BRUCE MORTON / CNN ATTACK PIECE
I saw this on Sunday afternoon at 5:43 pm Eastern time … a nifty little Bruce Morton commentary on CNN that was nothing less than an illogical and fundamentally dishonest hit piece on George Bush.
Morton began his commentary by quoting a suggestion from some other pundit that the official Bush policy in the White House was to figure out what Bill Clinton would have done … and then to do the exact opposite. Morton then agreed with this premise. Then Morton cited three specific areas … and lied through his teeth about all of them.
Morton stated that George Bush believes that budget surpluses are evil which is why Bush has brought us “the most red ink ever.” Remember --- the only honest way to measure a budget deficit is as a percentage of the overall budget or the percentage of the gross domestic product (the combined value of all goods and services produced in the United States during the budget period). In those terms the deficit projected by Bush is smaller than the Clinton or the Reagan deficits. Citing this, however, wouldn’t meet Morton’s goals … which is to make Bush look bad, using lies, if necessary.
Morton told how diligent Clinton was in setting aside and protecting wilderness areas. Throughout this portion of Morton’s commentary the screen was filled with wonderful images of majestic mountains, streams, Aspen glades, elk and other treasures of nature. Morton then said that this is where Bush wants to drill for oil. Another lie. The video being shown by Morton was NOT of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge .. the place when Bush wants to drill for oil. ANWR looks more like an iced-over parking lot than it does this video that CNN was showing. Also --- if ANWR were the size of a 9x12 rug, the area that Bush wants to locate men and equipment on would be hidden under a chair leg.
Then Morton went on to attack bush on his new clean air rules. He said that he wanted to make it easier for power generating companies to pollute the air. Here’s what the Bush EPA did. They passed a rule which said that if a power company can expand their generating capacity, while decreasing the amount of overall pollution per kilowatt hour generated, the expansion in generating power would be allowed. Under the old rules a power plant couldn’t even install new rotors on a turbine if the new rotors would crank out more energy even without an increase in pollution.
Then Morton (Harvard graduate) went on to refer to Bush as an “overly armed cowboy” and to tell how Clinton loved talk, but Bush likes force. He doesn’t seem to see that it was Clinton’s all talk and no action policy that brought us here.
Bruce Morton had 30 years with CBS News, so he comes by his leftist bias honestly.
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