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Times Watch for
August 11, 2004
Halbfinger Omits the Union Label
David Halbfinger spreads around more Kerry campaign optimism in Wednesday's "Democrats Give Republicans a Fight for the Elderly," about the response of senior citizens to the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement.
He writes: "But Democrats say the elderly are proving an unexpectedly fertile voting bloc for their party this year because of dissatisfaction with the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, disproportionate opposition to the war in Iraq, worries about mounting deficits and wariness over talk of altering Social Security. As one indication of Democratic prospects, the Alliance for Retired Americans, a three-year-old political organization that claims three million members, will endorse Senator John Kerry for president today in Las Vegas. The group plans to conduct full-scale get-out-the-vote operations in Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania--all states with large elderly populations, said its executive director, Edward Coyle."
Halbfinger leaves out the fact that the Alliance is hardly a genuine grass-roots organization, but a liberal advocacy group for retired union members, created by the AFL-CIO. He then quotes the group's executive director criticizing Bush's prescription drug plan, without making clear Coyle's (and his group's) partisan bent: Coyle is a former Democratic fundraiser and was the campaign director for liberal Rep. Mo Udall's 1976 presidential campaign.
Halbfinger finds more reasons for Democrats to be pleased: "Perhaps the biggest single reason Democrats are sanguine about their chances with elderly white voters--a factor that is causing considerable consternation among Republicans--is public sentiment against the Medicare prescription drug legislation. A poll released yesterday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that among Medicare patients, the new law was viewed unfavorably by nearly twice as many as those who had a favorable view of it."
For the rest of Halbfinger on Democrat support among the elderly, click here.
• Campaign 2004 | Drugs | David Halbfinger | Sen. John Kerry | Labeling Bias | Medicare
Another "Independent-Minded" Bush Critic
Variations on a theme: Reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg again
praises a moderate Republican senator--and a frequent Bush critic.
In her Tuesday story, "Senator Steps In as the Referee in Washington's Turf Battles Over Counterterrorism," Stolberg paints a picture of an "independent-minded" Collins standing up to Donald Rumsfeld: "After Senator Susan Collins pointedly criticized Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld during hearings over the scandal involving abuse of Iraqi prisoners, she was summarily dropped from his list of Pentagon breakfast invitees. Now she is tangling with an even more powerful cast of characters: President Bush and the leaders of the nation's intelligence community. Ms. Collins, a Maine Republican, may well have the toughest assignment in Washington: drafting legislation to overhaul the way the nation combats terrorism. Independent-minded but cautious--she will take issue with Mr. Bush in one breath but praise him in the next--she is dancing a delicate dance as chairwoman of hearings that are exposing conflicts among the White House, intelligence agencies and members of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks."
Stolberg continues to gush: "With her pleasant demeanor and penchant for being well prepared--'I am going to have to read the footnotes,' she said with utter seriousness in an interview, referring to the 9/11 report--Ms. Collins has a long history of taking on the Washington bureaucracy. She spent more than a decade as a Congressional aide before running for political office, much of that time on the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Now she is its chairwoman."
Stolberg quotes Henry Kissinger on the close working relationship between Collins and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee: "They are middle of the road, they are reasonable, they are nonpartisan as can be."
Stolberg thinks that bothers pro-Bush Republicans: "That is precisely what worries some Senate Republicans, who, well aware that Ms. Collins has bucked Mr. Bush on issues including tax cuts and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, are watching her intensely. Some fear that her close working relationship with Senator Lieberman could lead her to side with Democrats on crucial details of the legislation, making life uncomfortable for Mr. Bush and Republican leaders in Congress."
Still, she later lets Democrats accuse Collins of not being "independent" (i.e., anti-Bush) enough: "Democrats, meanwhile, say Ms. Collins's independence goes only so far. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, complained that she had refused his repeated requests to conduct hearings into federal contracts awarded to Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by Dick Cheney. Asked if Ms. Collins was tough enough to challenge Mr. Bush on the 9/11 legislation, Mr. Lautenberg arched his eyebrows and walked off, saying, 'I've got to go.' Told he was raising his eyebrows, the senator said dryly, 'I often raise my eyebrows.'"
For the full Stolberg story on Collins, click here:
• Sen. Susan Collins | Henry Kissinger | Republicans | Senate | Sheryl Gay Stolberg | Terrorism
Can Goss Boss the CIA?
Is the Times poisoning the well for Rep. Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and Bush's choice to head the CIA?
Wednesday's story by Joel Brinkley and James Risen, "On Other Side of the Aisle, Bruised Feelings Linger," plays up controversy about the Goss nomination and even brings Dick Cheney into the mix: "The relationship between Mr. Goss and the vice president is particularly sensitive now, at a time when there have been questions about whether Mr. Cheney sought to pressure the C.I.A. on intelligence analysis concerning Iraq. Once praised for running the House intelligence committee along largely bipartisan lines, Mr. Goss, a former C.I.A. case officer, has recently angered Democrats for taking what they view as increasingly partisan stances, several Democrats said….A few weeks ago, Mr. Goss abruptly interrupted debate on the House floor over an amendment to an intelligence bill to deliver an attack on Senator John Kerry, now the Democratic nominee for president. He held up a sign that showed a remark Mr. Kerry made in 1997 questioning why the intelligence community needed to continue growing 'now that that struggle, the cold war, is over.'…Despite Mr. Goss's long history of close ties to the C.I.A., his recent actions, particularly his public criticism of Mr. Tenet's management, have angered a number of senior C.I.A. officials, which could make it difficult for him to work with many of the holdovers from the Tenet era."
David Sanger's lead story carries the headline "Former Spy May Prompt Fight in Congress." And there will be a fight, if Sanger has anything to say about it. He notes "Democrats, mindful that Mr. Goss had gone to the floor of the House in June to denounce the intelligence record of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, said they thought Mr. Bush had erred by selecting a clear partisan for the post."
He adds: "In the last two months Mr. Goss has engendered considerable ill will within the very organization he has been tapped to lead, by declaring in a committee report in June that the CIA has been 'ignoring its core mission' and was in 'dysfunctional denial of any need for corrective action.' That report brought a blistering retort from the central intelligence director at the time, George J. Tenet, who said in a letter to Mr. Goss that 'dysfunctional organizations do not perform the way the Directorate of Operations performed in Afghanistan,' in Iraq, or in the detection of the A.Q. Khan nuclear export network in Pakistan. Mr. Tenet called other criticisms in the report that Mr. Goss signed 'ill-informed.' 'Goss broke a lot of pottery in June,' said a senior administration official who deals with the CIA daily, 'and I suspect you'll hear a lot of backpedaling in the next few weeks.' Mr. Bush alluded to none of those complications when he appeared in the White House Rose Garden at 8:30 Tuesday morning with Mr. Goss at his side."
For the full story on Goss from Brinkley and Risen, click here.
For Sanger's full report on Goss, click here.
• Joel Brinkley | George W. Bush | CIA | Rep. Porter Goss | James Risen | David Sanger | Terrorism
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org