DOD Security & Pardon for Terrorists Skipped; GMA's Gibson Dozed Off
Bill Nalty
Media Research Center CyberAlert
Wednesday August 18, 1999 (Vol. Four; No. 144)
DOD Security & Pardon for Terrorists Skipped; GMA's Gibson Dozed Off
1) Tuesday's CBS Evening News picked up on a Washington Post
story, relaying how a former DOE official insisted "there's not a
壮hred of evidence' that [Wen Ho] Lee passed secrets to China and
that race was 疎 major factor' in naming Lee the prime suspect."
2) "In a stinging draft report," USA Today revealed Monday, the
GAO disclosed that "the Defense Department has 祖reated risks to
national security' by failing to conduct thorough security
background investigations." But only FNC found it worth a story.
3) A federal judge ordered the government to pay a $625,000 fine
because the Clinton administration failed to comply with his order
to produce documents, but ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC ignored him.
4) Not a syllable yet on network television about Clinton's
decision last week to pardon 16 Puerto Rican terrorists.
5) "America Under the Gun" announced Newsweek's cover for an
issue crusading against guns and featuring a rare editorial blast.
6) Charlie Gibson appeared to nod off during Tuesday's Good
Morning America, but ABC denied he did. Judge for yourself.
>>> New England readers can hear MRC Chairman L. Brent Bozell
today, Wednesday August 18, at 4:30pm on 680-AM WRKO's Howie Carr
Show in Boston which is simulcast on WNNZ 640-AM in Springfield as
well as on stations in Worcester, Mass., and Providence, RI. <<<
> 1) Tuesday night all the networks led with multiple stories
on the earthquake in Turkey and of the broadcast networks only the
CBS Evening News picked up on an August 17 Washington Post
story on how the former chief of counter-intelligence at Los Alamos
doesn't think Wen Ho Lee is guilty and attributed Lee's plight to
racism. CBS's news judgment is no surprise since the Post story
matched the claims Lee made in a 60 Minutes profile last month.
CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson explained: "New doubts are being
cast on the government's case against Wen Ho Lee, the only person
accused in the spy scandal at the nation's nuclear weapons labs. A
former top investigator in the case claims there's no proof Lee
gave away nuclear secrets while working as a scientist at Los
Alamos. Robert Vrooman, who headed counter-intelligence at the
lab, told the Washington Post there's not a 壮hred of evidence'
that Lee passed secrets to China and that race was 疎 major
factor' in naming Lee the prime suspect. In an exclusive interview
with 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace, Lee also claimed investigators
unfairly targeted him because of his heritage."
After a clip of Lee, Attkisson showcased Henry Tang of the
Committee of 100 who characterized the investigation as a "racist
witch hunt."
> 2) An upcoming General Accounting Office (GAO) report will
document how Clinton administration indifference to security
issues extends beyond the Energy Department to the Defense
Department, USA Today disclosed on Monday, but the networks
weren't interested. ABC's Good Morning America gave the revelation
a few seconds in a Monday morning news brief and, MRC analyst Brad
Wilmouth informed me, it got a full story from James Rosen on
FNC's Fox Report Monday night. But not a word on the other evening
or morning shows, not even CNN's Inside Politics.
Here's an excerpt of the August 16 story on the front page of
USA Today by Edward T. Pound headlined, "Report: 92% of security
probes lax: Pentagon 'created risks,' congressional agency says."
In a stinging draft report, a congressional agency says the
Defense Department has "created risks to national security"
by failing to conduct thorough security background investigations
on personnel requiring access to classified information.
Nine out of every 10 security investigations reviewed by the
General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, were
found to have been incomplete, according to government officials
familiar with the preliminary report.
The officials say the GAO reviewed 531 background investigations
and found that 488, or 92%, did not fully meet federal
investigative standards. In 59 cases, or 12%, the Defense
Department failed to follow leads on potentially serious issues
involving criminal histories, alcohol and drug use, and financial
problems, the GAO reported.
The figures could change. The GAO will issue its final report
in October, and officials declined to comment, except to say their
analysis is continuing.
Background checks are made by the Defense Security Service and
are essential to keeping the nation's secrets out of the wrong
hands. The service conducts 120,000 inquiries each year on people
needing top-secret and secret clearances. They include military
and civilian personnel in the Defense Department and defense
contractor employees....
The officials say the GAO blames many problems on poor
management during the past three years. The service eliminated a
key training program for agents, cut back on supervisors and
installed a case-management computer system that didn't work. In
its zeal to close cases, the service didn't follow through on all
investigative standards required for background inquiries....
END Excerpt
> 3) A federal judge last week ordered the U.S. government to
pay a $625,000 fine because the Clinton administration's Interior
Department failed to comply with his order to produce documents
for an Indian group suing over mismanagement of trust funds. Judge
Royce Lamberth, the August 11 Washington Post reported, "said he
regretted that he could not hold the officials and lawyers
personally responsible for the costs, adding, 禅he court is aware
of the unfortunate consequences of today's ruling on American
taxpayers.'"
Network coverage? FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume
delivered a full story by Julie Kirtz, but the MRC team of
analysts saw nothing, not even a few seconds on a morning
show, on any ABC, CBS, CNN or NBC news show.
Here's an excerpt from the Post's August 11 story by Bill
Miller:
The Clinton administration has spent much time and money
defending itself against a class action lawsuit alleging that
government agencies have mismanaged billions of dollars in
Indian trust funds. Yesterday a judge ordered it to spend
$625,000 more -- to pay legal bills accrued by the Indians.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he imposed the
penalties because government officials and lawyers repeatedly
disobeyed his orders to turn over records critical to the Indians'
case. As a result, he said, the government caused the Indians'
attorneys to waste thousands of hours seeking documents.
The ruling was a follow-up to an order issued by Lamberth in
February that found Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Assistant
Interior Secretary Kevin Gover and then-Treasury Secretary Robert
E. Rubin in contempt of court.
The judge held them responsible for the failure to locate and
produce records concerning trust fund accounts held by the
government on behalf of Indians. He said government lawyers misled
him by insisting the records were produced.
Yesterday Lamberth said he regretted that he could not hold the
officials and lawyers personally responsible for the costs,
adding, "The court is aware of the unfortunate consequences of
today's ruling on American taxpayers.
"In this judge's view, the American taxpayers should not continue
to be forced to bear the burden of these types of misdeeds.
Instead, as is the case in the private sector, these attorneys and
officials themselves should bear individual responsibility for
their actions," he said in a 45-page opinion.
The Native American Rights Fund filed the lawsuit in 1996,
alleging that the government has lost track of billions of dollars
in trust funds because of mismanagement that dates back more than
100 years. Lamberth recently presided over a trial to determine
what to do with roughly 350,000 trust accounts held by individual
Indians. He has yet to announce a ruling but in court has openly
explored the possibility of naming an outside expert to oversee
reforms....
END Excerpt
> 4) Clinton's offer to commute the sentences of 16 Puerto
Rican terrorists is a big topic on talk radio, but don't think
that means the networks care. Traveling last week I heard both
Sean Hannity, filling in for Rush Limbaugh, as well as Michael
Reagan, talking about it. So, upon my return I queried the MRC
news analysts about how much TV coverage this seemingly
controversial decision generated. The answer: Zilch. No one saw
anything last week on any of the networks. (Tuesday night, August
17, this issue was a topic on FNC's Hannity & Colmes.)
First, the basic facts as outlined in an August 11 AP dispatch
by Kevin Galvin, and then some points from a Wall Street Journal
editorial which show why this subject ought to be examined.
Now to the AP story:
President Clinton offered on Wednesday to commute the sentences
of 16 members of a Puerto Rican independence group if they sign
agreements renouncing the use of violence. Their group staged
some 130 bomb attacks on political and military targets in the
United States from 1974 to 1983.
One administration official, who spoke on condition anonymity,
said the prisoners were not involved in any deaths.
Eleven members of the group would be released immediately from
prison if they agreed to Clinton's conditions; two others would
have to serve additional prison time before release; and three
would have the unpaid balance of their criminal fines canceled,
according to a Justice Department announcement....
Justice Department spokeswoman Chris Watney declined to
explain Clinton's reasons for the decision. She did say the
Justice Department, as is customary, submitted a report and
recommendation to Clinton, but declined to describe it.
The 13 original prison sentences for which Clinton offered
reductions ranged from 35 years to 90 years. He offered to reduce
them to a range of four years to 44 years. Watney could not
immediately supply the amount of fines being waived.
Clinton's action was in response to a campaign by human rights
advocates who have argued that members of the group known as
FALN -- the Spanish initials for Armed Forces of National Liberation --
were punished too harshly in light of their crimes....
Bombings attributed to the FALN killed six people and wounded
dozens, but the 11 offered clemency were not directly involved the
deaths and injuries, officials said. The 13 didn't defend
themselves at trial, saying they didn't recognize U.S. legal
jurisdiction over them....
END Excerpt
A Friday, August 13 Wall Street Journal editorial attributed
the move to helping Hillary capture Hispanic votes in New York.
The Journal countered the idea that those to be pardoned didn't
do anything all that bad and highlighted how Clinton has only
pardoned three others in six-plus years:
"Deputy White House Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste is quoted
in yesterday's papers as saying that those offered clemency 創ever
killed anyone.' This is preposterous. No one died in the [1983
Hartford] Wells Fargo heist but innocent people lost their lives
in more than 100 attacks carried out by the same terrorist group
on U.S. facilities. Even if these 16 terrorists didn't murder
anyone directly, they were part of a conspiracy that was to be
extended by the funds stolen from the bank in Connecticut....
"To understand how rare it is for a President to commute a
sentence or offer remission of a fine, as Mr. Clinton did for the
16 Puerto Rican terrorists this week, consider the numbers
supplied by the Office of the Pardon Attorney. From the time he
took office in January 1993 until April 2, the date the Office
prepared its last report, Mr. Clinton had received 3,042 petitions
for clemency. Until Wednesday, he had granted a total of three."
Sounds like a great hook for a television news story. If only
someone would produce it.
> 5) Newsweek crusades against guns. This week's MRC
MagazineWatch, compiled by MRC news analyst Geoffrey Dickens,
details how "Newsweek devoted almost their entire issue to
flogging the gun control issue. 羨merica Under the Gun,' cried
the cover." For only the fourth time is its history, Newsweek
featured an editorial. This one demanded stricter gun rules.
Here are some excerpts, about Newsweek's crusading in its
August 23 issue, from the latest MagazineWatch:
Newsweek set the tone for their entire issue in the editorial:
"America, or at least the sensible center where most of us stand,
has had enough -- of this senseless violence, and of this circular
debate. For more than a generation, we've watched as the great and
the pedestrian have died in the line of fire. Though it won't do
to act as though, in the emotional aftermath of yet another
shooting, a sweeping ban or a single bill will keep more tragedies
from happening, it also won't do to shrug off the deadly role guns
play."
Newsweek asked, "So what must be done? It is time, as Franklin
Roosevelt said long ago, to try something."
Among the measures Newsweek called for was a total ban on "assault
weapons": "We've been here before, and the lessons from that
battle shed light on the tricky terrain ahead. The Uzi Furrow
probably used in Granada Hills can no longer be legally imported
to the United States, but was obviously available. Gun control
wouldn't have stopped him. Still, assault weapons have few
sporting purposes."
Newsweek also called for licensing and registration of all guns:
"To ears unaccustomed to the nuances of the gun debate, this could
sound innocuous, or at worst bureaucratic. But proposals to
establish a gun registry, either state by state or nationally,
raise gun owners' most fundamental fears. Still, licensing could
operate along the same lines as the DMV: to drive a car, you need
to pass a minimal test. There are potential perils; authorities
might be distant, or abusive, or inattentive. But licensing could
improve gun safety, particularly for beginners."
The editorial demanded things would be better if only gun owners
sacrificed some of their constitutionally protected rights: "The
gun lobby says the government shouldn't know who owns a firearm,
and on Second Amendment grounds it has a point. Bill Clinton isn't
likely to confiscate guns, but some President in the distant
future might. Still, all rights have to be balanced with the need
for public order, and registration is one sure-fire way of
shutting off a line of supply to criminals. Why? If all sales of
firearms have to be logged in a registry, then the typical gun
owner who gets his firearm legitimately knows the government has a
record of his acquisition. He may then be much more careful about
what happens to that gun for fear that crimes committed with it
would bring the police to his door. Would it stop underground gun
traffic altogether? No, and the NRA says the measure would create
僧assive civil disobedience.' But registration could help keep
guns from slipping, through a careless private sale or swap, into
a criminal's grasp."....
In an interview with reporters Howard Fineman, Matt Bai and Jon
Meacham, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre did get an
opportunity to express the other side of the gun issue but was
peppered with questions from the left:
-- "Are people right to be saying 糎hy do we have guns? Why can't
we do something about this violence? Why are you so opposed to
licensing gun owners?'"
-- "How about stricter bans on assault weapons, like California
just enacted?"
-- "Are you willing to compromise on gun laws?"....
Newsweek's guest editorialists both called for more gun control.
First was Devon Adams, a student from Columbine High School and
then Professor Robert Jay Lifton of John Jay College at the City
University of New York wrote a column titled, "The Pysche of a
賎unocracy'-- Firearms are icons of freedom and power,
粗qualizers' in an egalitarian country. Can we change our myths
and break this troubling bond?"
He blamed the actions of the Jewish Center shooter, Buford Furrow,
on his access to guns. "Beneath the murderous behavior of Buford
O. Furrow Jr. flows a dark undercurrent that deforms the American
psyche: our unique bond with the gun. That bond readily lends
itself to zealotry, the dangers of which become all the more
terrifying in our age of high, unregulated technology. The
historian Richard Hofstadter once said that after a lifetime
studying the American experience, what he found most deeply
troubling was the country's inability to come to terms with the
gun and its association with the warrior subculture. Indeed, the
gun has become close to a sacred object, revered by many as the
essence of American life."
Newsweek allowed the professor to link gun rights to racism: "The
contemporary resurgence of paramilitary groups has been
accompanied by fierce resistance to political efforts to impose
the mildest kind of gun control. And this is not surprising, since
even God, as envisaged by these groups, is gun-centered (前ur God
is not a wimp' is one popular slogan). The violence committed in
his name is likely to be performed on behalf of a 層hite race'
supposedly endangered by Jews, blacks and homosexuals. Whatever
the social dislocations that fuel such racist ideology, the gun is
always available to provide an absolute solution. The gun is
crucial, as well, to the enactment of vengeance, so central to
the martyrology of the racial right."
Lifton concluded: "Besides fanatics and mentally disturbed people
(Furrow appears to be both), many ordinary Americans have also
become caught up in the cult of the gun. For them, it is not a
jarring source of violence but as much an accepted part of the
landscape as forests and rivers. Such people often resist controls
over the objects they revere. But human beings are capable of
modifying their own mythologies. After the tragedies in
Littleton, Colo.; Atlanta, and now Los Angeles, Americans have
shown signs of a change in their feelings about guns, seeing them
increasingly as more dangerous than sacred. That kind of
collective psychological shift is necessary if we are ever to
transcend the crippling fraternity of the gun."
END Excerpt
Other topics covered in the August 17 MagazineWatch about the
August 23 editions:
-- Newsweek noted the obvious. George W. Bush won big in Iowa and
Steve Forbes spent a lot on his way to a strong second place
finish. The Conventional Wisdom box referred to Gary Bauer as a
"zealot."
-- Time took seriously speculation about a presidential bid by
actor Warren Beatty, contending that "seasoned Washington
figures," like Bill Moyers, "are already giving the actor a
fighting chance at doing for grassroots liberalism what Reagan did
for Goldwater conservatism."
-- Gloria Borger prayed at the altar of Bill Bradley in her U.S.
News & World Report profile.
To read MagazineWatch, go to:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/magwatch/mag19990817.html
> 6) Did Charlie Gibson doze off during Tuesday's Good Morning
America? It sure looked that way, though ABC News officially
denied it.
Going first to the co-hosts for the "hot" story of the day
before bringing in news reader Antonio Mora, the August 17 GMA
opened with a series of reports and interviews about the
earthquake in Turkey. After a report from Turkey, substitute co-
host Nancy Snyderman interviewed by phone Energy Secretary Bill
Richardson who was in Turkey and then she briefly talked with Bill
Smith of the U.S. Geological Survey. When she finished with Smith
she threw the show to Mora.
Here's where Gibson comes in. For the ten seconds or so as she
thanked Smith and introduced Mora the camera showed her beside
Gibson, whose eyes were clearly not open as his head tilted to one
side -- like someone who dozed off while sitting. As she looked
past Gibson toward Mora you could see her developing a smirk as
she glanced at Gibson.
Tuesday night Paramount's syndicated Entertainment Tonight
picked up on the incident and noted that Good Morning America cut
this shot of Gibson out of the subsequent West Coast feed, but ET
co-anchor Bob Goen reported that ABC denied Gibson was not awake:
"GMA told us Gibson was absolutely not asleep, that he was
listening to the report. The problem they say was he was not
supposed to be on camera, so they corrected it for the West
Coast."
Maybe he was just resting his eyelids.
Judge for yourself. Wednesday morning by 10am ET MRC
Webmaster Sean Henry will post a still shot image of Gibson as well
as a video clip, in RealPlayer format, of a few seconds before and
after the shot of Gibson in whatever state he's in. If you squint
real hard at your mini computer video frame you may be able to see
Snyderman's smirk as she heads toward laughter. Go to the MRC's
home page: http://www.mrc.org
Or, go to this item in the posted version on this CyberAlert.
To be fair to Gibson, he is handling both GMA and World News
Tonight this week so if he is getting up at 4am he's putting in a
16-hour day. But it's still humorous to see. -- Brent Baker
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