[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 12, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1067-E1068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               PRINTING ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS AN AGENDA

                                 ______


                         HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 12, 1996

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, just when I thought that Wes Pruden could 
not be more incisive in his commentary, he out does himself again. I 
submit for the Record his column which was printed in the June 11 
Washington Times.

               Printing All the News That Fits an Agenda

                           (By Wesley Pruden)

       Bill Clinton and his boys on the bus are getting a hard 
     lesson about how times have changed.
       They can't any longer decide what news is fit to print--and 
     more to the point, they can't any longer prevent news they 
     think is not fit to print from getting printed anyway. This 
     will become even more important three months hence.
       The story about how the White House was building an enemies 
     list from secret FBI files first broke on Thursday, with the 
     revelation that Bernard Nussbaum, or someone using his name, 
     asked the FBI to supply its dossiers on Billy Dale seven 
     months after Mr. Dale, the head of the White House travel 
     office until Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered the president's 
     men to delivery his head, was beheaded.
       This was the main, or lead, story in this newspaper, 
     stretched across the top of Page One. The Washington Post put 
     it on Page 4, a decorous announcement to the reporters around 
     town, who imagine The Post to be the arbiter of what's news, 
     that it wasn't much of a story. The New York Times, couldn't 
     find any room at all for it on Thursday or Friday. But in 
     fairness to the New York Times, there was a crush of other 
     stuff of compelling interest to its constituency, mostly news 
     about how maybe you can, too, catch AIDS by taking unclean 
     foreign objects in your mouth. There was even a story about 
     how monkeys, if forced to by lab attendants, can catch AIDS 
     this way.
       The Associated Press, no doubt influenced by The Post and 
     the New York Times, at first paid grudging attention to the 
     story. But when the story grew, and it became clear that the 
     White House had more in mind than merely seeking dirt on 
     Billy Dale, the story sprouted legs.
       By Saturday morning it was in full gallop, with the 
     disclosure that the White House had obtained FBI dossiers on 
     339--or 341, the figure grew by the hour--Republicans. The 
     White House explanations grew from improbable to unlikely and 
     then to fanciful: It was of course ``an innocent mistake,'' 
     made because maybe they needed to know just who these people 
     were, men like James Baker, the former secretary of state; 
     Marlin Fitzwater, the press secretary for both President 
     Reagan and President Bush; and Tony Blankley, the press 
     secretary for Newt Gingrich. They might want to offer them 
     jobs. Mr. Clinton is determined to keep the unemployment rate 
     down, and you never know when these guys might be out of 
     work.
       By now the story was getting out of hand. The silence of 
     the lambs at the New York Times and the reticence of the 
     wolves at The Post was supposed to tell everyone that this 
     was not news fit to print, but some people (like us) never 
     seem to get the word. The New York times put it plain enough 
     for everyone but people like us on Saturday: ``Senior White 
     House officials said tonight that they have discovered new 
     facts about a White House request to the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation for information about a fired employee, showing 
     that the request was an innocent mistake.'' (Emphasis mine.) 
     Everybody could now go back to sleep, and send your apologies 
     to Bill and Hillary.
       Too bad for Mr. Clinton and his pals, but now the story was 
     racing on its little baby legs to front pages across the 
     country, and by Sunday morning the TV talk shows couldn't get 
     enough of it. Even Ann Lewis, the deputy director of the 
     Clinton re-election campaign, in a fit of uncontrolled 
     candor, likened the Clinton list to the enemies list compiled 
     for Richard Nixon.
       ``That's the point we've been trying to make,'' said Tony 
     Blankley.
       ``I was trying to be funny,'' replied Miss Lewis, frostily. 
     (The resident wit, she's famous for cracking everybody up at 
     the White House.)
       ``Oh,'' said Mr. Blankley. Being one of nature's gentlemen, 
     he obliged with a laugh.
       President Clinton, no doubt irritated that his pals had not 
     contained the story, attempted a diversion on the weekend 
     with his radio speech decrying--as he should have, but in a 
     less blatantly political way--the torching of black churches 
     in the South. He told reporters that the torchings 
     particularly upset him because when he was just a little 
     shaver in Hot Springs he was saddened by the smoking ruins of 
     black churches in Arkansas.

[[Page E1068]]

       This was too much for the home folks, black and white. None 
     of them remembered a black church being torched, ever. Well, 
     never mind. The story sounded good at the time, and since he 
     had long since shredded the good name of his native state, 
     what difference could it make?
       His hometown paper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, called 
     him on it the next day, quoting skepticism and outrage from 
     the state historian and a collection of knowledgeable black 
     ministers and NAACP officials. Washington read about it in 
     the pages of this newspaper, which, like his hometown paper, 
     knows him best. The news didn't fit in certain other famous 
     places.

                          ____________________