BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
e-mail delivery, click
here. To send
an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click
here.
For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Monday, August 30, 2004
HASTERT SLANDERS SOROS. WILL
ANYONE NOTICE? Welcome to the official kickoff of Media Log's
coverage of the Republican National Convention. I'm taking a
radically different approach from the way I covered the Democrats -
rather than traveling to New York, I'm embedded at Media Log Central,
where I have non-stop access to cable TV, radio, and the Internet.
Modern political conventions are TV shows, so why not cover them that
way?
I posted some pre-convention items
on Saturday and Sunday, so by all means scroll down and have a look.
Meanwhile, I want to call your attention to House Speaker Dennis
Hastert's astonishing remarks on Fox News Sunday yesterday, in
which he said he doesn't know whether billionaire financier
George Soros gets any of his money from the international drug
cartels.
Think I'm kidding? Well, the
transcript
is available. The occasion was a joint appearance by Hastert and
Senate majority leader Bill Frist - their "first joint TV interview
ever," said host Chris Wallace, who unctuously added, "So thank you
for honoring us with that."
Within a few minutes, Hastert was
honoring Wallace and his viewers with slander against Soros so mind-boggling that Wallace appeared stricken. Let's roll the
tape:
WALLACE:
Let me switch subjects. You both had very deep reservations about
McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform before it was passed. In
fact, I think you say in your book, Mr. Speaker, that you thought
it was the worst piece of legislation that had been passed by a
Republican Congress since you've come to Washington.
Now that
everyone seems upset with these so-called independent 527 groups,
whether it's MoveOn.org on the liberal side of the spectrum or
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the conservative side, do you
feel like saying, "I told you so"?
HASTERT: Well,
you know, that doesn't do any good. You know, but look behind us
at this convention. I remember when I was a kid watching my first
convention in 1992, when both the Democratic Party and the
Republican Party laid out their platform, laid out their
philosophy, and that's what they followed.
Here in this
campaign, quote, unquote, "reform," you take party power away from
the party, you take the philosophical ideas away from the party,
and give them to these independent groups.
You know, I
don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where -
if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes
from. And I ...
WALLACE: Excuse
me?
HASTERT: Well,
that's what he's been for a number years - George Soros has been
for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot
of ancillary interests out there.
WALLACE: You
think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?
HASTERT: I'm
saying I don't know where groups - could be people who support
this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know. The fact is we don't
know where this money comes from.
Of course, it's
true that "we don't know" whether George Soros gets his money from
international narco-terrorists. It's also true that we don't know whether
Dennis Hastert supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage in order to conceal his own longtime relationship with a man
back in his district. I mean, Hastert is probably straight,
and his marriage probably isn't just an elaborate ruse. But
hey ... we just don't know, do we?
And by the way,
mega-kudos to Wallace. If he hadn't pressed Hastert on whether he
might be referring to "the drug cartel," Hastert could have claimed
later that he meant the Drug
Policy Alliance, an
anti-prohibition group that Soros supports. Not that that would have
made any sense - after all, Hastert was clearly talking about groups
that give to Soros, not get money from him. But Wallace forced
Hastert to make his ugly insinuation explicit.
So are the
mainstream media going to take note of Hastert's slanderous aside? Or
will it be allowed simply to fade to nothingness? [Update: The New York Daily News nails Hastert here.]
GUERRIERO'S
MOMENT. This could be a big week for Patrick Guerriero, the
former Melrose mayor who's now executive director of the Log Cabin
Republicans. The Bush-Cheney campaign is trying mightily to toe the
line between hard-right anti-gay politics and happy-face
image-making. Guerriero is making it clear that no compromise is
possible: if you embrace hate politics, you're a hater,
period.
The Globe's
Yvonne Abraham profiles
Guerriero today, and he has an op-ed
piece in the paper as
well.
SEEING RED,
SPENDING GREEN. If nothing else, the Republican convention is an
opportunity for the New York Times to rake in big bucks from
anti-Bush organizations.
Its 20-page special
section on the convention today has no less than five full-page ads
from groups critical of the Republicans: the MoveOn
PAC (nine former Bush
voters who are supporting Kerry); the National
Committee to Preserve Social Security and
Medicare (an
anti-privatization lobbying group); the Center
for American Progress
("Cost of Iraq War: $144,400,000,000"); Sojourners,
a religious-left organization ("God Is Not a Republican"); and
Mainstream
2004, moderate Republicans
who feel alienated by Bush's right-wing policies on foreign policy,
tax cuts, and the environment, among other issues.
Yoko Ono also has a
full-page "Imagine Peace" ad in the "A" section.
DEPT. OF
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION. Slate's Jack Shafer was
extraordinarily kind to me in his piece last week on the legendary
press critic A.J. Liebling. Read it here.
posted at 10:34 AM |
0 comments
|
link
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.