Wolf Blitzer et al: At it Again

Wolf Blitzer and Friends At It Again
A return to muckraking?
by Mac MacArthur

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5TH, 1997 -- NEW YORK (APJP) -- While the White House dithers and Attorney General Janet Reno puts up a solid defense for FBI Director Louis Freeh, Wolf Blitzer, someone to watch if you don't trust closet Clinton-thwackers, continues his tired song that the White House team is out to get Freeh.

Louis Freeh
Look at Blitzer's lead yesterday..."It's been building behind the scenes for days, but the White House today effectively humiliated FBI Director Louis Freeh in public."

Yet most responsible reporters are running stories about how Janet Reno is rushing, head over heels, to maintain the good reputation that Freeh enjoys. So what's Blitzer up to? Bad reporting? Good reporting? Does he think Reno is thumbing her nose at the White House too in a wild conspiracy with Freeh and Arlen Specter?

Blitzer "colors" Press Secretary Mike McCurry's statements on Freeh in an extraordinary way saying McCurry "sent the strongest signal to date that President Bill Clinton has lost confidence in Freeh. . ." using language like, "choosing his words carefully -- (McCurry) replied, "I think the president thinks that the FBI is the world's greatest law enforcement agency, and I think the president has great confidence that Louis Freeh is leading that agency as best he can."

Janet Reno
Well. Seems to me McCurry said that Bill Clinton thinks Freeh is doing the best he can - not 'with limited ability' as Blitzer implies.

According to Blitzer, who made his name as CNN Pentagon Pundit during Desert Storm, "When reporters (as opposed to him) noted what was less than a ringing endorsement, McCurry replied, "You take it whatever way you want to take it." At another point, a reporter said to McCurry that his words amounted to less than a full endorsement, a smiling McCurry said,' I am pretty careful on how I choose my words.' At that point, there was laughter in the White House press briefing room, as reporters understood the not-so-subtle message."

Hey Wolf, reporters always dig for the seamy side, and you, of all people know this. So why are you reading-in messages that may not exist?

While Blitzer could be on to something or on something, he wrote one line that really probes the depths of bad journalism -- "What's different now is that the White House is publicly signaling its irritation with Freeh, hoping he'll get the message and resign."

Is that true Wolf? Because if it is, I'd like to know just who told you. Eleanor Roosevelt?

At the same time, David Stout was writing that Reno would not let Dan Burton hijack her into revealing Freeh's confidential memo to her where Freeh allegedly took her to task for her decision not to appoint a independent prosecutor on the Clinton /Gore phone calls. Reno is privately seething over Burton's snakelike tactics to call her and Louis Freeh in front of his sham committee in order to throw fuel on a fire largely created by Republican spin doctors -- And with the lazy help of an irresponsible mainstream press.

Freeh agrees with Reno and has told her so. No memo will be revealed to Burton, a congressman who if not an elected official might very well be found in a lunatic asylum zoned out on wonder anti-depressant, Remeron.

Reno explained her position well. She talked about Attorney General Robert Jackson's statement, made more than 40 years ago, "If a congressional committee is fully apprised of all details of an investigation as an investigation proceeds, there is a substantial danger that congressional pressures will influence the course of the investigation." Jackson was right then, and Reno's right now.

Can you imagine what someone like Burton might do if he was unchained and permitted to be an "insider" on anything sensitive at all?

Lord save us.

Reno, who does talk to the White House on a regular basis must be aware that President Clinton is not trying to push Louis Freeh off a political cliff. She was asked yesterday about the Freeh matter and said "He is a pleasure to work with; he is a professional; he is dedicated; he is honest."

Doesn't sound like an impending divorce to me, Wolf.

Here's how Stout , a good writer, described the McCurry remarks. "And the White House, which had been conspicuously muted about the FBI head, offered some restrained plaudits on Thursday. " The president has great confidence that Louis Freeh is leading that agency as best he can," said the presidential press secretary, Mike McCurry.""

That's a lot different isn't it. Perhaps Blitzer could take some Journalism 101 advice from Stout.

And what's Burton's game? He's hoping to widen a rift that isn't there. Why?

Because in demanding that Reno and Freeh release their private correspondence to him, and knowing he won't get it -- the serpent can claim that this is just another "cover-up."

That's his plan. Watch.

Dan "Watermelon Head" Burton
Reno said that Freeh would not let himself "be used to attack me (Reno) or President Clinton" and would fight any attempt "to politicize the FBI."

Jim Rowley of AP, also could hand Blitzer a few lessons in style. he writes about the historical basis for infighting between Justice and the Bureau pointing out that from the time of J. Edgar Hoover, FBI chiefs have had to fight to maintain their independence and "encroachment on their turf."

Rowley's right there. Hoover v. Bobby Kennedy; Webster v. William French Smith; Sessions v. Thornburgh and Freeh v. Lots of people.

As Rowley puts it, "Hoover feuded with Bobby Kennedy over whether to chase mobsters or political subversives and whether to secretly wiretap Martin Luther King Jr., something Kennedy only reluctantly approved.

In the early days of the Reagan administration, William Webster disagreed with Attorney General William French Smith's plan to put FBI agents back on the trail of bank robbers. Webster defused the issue by making drug trafficking a top FBI priority, thereby satisfying Smith's desire to wage a war on violent crime.

During the Bush administration, William Sessions quarreled with Attorney General Dick Thornburgh over the Justice Department's attempt to control his contacts with Congress.

Freeh proved his strength by essentially vetoing Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick's refusal to let him promote Assistant Director Larry Potts to the number two FBI job of deputy director. Gorelick gave in , even though as Rowley puts it, " Potts had been disciplined for his failure to provide sufficient management oversight during the deadly siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992."

Blitzer may have also lured CNN's Bob Franken to the "harem of the undisciplined reporter" as well.

Franken, someone I usually admire, reports yesterday on the new dustup surrounding the White House "Fire Sale of Arlington Grave Sites" -- a story originally pushed by INSIGHT MAGAZINE for the insane, which has not since back-peddled on its total fabrication that Bill Clinton is selling burial plots at national cemeteries in exchange for political donations.

In his piece, Franken, who at least quotes the widow of former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Larry Lawrence, tries desperately to find more scandal in this blowhole.

Here's the press at it's worst. Digging up bodies in search of "scandal" which is another word for "money" in the news business. Because American tastes for dirty laundry is getting stronger every minute, news organizations cast about for garbage in a frenzy to attract more and more K-Mart shoppers to their advertisers who, in turn, pay huge fees for commercials that allow them to put on this trash.

Ambassador Lawrence
We have a dead man, Ambassador Lawrence, who allegedly was injured in W.W.II. But maybe he wasn't, says House Member Terry Everett, pandering to every shit-kicking surviving GI in the country. Everett, the Chairman of the House Veteran's Affairs Committee, is a former newspaper publisher in the great backwoods state of Alabama.

Everett, by all accounts, wants to dig up Lawrence and put him somewhere else.

Everett spent about $900 thousand last time out on his own congressional race - and had to borrow more than $300 thousand to do it. His constituents matched what he had to borrow and Big Business tossed in another $175,000 to assure his vote "on matters important to America."

Representative Everett
"We have found," said Congress-Nut Terry Everett, "that Mr. Lawrence's name does not appear in at least three places where a reasonable person would expect it to appear in the records, given the claim that he served on the S.S. Horace Bushnell, and suffered serious injuries resulting from a torpedo attack on that vessel. It certainly gives rise to additional questions about Mr. Lawrence's service record and the waiver granted to him," Everett added -- like the glob of slime he is.

Yeah, so what. As if this country keeps unimpeachable records. Just how low can you stoop, Everett?

Richard Holbrooke
It seems that Lawrence was buried at Arlington because that was one of his dreams. A waiver for his interment was granted on information he was wounded while in the merchant marine during the Big War -- information given by then assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke who relied on a story Lawrence told him about the incident. But most US Ambassadors are granted leave to be buried at national cemeteries without having to be shot at, so what's the big deal if Lawrence was dreaming -- And is it deal enough to vitiate Lawrence's surviving spouse and spoil a defenseless dead man's reputation?

Lawrence's widow, Sheila Davis Lawrence, said yesterday. "I am shocked and dismayed by today's press conference. Larry Lawrence will always be a man who served his country with pride, with courage, and with dedication, first as a young man wounded in action during World War II, at the end of his life, then as an American ambassador. Now he is dead and cannot defend himself. I am not prepared to change my belief based on statements by people who have previously demonstrated a meanness of spirit and a lack of concern for either truth or decency," Mrs. Lawrence's statement read.

An Arlington Burial
A Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Mike Doubleday, offered another possible explanation to contemptible Congressman Everett. "That was more than 50 years ago," Doubleday told reporters. "I'm not sure how complete the documentation is. These are all questions that are going to have to be addressed, but at this point, we just don't have the level of detail to answer questions."

I wouldn't bother addressing those questions Mike. Don't lower yourself for some two-bit Alabama huckster.

The real story is just what kind of people we have running this government. Men so bitter and power mad they'd stoop to digging in graveyards to dig up just one more smidgen of puss on a man who isn't around to punch them. Maybe Larry Lawrence was injured on that boat, maybe he wasn't. But he served his country and his president well. Not many of us do that, even a little.

So if Larry Lawrence gets a spot at Arlington, along with a lot of people who were also never injured, and a lot more who may have cowered in foxholes , understandably petrified as they met the Angel of Death -- I say let him and them, rest in peace.

Franken lost my respect yesterday. He jumped in the mud with the best of them and deserves to be horse whipped.

HERE'S A GOOD ONE...

A military medical examiner said Thursday former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash in Croatia, suffered a "suspicious skull wound" that might have been caused by a gunshot.

Are you listening Rush?

Better call Dan Burton and tell him to fire up those backyard watermelons - you know the ones -- the same fruit he used to "prove" White House lawyer Vince Foster was murdered by the Clinton's.

Air Force Lt. Colonel. Steve Cogswell, a deputy medical examiner at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology -- I bet that's a tech leader -- said Thursday he believes the head wound was "suspicious enough" to have warranted an autopsy.

Hey Steve, get a life.

"It may have been a gunshot wound and deserved further investigation," Cogswell said

AND GET THIS: Cogswell never examined Brown's body in the first place!!

Mike Doubleday
At the Pentagon, spokesman Navy Capt. Michael Doubleday -- TWICE IN ONE DAY, HUH MIKE? -- said the director of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Colonel Michael Dickerson, and pathologist Colonel William Gormley, stand by their conclusion that the head wound was not caused by a gunshot.

AND...

An appeals court ruled that New York Magazine can re-launch its advertising smack at mayor Rudolph" The Red Faced Mayor" Giuliani because the city is not being "hurt" by the bus poster making a mockery of the hizzoner.

The panel also denied the city's motion for an injunction to stop the campaign until a full appeal is heard.

Giuliani, looking more foolish than ever, and such a publicity hound that he appeared on national television in drag, is angry over the magazine's slogan that it's "possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for."

On Monday, District Judge Shira Scheindlin --Judge Judy's daughter? -- ruled in favor of the magazine, saying that it had a First Amendment right to poke fun at the mayor.

Yeah, so do I.

AND ONE LAST HURRAH!

Senator Strom Thurmond said Thursday that he would step down as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee at the end of next year.

Thank you Lord, even for BIG favors.

Now, if he'd only leave the Senate entirely...

PS:

Hillary, why is the White House Christmas Tree blue?