Mainstream Media Allows Smear of Washington, But Not Bill Clinton

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 9, 1999 | by Reed Irvine

Allegations that Bill Clinton had fathered a child by a black woman were rife in Arkansas before he ran for president and during the 1992 campaign. The Globe, a supermarket tabloid, published the charges along with a photo of the alleged child. Although Cokie Roberts had said in 1991 that reporters certainly would question Clinton about this story if he became a presidential candidate, the establishment media wouldn't touch it because there was no evidence, except the mother's claims, to support it.

The mother was a Little Rock prostitute. She claimed that she had sex with Clinton regularly. Her son, Danny, was light-skinned and he bore some resemblance to Clinton, but the story did not make it into the mainstream press until last year, when Danny's grandmother and aunt showed interest in filing a paternity lawsuit. The Star, another supermarket tabloid, funded a DNA test for the boy and had the results compared with the DNA profile of Clinton that was sent to Congress by Ken Starr along with all the Monica Lewinsky documents. This pushed the story into the establishment media. When the test showed there was no match, the matter was declared settled, even though the FBI refused to certify that the DNA profile it had submitted to the independent counsel had not been altered to protect the president's privacy.

This shows that the standards of proof that major news organizations demand for our 42nd president are far higher than those they require for George Washington, the revered father of our country and our first president. On July 7, the New York Times devoted half a page to a story by its science editor, Nicholas Wade, about a claim originally made in 1986 by a woman who believes her great-great-great grandfather was George Washington's son. This ancestor was a slave named West Ford, who was owned by George Washington's half-brother, John Augustine Washington. West Ford's mother was said to have been a slave named Venus. Two more women now have come forward to claim that there is a family oral tradition that George Washington was West Ford's father.

Apart from the alleged family legend, evidence linking George Washington to Venus or her son West is nonexistent. Ford West was of mixed blood, and he was given special treatment by John Augustine Washington and his son, Bushrod. He might have been the son of either one. That would be far more likely than that he was sired by George Washington.

As Nicholas Wade acknowledged in his New York Times article, there is very good reason to question the claim that George Washington was the father. First of all, it appears that the father of our country was sterile. His wife, Martha, had four children before she was widowed when still young and married George. They had no children together, strong evidence that he was the sterile partner.

In addition, Augustine's estate was a hard two-day ride from Mt. Vernon. Washington's whereabouts during the time when West Ford was conceived are known except for a period so brief that Washington would have had to turn around and go home almost as soon as he arrived. The time of the visit would have been extremely short, and for him to have spent that brief period of time consorting with a slave is inconceivable. Moreover, Wade acknowledged that even if a DNA link could be made between the male descendants of the two men, "it could not prove that George Washington was the father" -- a point he ignored when he wrote that the DNA tests sealed the case against Thomas Jefferson.

So why does this story rate half a page in the Times and interviews with two women who are propounding it on NBC's Today Show and MSNBC? Two of the three women who claim to be descended from West Ford are trying to get a book deal. In addition to the Times, both the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press have helped them publicize their claim.

Wade appears to have behaved most irresponsibly in this case. His coverage of the claims that Jefferson fathered a child by his slave, Sally Hemings, was a disgrace. He claimed that the evidence was compelling and that the DNA tests sealed the case, ignoring the fact that the DNA test proved only that the boy was fathered by a Jefferson. There were at least seven close relatives who could have been the father, the most likely being Thomas Jefferson's younger brother, Randolph.

Wade is willing to adopt standards even shoddier than those of the most reckless tabloids in writing stories that smear our Founding Fathers, and his editors let him get away with it.

Reed Irrine is chairman of Accuracy in Media, a watchdog group in Washington.