If ABC was going to provide a platform for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to express her moral outrage over the firings of the eight US Attorneys and call for AG Gonzales' resignation, didn't the network have an obligation to let viewers know that her husband's administration had itself peremptorily fired more than ten times that many US attorneys -- and that a close personal associate of Hillary's was intimately involved?Senior national correspondent Jake Tapper scored the exclusive with Hillary. In the excerpts aired, Hillary in high dudgeon declared that "the Attorney General, who still seems to confuse his prior role as the president's personal attorney with his duty to the system of justice and to the entire country, should resign."
Continued Hillary: "There's evidence of political interference and pressure being put on them to engage in partisan political activities."
Demanded Hillary: "The president needs to be very forthcoming. What did he say, what did he know, what did he ask people to do? Karl Rove is clearly in the middle of this. I think he owes the Congress and the country an explanation."
In an immediately following interview, former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos grilled AG Gonzales, confronting him with Hillary's call for his resignation and offering his personal opinion that "it really does appear here at least that you were singling out prosecutors who weren't with the program."
But at no time during either of the segments were viewers told that when the Clinton administration took over in 1993, it fired all 93 sitting US attorneys. Tapper did raise the issue during the course of his interview with Hillary. But that portion of the interview was not aired. It was relegated instead to the ABC News website, where it would be viewed by a tiny fraction of the millions who watched Good Morning America.
Here is the exchange as appearing on the website:
When Clinton's husband took office in 1993, one of the first actions his attorney general took was to remove every U.S. attorney. Clinton was asked how this was different from the termination of eight U.S. attorneys last December.
"There is a great difference," Clinton said. "When a new president comes in, a new president gets to clean house. It's not done on a case-by-case basis where you didn't do what some senator or member of Congress told you to do in terms of investigations into your opponents. It is 'Let's start afresh' and every president has done that."But as the Wall Street Journal had documented in an editorial this morning, The Hubbell Standard, it is simply untrue that "everybody did it" as Hillary suggests. Writes the WSJ:
As it happens, Mrs. Clinton is just the Senator to walk point on this issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys because she has direct personal experience. In any Congressional probe of the matter, we'd suggest she call herself as the first witness -- and bring along Webster Hubbell as her chief counsel.That Hillary's hike to the moral high ground is very much a part of her presidential campaign is evidenced by the mass email she circulated within hours of the airing of her GMA interview inviting people to sign her petition calling on AG Gonzales to resign . . . and also soliciting contributions.
As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno -- or Mr. Hubbell -- gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.
At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.
Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in Chicago, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.
ABC could, and should, have given viewers the full picture.
Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.
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Out Front and Up a Tree
March 14, 2007 - 12:50 ET by allanfPutting Hillary out front on this issue is like having a homocidal drunken driver run Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.
The Democrats and their allies in the media are just brazen.
You wouldn't be referring to
March 14, 2007 - 14:03 ET by mattmYou wouldn't be referring to Teddy Chappaquiddick, by any chance, would ya?
It's funny how the Left demands the resignations of those who have done absolutely nothing wrong, yet they'll justify everything from fraud to rape to manslaughter, as long as the perp is a Democrat.
We have found a witch, may
March 14, 2007 - 13:24 ET by Tim the EnchanterWe have found a witch, may we burn her?
Why not build a bridge out of
March 14, 2007 - 14:06 ET by mattmWhy not build a bridge out of her?
We could call it "the bridge to the 6th century"...
She turned me into a newt....
March 14, 2007 - 14:42 ET by Airforce_5_OShe turned me into a newt......I got better.
I don't think that Newt wou
March 14, 2007 - 17:47 ET by Tim the EnchanterI don't think that Newt would like that line!
Mark-You begin your essay wit
March 14, 2007 - 13:34 ET by ghotifunMark-
You begin your essay with a question that is historically shown to be purely rhetorical and in this context is self-evident.
If ABC is going to give Team Clinton a viable platform to express her (supposed) moral outrage, then why should ABC take the journalistic high-road?
ABC, indeed the MSM outlets in total, have championed her cause to the vast exclusion of others (except Obama).
The obvious is the hypocrisy shown by the MSM toward any historical context comparing President Bush with (fill in the Democrat name here).
That ABC doesn't state the obvious-these appointments are political appointments-and nothing else is wholly irrelevent. The only relevence is to stir the pot while closing their eyes.
When prudence advises silence, the MSM won't be.
Every time I see or hear th
March 14, 2007 - 13:34 ET by Tim the EnchanterEvery time I see or hear that creature, my stomach just wants to egress its contents. Maybe it's just me.
Another thing- where's the outrage, fellow New Yorkers, over our lack of senatorial representation? Did all you suckers believe her when she told you she was in it for the full term? Don't you feel used, giving this shrill shill a national platform to spew? Where are all those promised jobs (BTW- a net 100,000 LEFT the state since she's been "senator"!)? Where's the tax relief? You're (HRC) a worse liar and cheat than your "husband".
Hillary's Game
March 14, 2007 - 13:41 ET by Mr. TerrySo this is how they're going to play it. It's slick willy and Billary all over again.
While she creates a mysterious conspiracy by saying things like, "The president needs to be very forthcoming. What did he say, what did he know, what did he ask people to do? Karl Rove is clearly in the middle of this. I think he owes the Congress and the country an explanation." she diverts attention away from the fact that she has the whole of the MSM in her corner.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Firing
March 14, 2007 - 13:52 ET by cvgbuckeyeI can't recall but what white house staff was that that hillary ordered that ALL be fired shortly after they moved from their trailer park to the white house? For the life of me, I cannot recall.
Now I think I remember: was it the travel staff?
Where in the He$! are our Leaders
March 14, 2007 - 14:06 ET by philgressWhere in the He$l are our Republican Leaders?!
I'm getting sick and tiered of our leaders just taking all this crap and not standing up to these people! Call a Press Conference, like the Dems do, and remind Hillary of what her husband did with 93 Attorneys.
But that was different, right Hillary?
Phil from San Diego
Right on!
March 14, 2007 - 14:21 ET by pickerseniorAll they need to do (Bush, Gonzales, Rove, and a few key true Republican Senators, is to hold a press conference, and call the newsreaders (really dumb), Hillary (really a leader of the dumb), Schumer and Feinstein, etc. for what they really are. We know what that is, but it can't be printed here!
Amazing. Just amazing. Is &qu
March 14, 2007 - 14:26 ET by waka wakaAmazing. Just amazing. Is "Clinton's 93 v. Bush's 8" really the best talking point you guys can come up with? I'm speechless. This much willful ignorance is stunning, even for this site.
Bush I Assistant AG, Stuart Gerson, in today's WaPo online chat ...
"It is customary for a President to replace U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of a term. Ronald Reagan replaced every sitting U.S. Attorney when he appointed his first Attorney General. President Clinton, acting through me as Acting AG, did the same thing, even with few permanent candidates in mind."
Reality has a well known liberal bias.
Poor waka waka, still doesn
March 14, 2007 - 14:36 ET by MightyMouthPoor waka waka, still doesn't get it. The MEDIA is driving the discussion, the NB's are just showing the bias. How is that "willful ignorance"? The willful ignorance comes from speechless ones who post links that prove that this is a non scandal while at the same time believing it IS a scandal. Truly amazing.
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
Arizona governor
March 14, 2007 - 14:50 ET by dagdaThe current governor of Arizona got her job as US Attorney because Billary fired all those attorneys that Bush I had hired. Interesting that she is not saying anything on this issue.
Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. Dwight Eisenhower
Not related to the US attor
March 14, 2007 - 18:33 ET by John in CANot related to the US attorney's story, but another example of BroomHillary pandering. From Bob Novak via Powerline:
The Teenager She Wishes She'd Been
Hillary Clinton's appearance in Selma, Alabama has been widely ridiculed, mostly for the faux Southern accent she affected. Robert Novak notes another level of pandering in her performance:
Give a Democrat Party free America a chance!
Would there be any power left
March 14, 2007 - 18:39 ET by ucWould there be any power left in the Presidency past a new President's first hundred days if we went with Senator Hillary on all of her rants to date?
What can we expect from such a part of this past First Couple? Coup, couple, coupled, married union, possible person to recommend the 1993 "83", "defacto" other elected to office through legal union, receipient of wages of the such office through such union, "joined as partners in a game"?
Why don't I trust Hillary's democrats to self-police Bill? Has he stopped being her be all and end all that led to their coupling? Saying "getting a two-fer" as they have really brings this to the level of a farse. Do they really just think the laws mean what they decide themselves they are supposed to mean - let common sense go out the window?
Hitlary Rotten Clinton
March 14, 2007 - 18:44 ET by Free StinkerWhy does this Woman have a Shi'ite Eating grin on her face?
If you had CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, CNN, & MSLSD as part of your campaign organization, you'd be smilling too!
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"George W. Bush simply reminds leftists everyday what they will never be. And they hate him for it." --Tammy Bruce