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 Caveat lector 17 March 2000 Our current howler (part II): Slipped his mind
We'll say it again—you can't fairly report the Maria Hsia conviction without mentioning that one important fact. Hsia's prosecutor, Eric Yaffe, said Gore didn't know about Hsia's round-up of illegal "straw donors" (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/16/00). Jerry Seper stressed this point in the Washington Times when Hsia's trial began; but on March 3, reporting the verdict, Seper was a bit less fastidious. In fact, Seper never really told his (page-one) readers what the prosecutors had said about Gore; it was only inside the paper, when Dan Burton was quoted, that a reader might have gotten the word:
Only when Seper quoted Burton did readers learn what the prosecution had said. But by the time Seper's article appeared in the Times, the massaging of this story was well underway; the prosecution's statement that Gore didn't know was on its way down the memory hole. The previous night, a very excited tabloid talker had opened his program with the Hsia verdict. Speaking to the same Rep. Burton, he excitedly opened with this:
Even Burton must have been stunned by Matthews' characteristic lack of information. "Now it's clear and on the record?" It had been clear and on the record for several years that the nuns had used temple money. The nuns had appeared before Fred Thompson's Senate committee on September 4, 1997, testifying in open session about the way the temple had financed their donations. Temple leaders had said so, also. Hsia's trial had never been about resolving that point; the trial was held to determine if Hsia was the agent behind the transactions. Yes, she had been, the jury said—and the prosecution said that Gore and DNC leaders didn't know about Hsia's solicitations. (The jury's verdict is under appeal.) Was the prosecution right about that? At THE HOWLER, we have no way of knowing. But you can hardly tell this story fairly without mentioning that seminal fact. In his first exchange with Rep. Burton, our excited talker didn't say it. His second question only made matters worse:
The answer to that question will be obvious to readers, but it would never be explained to viewers this night. A talker ranted into the night without ever mentioning the prosecution's assertion that Gore hadn't known about what Hsia had done. Here, for example, was another question the talker threw at Burton:
Burton never mentioned what Yaffe had said, that there had been no such "partnership" in the illegal donations. So when McCain supporter Rep. Peter King (R-NY) came on, the talker gave Hsia a promotion:
And the talker excitedly referred to "this fact of corruption made clear to the American people in a criminal conviction, that it's a criminal enterprise the Clintons were involved in in 1996." William Kristol was the next guest. A talker kept inflating his rhetoric:
The nuns, of course, had "whipped off" the checks the day after Gore was at the temple, as anyone even lightly briefed on this three-year-old matter would know. But why expect any level of factual integrity from a spinner and dissembler like Matthews? All his guests this night knew enough not to mention what the prosecution had said—that Hsia had deceived the DNC and Gore about the source of the donations. Burton didn't say it; King didn't say it; Kristol didn't say it; Robert Reich didn't say it. That permitted an unlovely exchange, with sardonic Al Simpson as guest:
In response to the talker's next question, Simpson sardonically said this:
This, of course, isn't true either, as Dukakis himself makes perfectly clear to anyone who bothers to ask him (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 12/22/99). Over the course of the next few days, the talker's presentation continued unchecked; Hardball's viewers never were told what the prosecution had so clearly said. By the following Monday night, the talker was saying this, as he spoke with Dem pollster Doug Schoen:
Schoen said campaign finance doesn't work as an issue; we have no view about that. But we do have a view about the fact-presentation the talker had given his viewers. There was no "dancing" at the Hsi Lai temple; Gore himself received no funds; the $5000 checks the nuns were "whipping off" were written the day after the Gore luncheon. What might an honest examination of the temple event show? We have no way of answering that question (we do note, there are aspects of the Hsi Lai matter not involved in the Maria Hsia trial). But one thing is abundantly clear. Viewers of the inventive show Hardball don't have to worry about honest examinations. That NBC News leaves this mess on the air is a tribute to our corrupted press culture.
Monday: Did Gore know the temple event was a fund-raiser? Jeff Birnbaum presented new evidence. Sob sisters: We rarely comment on articles the day they appear, but we made an exception just yesterday morning, rushing you our incomparable reaction to the Times page-one interview with George Bush (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/16/00). An apprehensive pair of Times reporters had timorously entered the Austin Governor's Mansion, and then had run back out of the building, sobbing out what The Bad Man had said. In fact, they were so upset by Bush's "ferocious" remarks, they decided to make them a little bit better. Sure enough, by yesterday evening, their report had produced a big flap. Yesterday, we focused on the Timid Two's concern about the "aggressive" man's lack of good manners. But the first thing our analysts had circled yesterday morning was paragraph two of the page-one lead story:
Before we get to the highlighted remark, get a load of that opening sentence. Why in the world should Governor Bush "embrace" McCain's campaign finance plan? Presumably, Bush disagrees with McCain's plan; he said so repeatedly, all through the primaries. It is simply bizarre that the Timorous Two think it's news that Bush still holds this view. But it was the highlighted passage that first caught the eye of our team of trained analysts. They thought it unlikely that Bush had said that he "learned nothing new" from McCain. Their eyes raced ahead to the end of the article, where the Times gave an edited transcript of Bush's remarks. And sure enough, here were the exchanges that were paraphrased in that remark:
For us, it's a bit hard to find the insulting tone that the press corps debated last evening. In his answers, Bush said the two hopefuls "agreed more than they disagreed," and said he didn't like battling McCain because he has known him for a long time. But most precisely, nowhere did the Bad Man say that he had "learned nothing new" from McCain. In using that paraphrase, the scribes had done what they seem to do best—they had made a dull story a bit more exciting. We've told you this for some time, dear readers—the power to paraphrase is the power to spin. Bush said he hadn't changed his mind about campaign finance; the scribes massaged that into something insulting. And the comedy began last night on Special Report, when the panel of pundits debated the issue. Brit Hume and Fred Barnes took shots at the Times. Mara Liasson responded with this:
Our analysts came right out of their chairs; our chambers rang out with their calls. Liasson—specifying that she was going to refer to Bush's "direct quotes"—proceeded to recite the Times' paraphrase!! And then, on the basis of that improved "quote," she said that Bush had gone out of his way not to be gracious to McCain. Actually, it was Bruni and Berke who went out of their way to invent the remark which Liasson quoted. And then, this morning, in the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz bought the improved product, too:
Later in his article, Kurtz at least reported the Bush camp's complaints about the article's editing. But in paragraph one, there it was again, the lesson that we have long told you. The press corps loves to improve the news—loves to make dull stories better. And the power to paraphrase is the power to spin—especially when a paraphrased comment is quickly accepted as the thing that was actually said. Sorry folks: There was nothing newsworthy in the fact that Bush disagrees with McCain on campaign finance. The rest of this story was simple invention by a sulking celebrity press corps. Homework: Homework assignment for Lexis-Nexis subscribers: See how many times the press corps has said that Gore called Bradley a "quitter." Then see if you can find any place at all where that naughty word ever was said. The new, improved word made the story much better—especially if you don't care for Gore. Recent example:
The word "quitter" isn't in quotes, of course, because it's a word which Gore never said. But the word made Gore's remarks more insulting—and quickly became a standard part of the press corps' Official Narration. |