Propaganda and Television News

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 28, 2000 | by Stephen Goode

Speaking with New York Rep. Peter King, a devout Catholic, Crowley brought up George W. Bush's early primary visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina, a school whose founder was outspoken in his anti-Catholicism. Didn't that visit make King mad? The congressman responded that he thought Bush had long since outgrown that particular piece of insensitivity.

Crowley then turned to a favorite subject of reporters at the convention, where congressional leaders active in the impeachment of President Clinton such as Henry Hyde of Illinois and Georgia's Bob Barr were conspicuous for the low profile they were taking and for the fact that they hadn't been invited to address the delegates. Did King resent the wedge that was being driven between GOP congressmen and the pro-Bush planners of the convention?

King said he didn't think she was talking about anything that amounted to a big problem.

Meserve took up the same question with Michigan's Spencer Abraham, who is up for reelection, asking the first-term senator if he was bothered by the convention's failure to tout loudly the achievements of Republican senators.

"No" said Abraham.

When Meserve asked House Speaker Denny Hastert of Illinois if he thought House members were being denied the opportunity to address the convention, Hastert replied with a smile: "Look, we've got 250 House members who are Republicans, 50 senators, 30 governors, and we can't have every one of them speak."

Thwarted in their troublemaking, liberal reporters zeroed in on a question they were sure would invoke rancor: abortion. They found two Oklahoma delegates who wanted the convention to take a stand that was more clearly pro-life. "If you don't have that core value, then what are your values, because everything flows from your attitude toward abortion" one of the Oklahomans said.

The two delegates also said they'd like the U.S. Department of Education to be abolished, a position the Republican platform had taken in the past, but didn't this year. Both delegates, however, said they were for George W. Bush and would vote for him without doubt. Still, that strong endorsement for the Republican candidate didn't prevent Wolf Blitzer from declaring: "We've got some anger from Oklahoma." There's poor decline in Adam's line if this be angry stuff.

But the prize for the most unabashed Republican-bashing goes to ABC for the short segments it aired nightly that purported to be about how big money corrupted the Republican convention. Reporter Brian Ross, looking like he was salivating from having just smelled red meat and in anticipation of the Pulitzer he surely would win, narrated the series in a voice larded with sinister suggestion: Here are the parties the Republicans don't want you to see, he said. Here's a look behind scenes at people you won't see at the convention and who don't even listen to the speeches that regular delegates do.

The series played on the old notion that the Republican Party is the organ of the filthy rich, whose one goal is keeping poor folks in their place. It's a spin that certainly has resonance with dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, who resurrect it almost every time Republican policies of any kind are raised. ABC's Ross alluded to traffic jams caused by limousines provided by corporate funds, disgustingly lavish parties, and tons of secret (but legal, he was always careful to add) money from corporations whose names didn't have to be disclosed. A clip of John McCain showed the Arizona senator saying he'd never heard of anything so wasteful. A representative of the liberal Common Cause said it was horrible.