[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.
____________________