A. Vise and
Lorraine Adams opened an October 21 story.
Elizabeth Dole, victim of "the system," not of her bad
campaigning or views to the left of most GOP primary voters. Male
candidates John Kasich and Dan Quayle were also unable to raise enough
money to stay in the race, but Thursday morning Good Morning America
co-host Diane Sawyer used Dole's departure as a chance to rail against
the fundraising rules. Check out these statements and question posed in
the taped interview shown on the October 21 show as taken down by MRC
analyst Jessica Anderson:
Number 6 in the MRC's Top Ten Gumbel Stumbles, a quote countdown to
Bryant Gumbel's return to morning TV on November 1 as co-host of CBS's
The Early Show, is now up on the MRC home page in RealPlayer format.
You can't avoid liberal political advocacy by just avoiding network TV
news. Thursday night Fox's new, racy sit-com, Action, delivered a
liberal lecture. The 9pm ET/PT half hour show, best known for being laced
with vulgarities that are bleeped out, revolves around actor Jay Mohr as
Hollywood film producer "Peter Dragon."