On Yesterday’s Reliable Sources…
Howard Kurtz spoke about the coverage of Senator George Allen’s campaign and media treatment of Senator John McCain. Joining him were National Review’s David Frum; Huffingtonpost.com editor, Arianna Huffington; and chief political correspondent for Bloomberg News, Roger Simon. Full transcript follows.
Full Transcript
THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice over): Out of bounds? A Washington television
reporter asked George Allen whether his mother is Jewish, prompting a scolding
from the Virginia senator and a media frenzy in his re-election campaign.
Did the reporter go too far? And why is this a huge story?
Beyond shame. Ex-governor Jim McGreevey may have made his gay lover New
Jersey’s homeland security adviser, but now that he’s written a book, Oprah
Winfrey, the “Today” show and others are more than happy to give him a
platform.
Clinton’s media blitz. The former president hits the airwaves to promote his
global initiative and tells the press to lay off his marriage.
Plus, the NPR correspondent who quit to help rebuild Afghanistan. And Tiger
Woods and the naked truth.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Welcome to RELIABLE SOURCES, where today we turn our critical lens on a
question, call it the Jewish question, that may have transformed the campaign.
I’m Howard Kurtz.
Ahead, Bill Clinton rips Chris Wallace for what he charges was unfair
questioning on FOX News.
But first, George Allen, Virginia’s Republican senator, was expected to cruise
to re-election against Democratic challenger Jim Webb, but he hit a speed bump
at a televised debate this week. Peggy Fox, a reporter for WUSA, the CBS
affiliate here in Washington, first asked Allen about an incident that’s gotten
plenty of attention, his use of a word considered a racial slur in Africa,
directed at an Indian-American volunteer for his challenger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: So welcome. Let’s give a welcome to Macaca
here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Then Fox asked about reports that Allen’s grandfather on his mother’s
side was Jewish.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEGGY FOX, REPORTER, WUSA: Could you please tell us whether your forbears
include Jews, and if so at which point Jewish identity might have ended?
ALLEN: You know what? I’m glad you all have that — I’m glad you have that
reaction.
You know what our first freedom in our country was? Freedom of religion. So
I’d like to ask you, why is that relevant, my religion, Jim’s religion, or the
religious beliefs of anyone out here?
(APPLAUSE)
ALLEN: My mother is French-Italian with a little Spanish blood in her. And
I’ve been raised and she was, as far as I know, raised as a Christian. But if
you really need to get into such matters…
FOX: Honesty, that’s all. Just, that’s what…
ALLEN: Oh, that’s just all. That’s just all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now to talk about coverage of the campaign here in
Washington, Roger Simon, chief political correspondent for Bloomberg News;
David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter who writes for “National Review Online”;
and in New York; Arianna Huffington, editor of huffingtonpost.com and author of
the new book “On Becoming Fearless in Love, Work and Life.”
David Frum, should that question have been asked of George Allen at a televised
debate, or it was an attempt to embarrass the senator?
DAVID FRUM, “NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE”: Well, we should begin by marking today
as the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and, of course, you shouldn’t be asking the
question and I shouldn’t be answering it. I find it an amazing event.
This is — the Allen-Webb race is one of the two most races most intensely
followed by the left wing Web sites in this country. And if you read those
left wing Web sites and go into the comment sections, Daily Kos MoveOn.org
sites, you will see they are seething with anti-Semitism that is unbelievable
to anyone who thought they understand what American life was about.
So, in an age in which that kind of “the Jews led us into this war and the Jews
are to blame for all of America’s problems” talk is so common on the political
left, for someone to stand up and say to a candidate for office, “So, you
Jewish?” It’s just — it’s just — I found it flabbergasting. I find it even
more flabbergasting that the spotlight is now on the person who was asked the
question, not the person who asked the question.
KURTZ: Well, and our job is to put that spotlight on journalists. And Allen,
the day after that debate, you know, acknowledged that his mother was Jewish
and said he had not known that until recent weeks.
Arianna Huffington, I assume you’re 100 percent Greek. You ran for California
three years ago. Would you have resented being asked in a debate about your
grandfather’s or your mother’s ethnicity?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, HUFFINGTONPOST.COM: Absolutely not. I mean, it’s a
straightforward question. And what made it a story is that George Allen could
not give a straightforward answer and has not been able to do so ever since.
He’s been telling us even after he acknowledged that his mother was Jewish that
he she made really good pork chops and that she gave him ham sandwiches to take
to school, as though that had anything to do with anything. And the most
revealing and kind of most disturbing aspect of that was his answer to Wolf
Blitzer about his conversation with his mother last August, when supposedly he
first found out that she was Jewish, when his mothered to him, “I hadn’t told
you that because I was afraid you wouldn’t love me as much.”
His own mother doubting whether her son would love her as much if he knew that
she was Jewish? What does this say about George Allen?
KURTZ: Let me come back to the question at the debate, Roger Simon. Peggy Fox
said — we heard that the issue was honesty. She told me in an e-mail that
she’s not the issue, Allen’s character is.
Was this a journalistically appropriate question?
ROGER SIMON, BLOOMBERG NEWS: It was not an inappropriate question. There’s
plenty in George Allen’s background to give you an excuse to raise it.
He has talked about his grandfather being imprisoned by the Nazis for
supporting — for philosophical reasons, not for religious reasons. He
complained to a columnist in Virginia for having printed that he had a Jewish
background. And George Allen demanded a retraction.
The point is, however, that even if that wasn’t there, she was asking a
question because we want to know about celebrities in American society. And
all politicians today are celebrities. How many newspaper columns, how many
magazines, how many TV shows are devoted to celebrity gossip? This is just
another form of that.
KURTZ: So celebrity gossip is OK in the context of a Senate race?
SIMON: Because people want to know about politicians for the same reason…
KURTZ: They want to know who they are?
SIMON: Absolutely.
KURTZ: All right.
Let me ask you this, David Frum. James Webb, the ex-Marine who is running
against George Allen, he wrote 27 years ago that the naval academy’s co-ed
dorms were “a horny woman’s dream,” and that he never met a woman he would
trust to provide combat leadership.
I ask you about this because that became sort of a blip of a story for about
half a day, as compared to “Macaca” and now the Jewish question.
FRUM: You know, I think it is an amazing contrast. It also suggests, by the
way, that — the fact that Webb wants to walk away from it suggests that he’s
walking away from one of the things that one — is one of his sort of profiles
in encourage, which is he was one of the early warners against some of the
problems that would occur when you put women into combat roles.
We now have almost four dozen women dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it’s
amazing to me that it doesn’t provoke more of a reaction in American society.
But there’s a story line. I mean, it would be news to most American
politicians that they are celebrities. Let them try to get a reservation at a
fancy restaurant and then they’ll see how celebrated they are.
There’s a story line here. They want to tell the story that George Allen is an
anti-Semite. If anti-Semitism…
KURTZ: And who is they? Who wants to tell that story?
FRUM: The woman who asked the question, the journalists who cover this. That
is — that is the assumption.
KURTZ: You’re saying that Peggy Fox is trying to paint George Allen…
FRUM: She does…
KURTZ: … as an anti-Semite, as opposed to just asking him to come clean
about his family background?
FRUM: Well, that is — that’s the embedded story line. And if we’re going to
talk about anti-Semitism on the campaign trail in 2006, I think people should
be reading the comment section at the Daily Kos, where you will see it rich and
bold and vivid.
KURTZ: Go ahead, Arianna.
HUFFINGTON: You know, David, this is absolutely ridiculous. The story line is
very simple. The story line is that George Allen is dishonest, that he cannot
answer a straightforward question with a straightforward answer about the
ethnic heritage of his own mother.
That’s the story. The story is not anti-Semitism and going to the comment
section of Daily Kos. This is purely absurd.
FRUM: Arianna — Arianna…
HUFFINGTON: You need to — and, you know, the fact — I read what you wrote in
the “National Review,” saying that the media didn’t make as big of a fuss about
John Kerry’s revelation about his Jewish background.
FRUM: Discovery.
HUFFINGTON: The discovery. And that’s totally untrue. Just go and look at
how much the media played that up.
FRUM: He was…
HUFFINGTON: The Boston blogs, “The New York Times”…
FRUM: Kerry was never asked to account for his absolutely unbelievable story
about his — about his knowledge.
But I just want — it’s a question about honesty and being asked about it. In
the last segment of the show we are going to discuss Bill Clinton’s refusal to
answer questions about the intimate state of his marriage, and I think many of
the people would say why it’s perfectly appropriate to ask George Allen about
the state of his soul, would then turn around and say it’s inappropriate to ask
Bill Clinton about the state of his sex life.
HUFFINGTON: But David, what…
(CROSSTALK)
FRUM: Politicians are allowed (ph) to refuse to answer.
SIMON: David, you stumbled on the truth there for a second when you said it
was about honesty. And that was behind the reporter’s question. Is George
Allen honest about it? And tellingly, his reaction is, on a live debate in
front of everyone, to lie.
KURTZ: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
FRUM: So when reporters ask Bill Clinton, how many…
SIMON: And by the way…
FRUM: … nights do you spend with Hillary, is that also about honesty?
HUFFINGTON: Oh, David, honestly, you cannot seriously…
SIMON: And by the way, senators…
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: One second. This is a very important point.
You cannot honestly think that the private state of a politician’s marriage is
of the same caliber in terms of honesty and questioning and, indeed,
permissibility for the press to ask about that as the heritage, the ethnicity
of his parents? You really think that’s…
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
I want to play a clip from George Allen on “THE SITUATION ROOM” this week where
he talks about the aftermath of that question in the debate.
Let’s take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: I know that the audience also thought it was inappropriate, but I’ll
tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking of my mother. I was thinking as
a son, and I wanted to protect my mother and her wishes, and the promise I made
to her. And I’m glad that she has released me from that promise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Roger Simon, very briefly, because I want to move on. Would you agree
that there are more important issues facing the voters in Virginia about
whether George Allen’s mother and grandfather were Jewish?
SIMON: Sure. And those issues are talked about all the time. But there are
also issues about George Allen’s character which he brings to the fore, not the
questioner.
All George Allen had to say was what he started to say, “I don’t think would be
should be talking about religion. It doesn’t matter.”
KURTZ: Right.
SIMON: He stopped by saying, oh, “I was raised a Christian, my mother is a
Christian.” That was a lie. He knew it was a lie.
KURTZ: Right. Remember that he says that he didn’t know until a few weeks
before the debate. But he certainly knew it at the time of the debate.
I want to turn now to the big debate in Washington this week over the terrorism
legislation. We finally had a compromise between senators led by John McCain
and the Bush White House about how far U.S. interrogators should be able to go
in aggressively questioning detainees, terror suspects.
David Frum, why are some conservative commentators so mad at John McCain,
saying he’s damaged his presidential hopes for 2008 and so forth? I mean, this
is a guy who spent five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton. Is he entitled
to his views on torture, whether you agree with them or not?
FRUM: He certainly is entitled to his views on torture. And I think we may,
in fact, be stumbling to a very healthy outcome. So that is — that’s the good
news from all of this.
The bad — the reason why Republicans are upset was this was intended to be a
big campaign issue in 2006 and McCain gave Democrats political cover to oppose
the president. And…
KURTZ: So they’re upset with him over the politics of it, despite the fact
that he, in his mind, may have been acting on a matter of principle?
FRUM: He may have been. He may also have been acting politically, though.
Remember, it is — and I’m not saying that I have any insight into his
thinking, but it is true, the worse Republicans do in 2006, the better McCain
does in 2008.
KURTZ: Arianna Huffington, the press loves John McCain, as you know. Was he
awarded the sort of white hat in this debate with the president over torture?
HUFFINGTON: Well, he was rightly awarded a white hat for standing up to the
president, but now he should be awarded a black hat again for caving in. And
this compromise is basically a complete victory for the president. And there’s
no amount of pussyfooting that can make it seem anything else.
Basically, McCain can go out and say that he saved the Geneva Conventions, but
he gave his advanced blessing, as indeed Congress giving its advanced blessing,
to the president to define what torture is.
KURTZ: OK.
Roger Simon, can political reporters just now not allow the possible that
somebody might be taking a stand because they really believe in it as opposed
to political positioning?
SIMON: I’m not so sure it’s political reporters doing it as much as members of
his own party. One would assume that a man who was a victim of torture would
be allowed to take a position against torture for others. But in the super-
heated times that we’re in, when every position is seen from extreme
partisanship, he’s vilified for that.
You know, John McCain has serious feelings about certain things.
KURTZ: Right.
SIMON: One of them is the torturing of human beings. Why can’t we just accept
that that’s what he was expressing?
KURTZ: All right. Let me — let me get a break here, Arianna.
HUFFINGTON: But Roger, just one — just one quick question. If he has those
serious feelings, why did he abandon them so quickly in this so-called
compromise?
SIMON: Because he’s thinks it’s better than nothing, Arianna.
KURTZ: All right. We’ve got to leave it there. Let me get a break.
Up next, Bill Clinton’s media blitz hits a large pothole as he gets into a war
of words with FOX’s Chris Wallace. You’ve got to see this videotape just
ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES.
“FOX News Sunday aired an interview with Bill Clinton about an hour ago. Host
Chris Wallace asked the former president about his record on terrorism which
resulted in a long, impassioned answer that eventually turned into an attack on
Chris Wallace.
Let’s watch some of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WALLACE, “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”: Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and
al Qaeda out of business when you were president?
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So you did
FOX’s bidding on the show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on
me. What I want to know is…
WALLACE: Well, wait a minute, sir. I’m asking the question.
CLINTON: No, wait. No, no.
WALLACE: You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many
people in the Bush administration you asked this question of.
WALLACE: Do you ever watch “FOX News Sunday,” sir?
CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions.
CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris. Tell the
truth, Chris.
WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask, sir.
CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because — you’re
going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers, because Rupert Murdoch is
supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses
and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend
half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion-plus in
three days from 215 different commitments, and you don’t care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: That was quite an answer. We saw just a part of that. Clinton was
also talking about Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism official, and
why supposedly Chris Wallace had hadn’t asked Republicans about that.
Arianna Huffington, was it unfair for Chris Wallace to ask about Clinton’s
record on terrorism? And why did he fly off the handle on that?
HUFFINGTON: Well, I don’t know what the private arrangements were about what
he could talk about and he could not. But frankly, once you go on the
television show, you should know if you’re the president of the United States,
or the former president, or me, or anybody else, that you can be asked anything
at all.
What this may lead to which could be good news is that Bill Clinton may wake up
to the fact that there is a real (INAUDIBLE) going on to define who is going
keep America safer. And for him to try to have it both ways, to have Laura
Bush do the keynote during his conference, as though we’re all in this
together, to have Rupert Murdoch, Chris Wallace’ ultimate boss, do the fund-
raiser for his wife, all that stuff is simply not making it as clear and as
distinct as it to needs to be for the American people.
There are two very different views, and there should be leading up to the ’06
election, about who is going to keep America safer. And Bill Clinton needs to
decide if he’s just a former president or a former Democratic president helping
his party define what is at stake in the upcoming election. So this may be a
good wake-up call for him.
KURTZ: A good wake-up call for everybody who was watching.
Just to clarify to Arianna’s point, FOX says that there was an agreement that
half the interview would be spent on his global initiative, and — but at one
point Chris Wallace tried to get back to the global initiative and Clinton kept
going on this issue of terrorism.
FRUM: It looks like — if you look at the transcript, it looks like about half
to me.
I’ll tell you, if I’m ever summoned to the vice principal’s office, Bill
Clinton is the guy I want next to me. I mean, what a filibuster and what
amazing effrontery. I just went through the transcript and counted half a
dozen urgings to people to go read Richard Clarke’s book.
It’s a wonderful Washington moment. Here’s this national best-seller, and he
knows no one in Washington has in fact read it, because if you do it’s a
damning portrait of the Clinton administration.
KURTZ: But why do you say effrontery? I mean, shouldn’t the former president
be able to defend himself forcefully, emotionally, as to Clinton’s style, on
this issue of what he did or didn’t do on terrorism?
FRUM: Of course he should. Of course he should.
But to say, go read this book that says I did a did a great job when the book –
now, the beginning and end, because Clarke is personally loyal to Clinton,
gave Clinton all kind of points, but when you read the actual substantive
story, at one point, you know, Clarke comes out of a meeting with Clinton
officials and says, “What is it going take wake this country up? Is al Qaeda
going to have to smash a plane into the Pentagon?” And that’s during the
Clinton years.
Again and again, Clinton says, “I want to do something, but the CIA won’t let
me, the FBI won’t let me.” And this is the Richard Clarke’s story, all in the
book that Clinton kept telling them to read, counting on them not to.
KURTZ: We can debate Clinton’s record on terrorism for hours.
What I want to know, Roger Simon, is, was he particularly sensitive maybe about
being asked this on FOX News, where he’s never before done a one-on-one
interview? He brings in Rupert Murdoch and conservative (INAUDIBLE).
What do you think?
SIMON: Well, a couple of things. One, I think we’ve seen, as if we ever
doubted, that making yourself available to the media is not the same thing as
liking the media. And Bill Clinton still does not like the media, number one.
And number two, I think what his answer shows is that he believes, as his wife
once famously said, there is a vast right wing conspiracy out to get the
Clinton. That may be true. I’m not sure Chris Wallace is part of it,
however. I think Chris Wallace was simply acting like a newsman.
KURTZ: And therefore, it would seem that, Arianna, that the former president
just went overboard. I mean, it wasn’t like a question — it wasn’t a personal
question. It was a question about his record as president.
What’s wrong with that?
HUFFINGTON: I mean, I actually like that kind of feisty Bill Clinton more than
I like the one who congratulates the president on his handling of Katrina or
lets Republicans get away on what is happening in Iraq. I prefer the feisty
Bill Clinton.
KURTZ: All right.
HUFFINGTON: I mean, there’s a — there’s a campaign going on.
FRUM: Arianna’s right, he’s not a very convincing statesman.
KURTZ: But he’s always an interesting interview subject. Maybe he’ll come on
this show some time.
Thank you very much, David Frum, Arianna Huffington, Roger Simon.
Coming up, Hewlett-Packard spies on the press. And how one cable network
stacks the deck with those little headlines at the bottom of the screen.
Our “Media Minute” is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Time now to check on the latest from the world of media news.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ (voice over): Hewlett-Packard doesn’t seem to have much regard for the
First Amendment. Some ugly new details are emerging about the computer giant’s
own leak investigation which led to the ouster of chairwoman Patricia Dunn.
Hewlett-Packard was so upset about a leaked story in “The Wall Street Journal”
which reported that the firm would stop selling Apple’s iPod that it had
investigators secretly follow a “Journal” reporter and probably scrutinized her
phone records, the newspaper says, in citing an unnamed source.
And according to e-mails obtained by “The Washington Post,” Hewlett CEO Mark
Hurd approved a sting operation against a San Francisco reporter for the online
service CNET. HP concocted a bogus company tipster named Jacob to feed her
information, and Patricia Dunn praised the plan as “very clever.” But
apparently not clever enough.
There’s nothing more powerful, apparently, than a book deal. Even heads of
state must bow to the whims of publishing houses.
Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, told “60 Minutes” in an interview
running tonight that in the days after 9/11 State Department official Richard
Armitage threatened a U.S. campaign to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if
it didn’t cooperate. Armitage denies making the threat.
A reporter asked about this, naturally, when Musharraf and President Bush held
a news conference.
PRES. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTAN: I’m launching my book on the 25th, and I am
honor-bound to Simon & Schuster not to comment on that book before that day.
(LAUGHTER)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In other words, buy the book,
is what he’s saying.
KURTZ: So much for international diplomacy. It’s all about selling books.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Cable news networks, yes, even this one, have been known to stretch the
definition of breaking news just a tad when there’s an ongoing story and
producers want to make sure you don’t go surfing off. But MSNBC stretched that
definition like a piece of Silly Putty when anchor Chris Jansing was in the
chair a few weeks ago and — well, just watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS JANSING, MSNBC: There’s an ostrich on the loose on a playground at a
school. I went to college. I did.
These police officers are on their way to an ostrich on the loose? It could be
a serious situation, I guess.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t know is that breaking news?
JANSING: I don’t know either, Jay. The answer is I don’t know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t know. I’ve got a bicycle crash down here. You
want to cover that one?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: What’s next, milk goes sour at local kindergarten?
Finally, how can you tell what they’re really thinking over at FOX News? Just
look at the words at the bottom of the screen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ (voice over): A couple of headlines from FOX’s coverage on Venezuelan
leader Hugo Chavez’s rant against President Bush.
FOX writes, “Chavez Insults U.S.: Where’s the Outrage?” “Taking Cheap Oil From
Hugo Chavez: Act of Treason?” “Hugo Chavez Runs His Mouth All Over New York
City.” And “New York Audience Gives Chavez Standing Ovation… Why?”
When Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held a press conference Thursday,
the bottom of the screen read “‘Axis of Evil’ Leader Briefs Reporters at United
Nations.”
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Subtle, they’re not.
In the second half of RELIABLE SOURCES, two years after he resigned amid
political scandal and the revelation that he’s gay, former New Jersey governor
Jim McGreevey back in the spotlight. Why is he getting so much attention for
his new book?
Plus, Tiger Woods takes on a tabloid story about his wife.
All that after a check of the hour’s top stories from the CNN Center in
Atlanta.
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