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With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...
Friday December 17, 9:25 AM
Big Three Nets Snub Gore Rapegate Dust-up
It was easily the most dramatic moment of the
2000 presidential campaign thus far, as
home-schooler Katherine Prudhomme confronted
Vice President Al Gore at a New Hampshire town
meeting Tuesday night about Bill Clinton's
alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick. Still, the
Big Three television network anchors just
weren't interested in the story, reports Howard
Kurtz in Friday's Washington Post.
With network reporters on the scene failing to
cover the explosive exchange, it was left to the
Republican National Committee to get the word
out. And within hours of the GOP heads-up,
Drudge, NewsMax.com and others in the
alternative media were all over the story.
According to Kurtz, initially, Fox News Channel
was the only TV network to show interest in the
Prudhomme-Gore exchange.
It's certainly not that the others didn't
recognize the story for the bombshell that it
was. By Thursday night, CNBC's Brian Williams
was running the full video near the top of his
own nightly news broadcast. In a moment of
supreme understatement, the NBC cable anchor
described Prudhomme's grilling of Gore as "a
very interesting moment for the vice president."
The night before, FNC's "Hannity & Colmes" had
scooped the big boys, running the Gore-Prudhomme
clip repeatedly -- prompting howls of outrage
from guest Peter Fenn, a Gore adviser.
Thursday night, Fox's premier news-talk duo
pitted Katherine Prudhomme herself against
Clinton spinmeister Lanny Davis with equally
fascinating results. As with the VP, Prudhomme
refused to back down in the face of Davis' usual
bluster.
Davis attempted to recycle the notion that
Broaddrick was not credible because she first
denied the Clinton rape to Paula Jones'
attorneys, then recanted her denial to Ken
Starr's investigators. But Hannity quickly
countered with Starr's own comments at a recent
news conference, where the former independent
counsel revealed that the FBI found Broaddrick's
rape accusation "entirely credible" and
"devastating."
By the end of Davis' confrontation with the New
Hampshire woman, the onetime White House lawyer
appeared thoroughly rattled and is said to have
left Fox News studios in D.C. visibly angry.
For her part, Prudhomme ended by revisiting
Gore's claim that he hadn't seen Broaddrick's
blockbuster NBC interview, reminding viewers
that RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson said Wednesday
that he planned to send a video copy directly to
the vice president's office. "Now it's up to the
next person who gets to question him at one of
these meetings," the New Hampshirite added.
Plainly, the Broaddrick story, and anyone who
dares to raise it, is enough to bring even the
most polished White House apologist to the brink
of cardiac arrest.
Perhaps that's why Messrs. Rather, Brokaw and
Jennings are desperately hoping that the story
of President Clinton's alleged rape of Juanita
Broaddrick fades from their radar screens as
quickly as it re-emerged.
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