[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 27, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   JAMES CARVILLE'S FOOD CHAIN CHART

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994 and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dornan] is recognized for 60 minutes as the minority leader's designee.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, a few weeks back James Carville, at one of 
these high-powered Washington, DC breakfasts for the media elite, came 
up with a flow chart what we call a food chain, that he said was 
causing all the negative publicity for Bill and Hillary Clinton. I was 
mentioned in this food chain. The chart as bizarre, to say the least. 
But it was also highly inaccurate. I asked the parliamentarian if it 
could be considered a personal attack on me, thereby enabling me to a 
point of personal privilege, which would allow me to speak for 1 hour 
and defend my reputation.
  I would never do that to interrupt the proceedings of a legislative 
nature of the House. I did do it once when I was attacked by a former 
member who left this body under a cloud to go up to Wall Street and 
become a billionaire. This member had attacked me by indicating that I 
had lied in a biography about serving in Vietnam although I had been on 
television during the entire Vietnam war. I did go over there eight 
times as a reporter and got as close to combat as any other reporter I 
ever saw. in fact, I did something that I never saw anybody do, not 
even Gunga Din Rather. That was to beg rides on Air Force and Army 
combat missions, on helicopter gunships and on fast-moving jet fighters 
flying with friends of mine that I had been in the Air Force with years 
earlier. Nevertheless, Tony Coelho attacked me, again even though I had 
been on television in front of the whole world on the Robert K. Dornan 
Show. I took a point of personal privilege because the charge was so 
heinous. But I will not have bothered to do it on this.
  But for a special order, late at night, to set the record straight, I 
think it is worth exploring. There is a group at the White House called 
the Fab Four. They are James Carville, his friend Paul Begala, Mandy 
Grunwald and George Stephanopolous, the man Rush Limbaugh calls Mr. 
Excitement. The Fab Four is led by James Carville. Together they think 
that they have come up with a food chain chart that shows that causes 
of all of the Clintons' problems.
  He has in the top row of the food chain David Hale, an indicted 
Clinton-appointed judge in Arkansas who, as the organized crime folks 
would say, is singing like a bird to the special, prosecutor not 
independent counsel, Robert Fiske. Then he has Roger Perry and Larry 
Patterson. Carville only mentined these two of the five troopers who 
were on tape to the Los Angeles Times and the American Spectator, who 
both reported extensively on what the troopers had to say about 
womanizing and a certain southern governor. Again, he has only two 
troopers out of five listed. Moving on imagine going before the elite 
of the national press and the White House press corps as Carville did 
at this breakfast, and showing a chart with Gennifer Flowers and Sally 
Perdue on it. Gennifer Flowers released tapes, and she is marketing 
hours more of the tapes that are pretty darn incriminating. Sally 
Perdus said, ``Oh, he,'' the person in question, ``smoked marijuana all 
of the time because it increased his aggressiveness.'' What are they 
doing on a chart that Carville brings before the press?
  This food chair was lightly reported upon, by the way. Most Americans 
are hearing this for the first time in this 1,200,000 audience that 
watches C-Span.
  Then he has on there Rev. Jerry Fawell, from Liberty Baptist College. 
Then he has on there Reed Irvine, a solid American who spent most of 
his years in Federal service, retired, and then founded a great 
organization that I vigorously endorse, Accuracy in Media.
  He says these six sources, the two troopers, the two-women confessing 
adulterous affairs, a judge who is under indictment and who copped a 
plea to two or three felonies, a media watchdog and a reverend, that 
they feed, believe it or not, Cliff Jackson, a Fulbright scholar at 
Oxford during the 2 years Clinton was also supposed to be there 
attending school. Remember, Clinton never got his degree from Oxford. 
Add then there D'Amato and Sheffield Nelson, who I guess is running 
again for Governor of Arkansas. He ran against Clinton in 1990.
  Johnson-Smick this is the consulting firm who's newsletter caused the 
stock market to drop when it reported on some of the speculation 
surrounding Vince Forter's suicide

                              {time}  1530

  Then they have got me Bob Dornan, hence my special order tonight. 
Then they have Floyd Brown, who runs an organization with David Bossie 
out in Virginia that accumulates a world of material on everything that 
comes under the heading of Whitewater. So he has got me right up there 
with full-time investigators, the current gubernatorial candidate in 
Arkansas, a DC consulting firm, and a charter friend of Bill from those 
2 years in England when he Clinton was avoiding the draft three times.
  Then we, all the aforementioned, supposedly feed the Star. That is 
the tabloid that published about a fifth of the Gennifer Flowers tapes, 
published written transcripts. We also feed Rush Limbaugh; and we feed 
British tabloids which, by the way are not tabloids in the sense that 
we would describe the Star or the National Inquirer but are more 
newspapers like the Sunday Telegraph. By the way, the Sunday Telegraph 
ran a story a week ago Sunday, front page, on cocaine use in Arkansas, 
and tying cocaine use to the President's half brother, Roger Clinton. I 
am told Roger Clinton's band was called Dealer's Choice. Since Roger 
Clinton had legal trouble over cocaine use, I think it is fair to 
assume there may have been more than a little double entendre in the 
name of his musical group, ``Dealer's Choice.'' I think it probably was 
a little play on words to an inside joke about his high-flying cocaine 
use with another friend of Bill, Bill Lasater, whose former associate 
is the current head of the administration of the White House, Patsy 
Thomasson. All of them are charged in this British newspaper.

  By the way, Mr. Speaker, an interesting footnote: England does not 
have the robust freewheeling interpretation of free speech rights that 
we have under our first amendment. Many American performers have sued 
British newspapers for libel and walked away with millions. There was 
this front-page story a week ago accusing a sitting President of using 
cocaine when he was attorney general and Governor. I think President 
Clinton, instead of for the first time in American history setting up a 
legal fund to take in money to fight charges of sexual harassment, I 
think Mr. Clinton should take some of those high-powered lawyers, and 
them to London, get involved with some British barristers, and sue the 
Sunday Telegraph for this cocaine story a week ago Sunday. If 
successful he would have the millions of dollars he needs to cover his 
mounting legal fees for the Paula Jones case and have some left over to 
help out on Whitewater. Interesting concept, perfectly valid.
  Next to the British tabloids is a very hard-charging talk show host, 
G. Gordon Liddy. He is on about a hundred stations. Rush Limbaugh, on 
the same line, is on about 650-plus stations. So that pretty well 
covers America.
  Then those people feed the Washington Times, one of the nine best 
papers in America, the alternative, I like to think untruthful press 
here in Washington, DC; the New York Post, which was running exclusive 
stories under Chris Ruddy's byline, who I bumped into in the hall 
downstairs. He is an aggressive young New York Post reporter now 
working the Hill scene. Then the American Spectator and its great 
founder, publisher, editor, Bob Tyrrell, who was, I thought, stupidly 
and viciously attacked last night on NBC's ``Dateline.'' They kept 
saying, ``You accused the President of adultery,'' and Bob Tyrrell 
would say, ``No, you keep getting it wrong. I am a reporter. I reported 
the accusations of the five troopers.'' Then there is the New Republic, 
a schizophrenic magazine with a great conservative senior editor, Fred 
Barnes, and an ultra-liberal friend of mine, Michael Kinsley, the 
dashing, now-bearded host of Crossfire. When I shaved my beard last 
week, Kinsley saw an opportunity, and he started growing one. I must 
say, Michael, you look marvelous. Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, for 
addressing Kinsley directly. You tell him, Mr. Speaker, he looks 
marvelous with that new beard; then the Wall Street journal editorial 
page, going after Bob Bartley there.
  So there is James Carville's food chain. He says all of these various 
levels feed the poor, pathetic, mainstream American press which just 
gobbles up all of this stuff and then report it to the America people. 
What a bunch of baloney.
  Mr. Speaker, if you turned this chart upside down it would be more 
accurate.
  So I decided to do my own flow chart, to detail who really gets 
information from whom around here. I am sorry, I do not have a bigger 
version, but let me translate this for you.
  What starts a real media food chain in America? Well, it starts off 
with people seeking the truth. Is that not what journalism is all 
about?
  And I will jump, cut to the chase here. It ends up with the American 
people digesting all of this and with an unbelievable historical sense 
of fairness determining what is correct and what is not. The liberal 
dominant media culture throws most of it in the ash can.
  For example, last night and this morning, except for the great job 
done by my Republican whip, Newt Gingrich, on one of the morning 
talking-head shows, the bias demonstrated last night in analysis, 
particularly on PBS and even worse on public radio today, about the 
Watergate--excuse me, Freudian slip, the Whitewater hearings--was 
appalling. It is just the most offensive, left-wing, media bias I have 
ever seen in my life.
  So let us look at the real media food chain. You start with the 
truth. Now, up here on line 1, I will agree with Carville, it is ex-
judge David Hale, all five troopers, Roger Perry, Larry Peterson, Danny 
Ferguson, Ronnie Anderson and L. D. Brown. Ferguson is the one name, 
along with Bill Clinton, on the sexual harassment suit of Paula Jones. 
Ronnie Anderson have five children, and three of them are triplets. I 
kind of give him an excuse pass. He went on the record with the 
American Spectator and with the L.A. Times and then went underground. 
With five kids, he has got a right to protect his income. And there is 
J.D. Brown, the hottest of all the troopers. Sheffield Nelson we have 
moved up from line 2 to the top line.
  How did Carville forget good old Jim McDougal who just did terribly 
in a congressional primary down in Arkansas, and his wife, Susan 
McDougal, who is probably going to start to sing like a canary when 
they go to settle the suit against her by Zubin Mehta out in 
California? Totally separate scandal where she allegedly ripped off the 
great musical impresario who brings us those three great tenors, 
Placido Domingo, Carreras, and Pavarotti; that is the same man that 
Susan McDougal is accused of bilking for $300,000 or $400,000.
  Then there is Sally Perdue, Bobby Ann Williams, Marilyn Joe Jenkins, 
and the list of about 20 other women who have a story to tell. They are 
still popping up all over the landscape. Flowers is in a category by 
herself. She tape-recorded him, and there is Paula Jones. Carville 
forgot to put Paula Jones on the media food chain chart. I guess she 
wasn't on the radar screen them.
  These people tell their stories. Then it is analyzed by investigative 
reporters Chris Ruddy, and by Jim Leach. Jim Leach and his excellent 
staff do work that feeds me information. The same for Al D'Amato. They 
are both on the Banking Committee. They both have relevant 
congressional positions from which they can investigate some of these 
things.

                              {time}  1540

  Then there is Jerry Seper of the Washington Times, an aggressive, 
excellent reporter. I wish everyone in America could subscribe to the 
Washington Times to get their front page truth, accurate reporting on 
all matters coming under Whitewater. Then there is L.J. Davis, who did 
a tremendous reporting job in the New Republic. He said he was knocked 
on the head with some sort of a blunt instrument that knocked him out 
for an hour or more when he concluded his reporting in Arkansas. Then 
there is David Brock, the tremendous young reporter for the American 
Spectator. Give him a name credit on the line. Then there is Floyd 
Brown and Dave Bossie, whose name I forgot to add. And then there is 
Bill Remple and Doug Franz of the L.A. Times. They were on Nightline 
one night, these two investigative reporters for one of my hometown 
papers, the Los Angeles Times. One of them slipped in describing the 
troopers. Talking about the veracity of the first four troopers, one of 
them said, ``We believe completely our troopers.'' Whose troopers? 
Arkansas's troopers? No. The L.A. Times' troopers, Remple and Franz' 
troopers. Franz and Remple had tape recorded material that Jack Nelson, 
the Washington, DC, senior editor for the L.A. Times, would love to 
destroy if he could get his hands on it. I believe Remple and Franz 
have trooper Danny Ferguson on tape so vividly and so clearly that if 
they were ever to release it to the electronic media or at least to the 
print-media, I believe that the Paula Jones case would soar back to the 
front pages and Clinton would probably have to resign the presidency. 
This presidency is in the hands of the L.A. times.
  Now, all these folks give their information gleaned from these 
sources here at the top, to the New York Post, the British dailies--
which is a more accurate name than tabloid--to the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page, Bartley, Gigot, and company, to the Washington Times, 
to the New Republic, to the American Spectator, and to the L.A. Times. 
Notice my name has not appeared yet. I am not on the inside in this 
investigation like Mr. Leach and Mr. D'Amato. I get my information from 
them.
  On this next-to-last line, I have Bob Dole, Bob Dornan, Bill Safire, 
Newsweek, U.S. News, U.S. Times, U.S. Local press, European press, 
local radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh and AP. Bob Dornan and Bob 
Dole, we pick up the morning papers or the weekly news magazines and 
then analyzes it. Rush Limbaugh does this on radio. Dole goes on the 
U.S. Senate floor. Bob Dornan does it right here and now, live in 
living color, sight, sound, motion, reporting on what I have read. That 
is how I learned of the James Carville story with his little chart 
printed in the Washington Post. Then the local radio jocks across the 
country go to work in all 50 States, all the territories. They are a 
proliferating breed of town hall meetings, God bless them all, 
liberals, conservatives, and flaming few moderates among them. AP, AP 
actually we should move back up to this line because they are a daily 
reporting service. And there is the media food chain coming down to the 
American people and to the liberal dominant media culture. The American 
people absorb it. The dominant media culture throws much of it in the 
ashcan.
  Folks, this is my only copy. I would love to distribute this around 
the country. I would hope the Washington Post would call me, do a 
follow-up of Carville's chart that he made up for that elitist inside-
the-beltway media breakfast. Then I wish they would publish my chart.
  Folks, that is the reality of how we get our news in the United 
States of America.
  Now I would like to address a continuing problem I have had with the 
L.A. Times. I was explaining to some L.A. Times reporters that were 
doing a few hit pieces on me last week that all my 8 races, and now in 
race No. 9 I have never really had a fairly described, tough Democratic 
opponent. So the L.A. Times takes it upon themselves every other year 
to go after me, close up the numbers in my race and become the No. 1 
weapon in my opponent's campaign against me. Every other year I ask 
them why, did God designate you, the L.A. Times, to try to take me out?
  I told them that I am going to correct before they do it again an 
article from October 1992 that contains several lies about Bob Dornan, 
taking quotes that are not true from my opponents, adding quotes that 
are hearsay statements from someone else that are not true and rolling 
them over every 2 years back into this profile story on me that makes 
me so utterly unbelievable, colorful, and flamboyant, that George 
Patton, George S. Patton could not match up to the image the L.A. Times 
has created for me.
  Three of the lies they perpetuated again last week and in a major 
profile 3 weeks before the election of 1992. I am going to correct them 
now. They come out of the 1980 general election, the 1982 primary, and 
the 1986 general.
  I am told by the Speaker that I have 7 minutes remaining. If I give 2 
minutes to each one of these lies, I can at least set the groundwork to 
take the Congressional Record tomorrow, fill it in and then fax it to 
the L.A. Times and ask them if they are going to continue to perpetuate 
these three vicious lies.

  Lie No. 1 is from the 1980 race. Eric Bailey and Bob Stewart wrote 
this October 18, 1992, story. When I pointed out these three gross lies 
to them, they said that they would correct it. Bob Stewart has gone on, 
so he cannot correct it. Eric can.
  Eric, listen to my words: Lie No. 1, these are the exact words out of 
the L.A. Times: ``During his 1980 battle for his old Santa Monica-area 
district against Carey Peck,'' C-a-r-e-y, who seemed to disappear off 
the face of the Earth that year, ``son of actor Gregory Peck, it took a 
Justice Department investigation to clear the challenger,'' Peck, ``of 
Dornan's allegations that Peck accepted $13,000 in illegal cash 
campaign donations from James H. Dennis, a convicted felon serving time 
in an Alabama Federal prison for fraud. Dennis said he agreed to make 
the accusations when Dornan visited him in prison and promised to get 
the felon better prison status. Dornan denied that any deal existed.''

                              {time}  1550

  A vicious, foul, untrue story. I have never corrected this on the 
House floor. I will now.
  No. 1, young Kerry Peck, son of Gregory, did take 13 sequentially 
numbered, thousand dollar, illegal donations from dead people, and 
children. Gregory Peck, the Academy Award winning actor, and I say this 
sincerely, unknowingly brought back the envelope with this dirty 
$13,000 of phony cashiers checks from children and dead people to L.A., 
and gave it to his son. I assume he did not open the envelope. It 
originated in Alabama where Senator Alan Cranston, who I also think was 
unknowing in this, asked Gregory Peck to come out, and help, a young 
sitting Senator named Donald Stewart. James Dennis sent back this dirty 
money as a favor to Gregory Peck. This James Dennis was 28 years old, 
stole a million and a half dollars from the State of California, and, 
when I went to visit him in an Alabama prison to get to the root of the 
dirty money that the Peck campaign took, I took with me a lawyer, the 
warden, the U.S. Attorney from southern Alabama, and an FBI 
representative. We all met in the conference room at Talladega Prison 
to get to the bottom of this.
  James Dennis never asked for special treatment; I never gave it to 
him, although a month later his brother was killed in a car crash, and, 
when he was lingering near death, I was in Israel on a narcotics 
investigation trip, James Dennis called my staff to ask if they could 
help him go to his brother's deathside bed. The prison said, ``No, 
there's nothing we could do to help him,'' and his brother died. They 
did let him go to the funeral in leg shackles and handcuffs.
  Quite a character this James Dennis, an absolute better double for 
Elvis than any of the professionals out there, only better looking. At 
28 he stole a million and a half from the State and put these phony 
checks back into Peck's campaign. Did the Justice Department clear 
Peck? They did not. The FEC fined Dennis $30,000 and warned Peck to 
return the money and not to do it again. The Justice Department, under 
Jimmy Carter, said they did not want any part of it. After all, the 
election was over.
  You got that straight, L.A. Times?
  Those are the facts, and I will flesh them out tomorrow. Here is the 
next lie.

                  [From the L.A. Times, Oct. 18, 1992]

       While making an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 1982, 
     Dornan accused Barry Goldwater Jr. of being involved in a 
     drug scandal on Capitol Hill and assisted law enforcement 
     officials in an investigation.

  Lie, lie, lie, lie. The story on Barry broke in September. Our race 
was over in June. I never knew anything about it. The younger Goldwater 
was never charged with any wrongdoing.
  Go look at the files of our ethics committee investigation here on 
that case in 1983 when I was not even in Congress.
  L.A. Times, it is a filthy, dirty lie that you said I investigated a 
friend and busted him for cocaine. I never even knew about it. I was 
with Barry in England when an Air Force colonel handed me a Newsweek 
magazine with the story in it in mid-September 1982. Barry and I had 
both been bested in the race by Pete Wilson.
  Lie No. 3; you listening, L.A. Times? Shelby Coffey? And Marty Baron? 
And Faye Fiore? You listening to any of these lies that your great 
paper has never corrected? Not great until you correct it.
  Mr. Speaker, please tell the L.A. Times to correct this stuff; thank 
you, sir.
  Final big lie, and there are a lot of little lies that I will go into 
next week:

                  [From the L.A. Times, Oct. 18, 1992]

       At a debate during the 1986 race, Dornan launched a furious 
     series of character attacks on his opponent, then-Assemblyman 
     Richard Robinson. He accused the Democrat of influence 
     peddling.

  These are the words of the L.A. Times itself from its own 
investigation, and they are putting their investigative words in my 
mouth years later.
  L.A. Times: Dornan accused the Democrat of influence peddling, 
bribery, extortion and dealing with teenage prostitutes in Sacramento, 
all of that in single quotes because it came from a front-page L.A. 
Times story that, you bet, I put in a brochure and mailed to every home 
in my district. Who wouldn't? An angry Robinson denied the charges but 
lost the election.
  Mr. Speaker, I had every right to take out a point of personal 
privilege and do an hour in the middle of the day. I chose to do it 
this way and not interfere with our legislative procedures. I will give 
you an autographed copy of this food chain, Mr. Speaker.

                          ____________________