[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 25898]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               THERE'S PLENTY FOR A FREE PRESS TO REPORT

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I recently authored a column that 
appeared in The State newspaper in Columbia. In it, I offer my thoughts 
on the media's shoddy coverage of the budget deficit and Social 
Security, U.S. trade policy, and the War in Iraq. I ask that it be 
printed in the Record.
  The article follows.

                    [From The State, Dec. 8, 2004.]

               There's Plenty for a Free Press to Report

                        (By Ernest F. Hollings)

       In the beginning, Thomas Jefferson observed that if he had 
     to choose ``between a government without newspapers or 
     newspapers without a government,'' he would choose the 
     latter. He envisioned the press would report the truth to the 
     American people, keeping the Congress honest. The government 
     wouldn't stay free long without a free press.
       Today the press--the media, now--has joined the political 
     fray, and the watchdog has become the attack dog. As a 
     result, Mark Twain's admonition has become the creed of both 
     Congress and the media: The truth is so precious a commodity 
     it should be used sparingly.
       Take Social Security. Both the Greenspan Commission and the 
     Budget Act forbade using Social Security monies for any 
     programs other than Social Security. But the government 
     continues to spend Social Security surpluses on everything 
     but Social Security. Then--presto!--the Congress and the 
     media contend that Social Security is broke and needs fixing. 
     Social Security is not broke; it's the government that's 
     broke.
       One fix is political: Privatize Social Security to get the 
     young vote. The other choice, raising the retirement age or 
     taxes, merely means more money for programs other than Social 
     Security. Moreover, Congress has made it a federal crime for 
     a private company to pay the company debt with its pension 
     fund. Yet the government constantly pays its debt with Social 
     Security and other pension funds. The Congress and the media 
     then cite a false deficit of $413 billion for fiscal year 
     2004 while the true deficit, according to the Congressional 
     Budget Office, is $593 billion.
       Take trade. The second bill to pass the Congress on July 4, 
     1789, was a tariff bill--protectionism. We financed the 
     government and built this economic giant, the United States, 
     with protectionism. But after World War II, we took up the 
     chant of ``free trade,'' treating trade as aid to defeat 
     communism with capitalism in the Cold War. Now after 50 years 
     of draining our industrial strength, it's time to rebuild. 
     Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that 
     Congress shall regulate foreign commerce. To open markets we 
     must control access to ours--practice protectionism. But the 
     media acts as if protecting the economy was unconstitutional.
       Worst of all is the media's refusal to report the truth on 
     Iraq. Saddam Hussein was no part of 9/11, had no weapons of 
     mass destruction and was no threat to our national security. 
     We invaded Iraq to implement a plan to democratize the 
     Mideast for Israel.
       In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser 
     submitted a plan to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 
     for a ``Clean Break'' from Arafat and to institute democracy 
     in the Mideast by bombing Lebanon, invading Syria and 
     replacing Saddam with a Hashemite ruler favorable to Israel. 
     Rejected by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Perle and company 
     joined Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter 
     Libby, Stephen Cambone et. al. in the ``Project for the New 
     American Century.''
       They pressured Congress in the 1990s for a change of regime 
     in Iraq, and when George W. Bush was elected president in 
     2000 ``Clean Break'' hit paydirt. Cheney became vice 
     president; Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith took the Nos. 1, 2 
     and 3 positions in defense; Libby headed Cheney's staff; 
     Cambone became Rumsfeld's right-hand man; and Perle, the 
     architect of ``Clean Break,'' was made chairman of the 
     Defense Policy Board.
       Upon winning the presidency and before his inauguration, 
     President Bush sought a briefing on Iraq from President 
     Clinton's secretary of Defense, William Cohen. After the 
     inauguration, Paul O'Neill, the new secretary of the 
     Treasury, tells of going to the first meeting of the Security 
     Council prepared to discuss the impending recession, but the 
     discussion was mostly on Iraq.
       When I served in World War II 60 years ago, we liberated 
     Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, but they have yet to opt for 
     democracy. We liberated Kuwait in the Gulf War, but it has 
     yet to opt for democracy. But by 9/11 the president, intent 
     on democratizing the Mideast, was asking Rumsfeld for a plan 
     to invade Iraq. Bush was so determined to invade he 
     disregarded his father's admonition in A World Transformed: 
     ``We should not march into Baghdad. . . . To occupy Iraq 
     would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab 
     world against us . . . condemning (young soldiers) to fight 
     in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war.''
       If the media had reported the truth to the American people, 
     we would have rejected ``Clean Break'' like Prime Minister 
     Netanyahu. If the media had kept Congress honest, we would 
     not be sending GIs to a war that most believe is a mistake 
     and the top command says we can't win.

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