by Alan Colmes
Another Gore lie the "liberal media" loved to repeat was that he attended a fund-raiser at a Buddhist Temple on April 29, 1996. So what if he did? The truth is there were to be two events that day— the temple event and a fund-raiser at another location. At the last minute, the two events were combined into one at the temple, but Gore wasn't aware of that decision.
One of the most insidious charges leveled at Gore was that he race-baited by being the first to bring up Willie Horton during his first run for president in 1988. What Gore did was to highlight the furlough program that his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, had initiated, a program that resulted in Horton being freed to commit more crimes. Willie Horton was no saint. He was a convicted murderer who killed Joey Fournier on October 17, 1974, and stuffed him in a trash can near the gas station where Fournier was working in Lawrence, Massachusetts. And all for a payday of $276.37. He was released by Governor Michael Dukakis as part of the furlough release program, and while he was loose in Maryland he pistol-whipped, bound, and gagged Clifford Barnes and knifed and raped Barnes's fiancee, Angela. Conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe on January 20, 2000, set the record straight: "But to be fair, it is not true that Gore 'used Willie Horton' in 1988. In a debate with that year's Democratic presidential hopefuls, Gore noted that the Massachusetts practice of letting first-degree murderers take weekend 'furloughs' from prison had freed some killers to commit new crimes. He asked whether Governor Michael Dukakis intended to grant similar furloughs to federal prisoners. That was it." Gore never heard of Willie Horton until he was dredged up by Dukakis's Republican opponents. I spoke with Willie Horton in the mid-nineties, trying to convince him to come on the radio with me. He declined. But he did tell me that he was always known as "William Horton," that the Republicans purposely diminished him by changing the form of his name, and that they took the most menacing picture of him they could find to use on campaign literature. Now, keep in mind, I had no sympathy for him, and his actions were far more heinous than what the Republicans did here, but I also have no sympathy for dirty, racially motivated political tricks in order to smear a candidate.
My Country: Breathe It or Leave It
The "liberal media" spent much more time spreading lies about Al Gore during the 2000 campaign than it did highlighting his environmental ideas, which should have been the strong suit of his candidacy. Gore offered an energy efficiency plan with a goal of solar-powered homes, gasoline-free cars, and independence from foreign oil. Energy plants would be fueled by methane from landfills or other renewable sources. Tax breaks would encourage businesses to develop energy alternatives that don't pollute. If Gore had spoken more often on his energy plans, as he did on June 27, 2000, he might have added the electoral vote to his popular vote victory: "We can clean up pollution, make our power systems more efficient and more reliable, and move away from dependence on others—all with no new taxes, no new bureaucracies, and no onerous regulations. In fact we will cut taxes to help families and businesses buy the clean technology of our time."
And Gore should have made more of Bush 43 's spotty environmental record as governor of Texas. The Environmental Laboratory Washington Report of June 10, 1999, stated that Texas released more than 260 million pounds of toxic pollution in 1997, and that every year since 1995 Texas has had the greatest number of toxic releases into the environment of any state in the country.
Bush 43 's environmental record as a private businessman also left much to be desired. The Associated Press reported on October 6, 2000, "During Bush's tenure with Harken, between 1986 and 1992, environmentally hazardous gasoline and petroleum leaked from at least six E-Z Serve storage tanks in Florida, according to state DEP records." Harken had purchased E-Z Serve, which ran retail gas stations. The story went on to report, "Records show Harken did nothing to clean up the mess. The tanks were removed two years later only after the gas station changed hands and the state ordered an emergency review of the site. ... In June, the state agreed to clean up the spill, charging the cost to taxpayers." That there was taxpayer responsibility to clean up after a company of which Bush 43 was a director should have been driven home by Democrats; driven home using a gasoline-free car, preferably.
All of this would be less significant today were the Bush 43 presidency focused on improving the environment and moving our country toward low-cost renewable energy sources. Instead, we have an administration that meets with campaign contributors to help decide energy policy, and does so in private, without the taxpayer knowing who, what, when, and where. Public interest groups seeking information about these meetings faced eleven months of resistance. The Energy Department grudgingly came forth with information just hours before a court-ordered deadline. As the Washington Post reported on March 31, 2002; "Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met with 36 representatives of business interests while helping to write President Bush's energy policy, and he held no meetings with conservation or consumer groups, the Energy Department disclosed Monday night." Enron's CEO Ken Lay and CFO Jeffrey Skilling met with members of the task force six times. According to the report, "The Bush administration relied almost exclusively on the advice of executives from utilities and producers of oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy." Environmental groups, meanwhile, had no such luck gaining access to those determining energy policy. Of course, these citizens weren't big donors to the Republican cause, either.
Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney weren't the only hugely successful oilmen in the administration. Don Evans, the Commerce secretary, had spent twenty-five years at Tom Brown, a Denver-based oil and gas company, and White House chief of staff Andrew Card had been a lobbyist for GM, fighting against stricter fuel-emission standards. Their influence was palpable: Bush's energy plan called for $27.6 billion in subsidies to the oil, coal, nuclear, and auto industries, and just $5 billion for renewable energy or conservation. A Boston Globe story on August 3, 2001, highlighted how the Bush 43 energy plan not only offered to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to invasive oil drilling, but also allowed "federal agents to seize private lands by eminent domain for transmission lines, and offers small rebates for conservation unlikely to affect the behavior of anyone not inclined to conserve anyway."
Among other goodies in the Bush plan, large vehicles would be classified as light trucks. This gift to SUV owners would mean they wouldn't be subject to the 27.5 mile-per-gallon standard required of ordinary cars. Reducing vehicle fuel consumption would save more than a million barrels a day by 2015, more than ANWR would produce. The whole ANWR debate was neatly summed up by a Boston Globe editorial on February 21, 2001, quoting the U.S. Geological Survey which found that "any potential benefit" to drilling in ANWR was "far outweighed by the risks," and that there was only a 50 percent chance of finding a six-month supply of oil that, even if found, would take ten years to extract.
Many Republicans who voted in 1985 to export Alaskan oil to the Far East now say we have to drill in ANWR to have more oil for domestic use. Alaska already produces a million barrels of crude oil a day, much of it sold overseas, including 26 million barrels a year to Japan and China. So why upset a pristine part of America for oil that will make us more self-sufficient, while we're busy selling domestic product overseas—oil that's being produced in the very state whose wilderness some wish to destroy?
Besides all this, Bush 43 wants no part of the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated by a hundred countries to restrict gas emissions, even though we produce a quarter of the gases associated with global warming. He acted to overturn requirements that contractors conform to environmental laws, opposed requirements for more efficient air conditioners, cut the EPA budget by $500 million, and favored "voluntary compliance" for corporations that may pollute. Would Republicans support "voluntary compliance" for laws they support? I'll take "voluntary compliance" for the Patriot Act, please.
And the administration's argument to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? "If you wa
nt to do something about carbon dioxide emissions," said Dick "Secret Meetings" Cheney, on Hardball on March 21, 2001, "then you ought to build nuclear power plants." Right, nuclear power plants sound like a great idea, save for that pesky nuclear waste problem.
Bush versus Gore:The Media Version
If the media is so biased to the left, why didn't we hear more during the last presidential campaign about Bush 43's environmental record in Texas and his failed business dealings? And why wasn't more made of allegations of alcohol and drug use by Bush in his younger days? Bill Clinton was mocked for not inhaling. Furthermore, where was the "liberal media" on charges that Bush 43 was AWOL for a year of his National Guard duty? The Times of London reported on November 5, 2000, "Bill Burkett, a former lieutenant-colonel, said Bush aides had been 'scrubbing the files' to bury disparities between his record while serving as a reserve pilot during the Vietnam war and an account of the period in his official biography." This, of course, was reported by the foreign press, and not by the American press, which is what the people voting in American elections generally read. In a little-noted story on May 23, 2000, the Boston Globe pointed out the contradictions between Bush 43's official autobiography and his official military record: "Bush himself, in his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, recounts the thrills of his pilot training, which he completed in June 1970. 'I continued flying with my unit for the next several years,' the governor wrote." Shortly after he became governor of Texas in 1995, a Houston National Guard unit decided to honor Bush 43 for his work as a pilot, which it claimed continued until 43's discharge from the army in October 1973. The Globe story, however, goes on to state that Bush 43's military records, or lack thereof, contradict these claims: "... both accounts are contradicted by copies of Bush's military records, obtained by the Globe. In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen." Bush had asked to be transferred to Alabama in 1972 to work on the Senate campaign of Winton Blount, a friend of Bush 41. But the commander of the Alabama unit, retired Colonel William Turnipseed, says Bush 43 never showed up. After the election, Bush returned to Houston, but his commanders at Ellington Air Force Base, Lieutenant Colonel William D. Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, wrote in his annual efficiency report, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." So his Texas commanders thought he was in Alabama; his Alabama commander never saw him; and other than scant coverage in the Boston Globe, this was barely an issue during the 2000 presidential campaign. And the "liberal media" didn't question whether a sitting commander in chief shirked his own military obligations as he sent other Americans off to war.
Paul Begala, who served as an adviser in the Clinton White House, offered up some hard facts with regard to media coverage of Clinton and Bush 43's respective military records. Speaking at a UAW legislative conference on February 6, 2001, Begala said, "I worked for Bill Clinton in 1992 and ... in anticipation of this very question, I looked this up on Nexis. There were 13,641 stories about Bill Clinton 'dodging the draft' . . . and there were 49 stories about Bush and the National Guard."
I take heart in knowing that a man who used family connections to get into the National Guard, who was then nowhere to be found for the last year of his alleged service, and who didn't show up for mandatory physicals is now leading our young fighting men and women in war. And his handlers revel in referring to him as a "wartime president." His media-designed swoop-down to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, where he swaggered in his flight suit, helmet under arm, while proclaiming, "Yes, I flew it," was very becoming for a commander in chief. It would have been nice if he wore that flight suit a little more often during the actual time he was supposed to be serving his country in the National Guard.
Clinton Scandal? What Clinton Scandal?
Every time I hear conservatives complain about how poorly they're treated in the media, I just hearken back to the Clinton era. It wasn't long into the Clinton presidency before the media began to mention allegations of scandal. The right-wing American Spectator put out an eleven-thousand-word piece called "His Cheatin' Heart" for the cover story of its January 1994 issue. Two days later the Los Angeles Times ran with the story, as did the three major evening network newscasts. In fact, the Los Angeles Times had been preparing a major investigative piece on the issue, which it then rushed into print. It was Newsweek, not exactly a minor media outlet, to whom Lucianne Goldberg brought the allegations of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Matt Drudge got wind of this and mentioned Lewinsky by name in his Drudge Report on January 19, 1998, and it became a Washington Post story five days later. When Juanita Broaddrick came forward with the charge that she was raped by Bill Clinton, the media was not shy about reporting these allegations: according to the Washington Times on December 21, 1999, "Juanita Broaddrick's story became widely known publicly in February when newspapers printed detailed accounts of her story. NBC News then aired an interview with Mrs. Broaddrick." The idea that Clinton got favorable treatment by "the liberal media" is just preposterous.
Paula Jones was referred to by her then spokesperson, Susan Carpenter McMillan, as "a modern-day Joan of Arc." McMillan became a staple of the "liberal media" as did women like Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Dolly Kyle Browning, and their defenders, and just about every conservative group with an anti-Clinton grudge.
The media furiously covered "Travelgate," painting Hillary Clinton as a harridan who mercilessly fired workers in the White House travel office. But Independent Counsel Robert Ray's final report on the matter acknowledged that she could not have known that her statements to aides would have resulted in firings. Clinton was also cleared of charges in "Filegate," where she has been accused of seeking confidential background reports of former White House staffers. In this case, Ray said there was "no substantial and credible evidence" of this. Similarly, Ray's office found there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges against the Clintons in Whitewater, the land deal that was the jumping-off point for various charges against the Clintons. Coverage of Travelgate, Filegate, and Whitewater went on for years, but word of the dismissal of these charges had a very short life span in the "liberal media."
Look for the Liberal Label
It's very easy to immediately brand something "liberal" or "conservative" and decide, based on that branding, that a particular piece of information is invalid. Some conservatives try to invalidate something just by using the word liberal. Sometimes the word liberal isn't enough. It wasn't enough, for example, to call Nancy Pelosi a "liberal" when she became the Democratic House leader. She had to be called a "San Francisco liberal."
You'd think the "liberal media" would have celebrated a woman's ascension to political heights previously unknown. The allegedly liberal New Republic celebrated her new position by saying, "Even if she does stake out sensible positions on the issues, her background will make it hard for her to frame them effectively." The Economist, a British publication, and not exactly a right-wing rag, referred to Pelosi's election to a leadership position as "a disaster for the Democrats." So it didn't matter to many of those writing about her what her actual positions were. They had already begun to frame her with modifiers and buzzwords as something unacceptable to mainstream America.
I love being paid to give my opinions, but I work hard to substantiate them with facts, using the best research available. I sift through dozens of newspapers, magazines, and Internet articles every day, and carefully develop arguments based on the information I consume. During a November 26, 2002, debate on the economy with former attorney general Ed Meese, I quoted figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. I argued that instead of proposing tax cuts that favored the wealthy, the president should be proposing a reduction in payroll taxes that would benefit far more Americans than the cut the Republicans h
ad been pushing.
I pointed out that payroll taxes take a much bigger share from low- and middle-income Americans, 6.2 percent on incomes up to $84,900. I added that if you make more than that, the percentage of these taxes of your total income decreases. Republicans love to talk about cutting income taxes while totally ignoring the many other taxes that hit middle- and lower-income Americans the hardest, like payroll taxes, excise taxes, and sales taxes.
Bush's initial tax-cut plan would have resulted in after-tax income for the top 1 percent rising 6.2 percent, compared with growth of 1.9 percent and 0.6 percent for the middle and lowest-income fifths of families. Here's what Ed Meese said on our show when I quoted these numbers and attributed them to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
MEESE: But Alan, you know that that outfit is nothing but a mouthpiece for the liberals anyway.
COLMES: I stand by it, and so do they.
MEESE: You may stand by it, but I wouldn't waste the paper to read that.
HANNITY: I agree with Attorney General Meese.
And while we're at it, let me further add that the Center reported that "between 1979 and 1997 ... the average after-tax income of the top 1 percent of households adjusted for inflation, rose by $414,000, a 157% gain. The middle fifth of households gained 10% and the bottom fifth was stagnant. The highest percentage of tax relief at 6.6% goes to those earning $297,350 and above." Take that, liberal-bashers!
Sean Hannity and Ed Meese immediately discounted my statements because they were based on research done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, known to be a "liberal" think tank. Should I then automatically discount every piece of information that comes out of the conservative Heritage Foundation or the libertarian CATO Institute? What's more, should I automatically disbelieve everything in the conservative Washington Times? It's easy to wave off information you don't agree with by proclaiming, "Oh, it was said by a 'conservative'," or "Horrors, a 'liberal' spewed this." The only question I ask is, is the information true?