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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (29839)	2/16/2004 8:18:44 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793667

If you think the level has gone down, and that the Kerry/Intern situation is a sign of it, let me remind you of how the press treated "41" twelve years ago on a much more trivial rumor. It's really "who's ox is being gored." XX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN FEB 15, 2004 23:00:32 ET XXXXX FLASHBACK: MEDIA GRILLED BUSH OVER 'ADULTERY' CLAIMS 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 the same players peppered former President George Bush with questions surrounding an infidelity rumor! In 1992 top reporters swiftly reacted to a footnote in a book quoting 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 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 over on-air 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?" NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter defended the aggressive adultery rumor line-of-questioning of the first President Bush on ABC's NIGHTLINE on August 12, 1992, on a broadcast titled: "The Media Charges George Bush With Adultery." "In this situation, the Oval Office isn't a temple," Alter explained. "The President is a candidate and he has to be asked tough, often distasteful, but nonetheless important kinds of questions." UPI's Helen Thomas also defended the Bush affair reportage: "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."