Media keeps Clinton's Teflon shield intact

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 30, 1997 | by L. Brent Bozell, III

Memo To: The President From: A Pal Subject: Why Paula Jones Isn't a PR Problem

Maybe you've already heard this from Bruce Lindsey, but I thought I'd drop you this note to help you relax a bit.

It may not look good for you right now, with all the networks leading their broadcasts with the Paula Jones Supreme Court decision. Most of the media bigwigs have put on their strategist's hats again, suggesting that a quick settlement or a speedy trial is the only way out of your Paula public-relations problem. But why listen to them? They also said you were toast over Gennifer Flowers -- but they dropped the story and it went away. They're a lot like your average trooper-arranged date: Their talk-show bluster may say no, but their minimal coverage says yes. Yes, they can be had.

You can continue to drag this one out because the press will let you do it. When Paula announced her intention to sue in February 1994, their coverage was close to zero. I know, I know, this goes entirely against the grain of journalism today. When a delusional gay man charged the late Cardinal Bernardin with sexual advances, offering no evidence, it made no difference. The media ate it up. And look what they're doing to Marv Albert! But you're in a different league.

When Paula actually filed suit, the networks gave the story less than one-fourth the coverage Anita Hill got in the first five days of her bimbo eruption against Clarence Thomas. The networks did no sympathetic features on sexual harassment from superiors, no pieces on Washington reaction to the lawsuit, no biographies of Jones. Instead, the talk-show gang echoed Carville's trailer-trash attacks. Newsweek called her a "dogpatch Madonna." that's media to your liking.

Bob Packwood only could dream of the media coverage you've been given. Finding a pattern of harassment was their journalistic mission in his case. Finding any ungentlemanly pattern in your life, on the other hand, is degrading and hurts the country. You laugh, but it's true! Remember when CBS aired a promo in June 1995 with an announcer suggesting: "If Senator Bob Packwood really did what all those women say he did, it probably would have cost him his job long ago in corporate America. So why not in Washington?" Then, they brought on your own consultant Mandy Grunwald to complain: "You not only keep your job, you become the most powerful chairman of the most powerful committee in the United States Senate." The announcer wondered: "Is Packwood too powerful to punish? A touchy subject on Eye on America." A partisan slam dunk! Can you imagine CBS asking you that question? Just look at the free pass Bob Schieffer gave you on Face the Nation just weeks ago.

The media could care less about Jones. In all of 1996, the four networks only did eight evening-news stories -- and you were up for reelection! Even when Stuart Taylor's devastating American Lawyer cover story said Paula had a compelling case, and the media grossly were negligent in ignoring it, the networks didn't touch it -- except for that Jeff Greenfield on ABC, and he's just told Don Imus you should continue to stall this case. If they couldn't imagine hurting you in 1996, why would they hurt you now?

So, they led the news with the Jones suit for one night. So what? None of them blinked when Susie Wright, your law-school student, tried to delay the Jones case until you'd crossed the bridge to the 21st century. They still haven't touched your sweetheart deal with the insurance companies, you know, that the America Spectator scoop last June about the Chubb Group and State Farm. Sexual-harassment insurance? What a concept! It gives "like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" a whole new meaning. But the same networks, who swarmed all over Bob Dole's loan to Newt Gingrich and its implications on Dole's lobbying clients, haven't bothered with what those insurance companies might want from you. They've forked out $900,000 for you to pay Bob Bennett's bills, and the entire media -- print and broadcast -- are taking a pass.

And one more thing: Have you noticed how, even when they do cover the story, no one dares to mention what it is you're accused of? Poor Marv. Everyone reported he's alleged to have "forced the woman to perform oral sex." No one got that explicit about you. Double standards are great.

I'm no lawyer, so I can't give you legal advice. But take it from me, your Jones PR problems technically aren't over -- because you never had them to begin with.