Posted on 02/15/2004 9:48:29 PM PST by tort_feasor
As main press players blast the DRUDGE REPORT and foreign outlets for revealing details of a behind-the-scenes campaign drama surrounding candidate Kerry and the nature of his relationship with a mystery woman, just 12 years ago pre-Internet mainstream media assaulted President George W. Bush's father with questions surrounding an infidelity rumor.
In 1992 top reporters swiftly reacted to a footnote in a book by Susan Trento, wife of CNN reporter James Trento who was the source of the original rumor -- apparently from an interview with a long dead ambassador.
CNN rushed to get the rumor into the media stream as White House correspondent Mary Tillotson confronted President Bush as he hosted Israel Prime Minister Rabin in the Oval Office.
"There is an extensive series of reports in today's New York Post alleging that a former U.S. ambassador, a man now deceased, had told several persons that he arranged for a sexual tryst involving you and one of your female staffers in Geneva in 1984."
Asked NBC's Stone 'Stone' Phillips to the president's face at the height of the rumor mongering:
"Have you ever had an affair?"
CBS' Harry Smith then confronted Bush spokesperson Mary Matalin with the rumor over morning coffee:
"Let me ask you about something else. There's a book out, or a book that's just about out that in a footnote names that then-Vice President Bush had an affair with an assistant when he was on a mission in Geneva. Well, that footnote has turned into frontpage news (holding up N.Y.POST), at least in New York, in the N.Y. POST. Albeit a tabloid, it is usually a conservative newspaper. Are you ready to say that accusation is a flat out lie?"
Jonathan Alter, who never came to embrace the Lewinsky rumor -- even when it was proved to be true -- defended the aggressive adultery rumor line-of-questioning of the first President Bush:
"In this situation, the Oval Office isn't a temple. The President is a candidate and he has to be asked tough, often distasteful, but nonetheless important kinds of questions."
Alter's freedom of the press to sniff out sex rumors was seconded by UPI's Helen Thomas (another Lewinsky-era convert to bold privacy lines between press and president):
"Some people might have felt that it wasn't appropriate. But when you have the President there, I think it's very legitimate to ask him any question."
CUT TO 2004:
NEWSWEEK'S Alter blasted reportage of the Kerry infidelity probe last week on a New York City talkradio outlet -- calling the investigation 'sleazy'.
The media outrage over an erupting story of possible infidelity of a presidential candidate peaked with top Lewinsky rumor quasher Joe Conason's "thought piece" in SALON [There he goes again! Matt Drudge and the GOP smear machine are back in the Democrats' pants] in which he lamented aloud:
"But the kind of proof usually required by national news organizations isn't what Drudge needs in order to put innuendo into circulation. "
Yes, this is the same Joe Conason who in the Summer of 1992 wrote a Spy magazine cover story entitled "1,000 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR GEORGE BUSH".
Consaon's reason #1?
"He cheats on his wife."
The rumor of President Bush having an affair was never proved by the media that raised the question aloud in the first place, and now claims with a straight face that affair rumors are strictly forbidden.
At least against their candidates.
Developing...
Bingo!
NOT! I think this is an accurate account of the double standard in the media.
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Consaon's reason #1?
"He cheats on his wife."
The rumor of President Bush having an affair was never proved by the media that raised the question aloud in the first place, and now claims with a straight face that affair rumors are strictly forbidden.
At least against their candidates.
Developing...
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And the version as it read a few minutes ago
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Consaon's reason #1:
"He cheats on his wife."
The rumor of President Bush having an affair was never proved by the media.
The developing Kerry drama may or maynot join it on the shelf.
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