"Peace march" whitewash

[MORTARDUDE]

> 1) "Peace march" whitewash. Though Saturday's anti-war with Iraq "peace" march in Washington, DC was organized by a far-left group, had a bunch of zany leftist outfits as sponsors, featured
some far out rhetoric from the stage which belied the notion that
the organizers simply want a peaceful solution, and ended with a
march to the Washington Navy Yard to demand access to U.S.
"weapons of mass destruction," as if the U.S. and Iraqi possession
of them is equivalent, major media outlets, both print and
broadcast, ignored such realities which might have reduced empathy
for the cause.

(This item looks at the networks. See item #3 below for
newspaper coverage.)

Instead, the networks painted participants as sympathetically
as possible, trying to make them identifiable to viewers as people
next door, stressing how they were made up of "grandparents,"
"honor students," "teachers," "businessmen," "military veterans,"
"soccer moms" and "Republicans." Plus, CNN really turned on the
syrup by focusing on an elderly a Nazi survivor who caught "a ride
with a busload of young people, all to stop another war, to stop
more suffering."

Hardly a word from the stage got aired as the networks
preferred to focus on the most normal looking people in the crowd.
On stage, Ramsey Clark demanded Bush be impeached and one speaker
even described convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal as "a
political prisoner."

"Braving frigid temperatures," ABC's Lisa Sylvester proclaimed
on Saturday's World News Tonight, "they traveled across the
country -- black and white, Democrat and Republican, young and
old." In a second January 18 story, ABC News reporter Geoff
Morrell followed the trip to DC by a doctor and his "honor
student" daughter: "So they rode a bus all night from Asheville,
North Carolina. On board were businessmen, soccer moms and
military veterans -- all members of the same church."

The night before, despite the fact polls show overwhelming
public support for President Bush's policy, Peter Jennings
insisted that "the nation, as we all know, is somewhat divided and
confused about attacking Iraq, you see it in almost every poll."
That led into a piece by Bill Blakemore previewing the next day's
protest: "Never mind the cold, they're going to protest. Democrats
and Republicans. Many middle-aged. From all walks of life."

Back to Saturday, the day of the protest rally, at just past
3pm EST on MSNBC reporter Jeannie Ohm championed live from
Washington's mall how "a growing number of people are speaking out
against a war with Iraq: Students, grandparents, businessmen,
politicians, teachers, actors and activists, standing shoulder to
shoulder in protest."

The Web site for the rally organizer, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop
War & End Racism), clearly proclaimed the groups' very radical
agenda to eliminate U.S. defenses and claim that the U.S. under
Bush poses the greatest danger to the world, but none of that
anti-American vitriol was conveyed in any television network story
I saw. See item #2 below for the spiked agenda of those behind the
rallies.

Instead, viewers heard about the opposition to Bush's policy
by "honor students," "Republicans," "soccer moms" etc. Details:

-- MSNBC, 3pm EST hour on Saturday. After John Elliott in San
Francisco talked with Tom Rainey, creator of a Web site named
BushonCrack.com, the network went live to Jeannie Ohm in
Washington, DC:
"Organizers were expecting perhaps a hundred thousand
protesters out here. It's really hard to say what the final tally
will be, but it's clear there was a large number of people who
took a stand against war."
Man screaming on stage: "No War on Iraq! End the sanctions
now!"
Ohm: "They came from different parts of the country, but all
armed with the same message."
Man in crowd: "The message is that the United States, the
people of the United States are not ready to go to war."
Woman in crowd: "Let's take care of our schools, let's take
care of health care, let's take care of the issues in this
country."
Ohm: "As the military buildup continues in the Persian Gulf, a
growing number of people are speaking out against a war with Iraq:
Students, grandparents, businessmen, politicians, teachers, actors
and activists, standing shoulder to shoulder in protest."
Jesse Jackson on stage: "We choose brains over bombs."


-- CNN, noon EST hour on Saturday: Kathleen Koch declared live
from Washington's Mall that "perhaps some of the people in the
crowd, some of the Americans who have come from great distances
who have the most poignant stories."

Koch went to a pre-taped piece: "A Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
home where peace protesters gather waiting to head to Washington.
But only one truly understands war's grim realities."
Ava Cutler: "And I'm not afraid to speak out, because this is
why I came to this country, to speak my mind if I have to."
Koch: "Seventy-six-year-old Ava Cutler was a Jewish teenager
in Budapest, Hungary when her country was invaded by Nazi Germany
in 1944."
Cutler: "We're being besieged day by day, night by night,
constantly we were being bombarded. There are no winners in wars,
there are only losers, and we have to find a different way of how
to deal with differences. We've had all the differences with
Russia, didn't we? OK, did we go and attack Russia? No."
Koch: "Local reporters quiz Cutler about whether Saddam
Hussein, like Hitler, is a danger to the world."
Cutler: "He was a threat to Kuwait, then we went to help
Kuwait. That was legitimate. What is the reason now?"
Koch: "Cutler isn't a member of any protest group. She decided
to come on her own, catch a ride with a busload of young people,
all to stop another war, to stop more suffering."
Cutler: "I'm not fighting for myself anymore. I'm fighting for
all the other people who have to face the same thing that I have
had to go through, possibly, or worse."

Back on live, Koch did at least note the march to demand the
U.S. disarm: "Now, it is because of protesters like Ava that the
speakers up on stage are being encouraged to keep their remarks to
two minutes or less today, because it is just simply so very, very
cold. Now, in about an hour, everyone will start heading up to
Capitol Hill. They're going to take the march, take the rally to
the U.S. Navy Yard, where what organizers are calling a people's
weapons inspection team will demand to inspect U.S. weapons of
mass destruction. Organizers promised that there, as here, the
protest will remain peaceful."


-- ABC's World News Tonight/Saturday. Fill-in anchor Terry
Moran trumpeted at the top of the January 18 show: "It was a day
of protest across the nation. On the West Coast and in Washington,
DC demonstrators marched in vast numbers in the name of peace in
the nation's biggest one day expression of opposition to U.S. war
plans in Iraq. The protests come as tens of thousands of U.S.
troops continue shipping out to the Gulf."

Lisa Sylvester opened her story with video of protesters
holding a sign reading "Collateral Damage Means Babies" as they
chanted: "One, two, three we don't want your corporate war."
Sylvester then asserted: "They came to march against what they
call the march toward war."
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, protest organizer, in crowd: "This is
a war for conquest and for empire. This is a war of aggression and
it doesn't have to happen."
Sylvester portrayed the protesters as just average Americans:
"Braving frigid temperatures, they traveled across the country --
black and white, Democrat and Republican, young and old. Their
worries are varied."
Saladin Muhammed, anti-war demonstrator, in the crowd: "There
would be a disproportionate number of people of color that would
have to engage in this war."
Rev. John Dear, Fellowship of Reconciliation, on stage:
"Bombing Iraq will only protect the oil companies, sow the seeds
of further terrorism and massacre hundreds of thousands of
people."
Sylvester: "The protesters say there is no evidence justifying
a war with Iraq and say the government needs to hear their views."
Jessica Lange, on stage: "It is an immoral war that they are
beginning and we must not be silenced. We have to be able to stand
up and say no."
Sylvester: "Protesters are looking to attract support for
their cause before January 27th, the day weapons inspectors are
expected to report their first major findings to the United
Nations. Demonstrators fear the Bush administration will use that
deadline as a jump off point for war. Charley Richardson and his
wife worry about their son, a Marine in the Persian Gulf."
Charley Richardson: "Every morning when we wake up we think
about him, we think about where he is, we think about how much we
love him."
Sylvester gave a sentence to the other side: "Near the Vietnam
War memorial those who favor war with Iraq held their own rally."
Brian Brosnan, counter demonstrator: "Saddam Hussein has
weapons of mass destruction and it's time to disarm him before
another 9-11 thing happens."
Sylvester concluded: "But today's anti-war demonstrators
believe it is not Saddam Hussein who is the aggressor in this
case, it is the United States."

Moran then pointed out how the protesters are not in the
majority: "Now the huge demonstrations represent only one side of
what has become a lively and nuanced public debate about war. In
general, polls show strong public support for military action
against Iraq. A recent ABC News/Washington Post survey found 62
percent of Americans support action to depose Saddam Hussein, but
that's with international support. Only 42 percent of Americans
support a war if the U.S. has to go it alone."

Next, reporter Geoff Morrell followed a North Carolina man and
his teenage daughter, the Blakes, "who traveled all night" to the
DC protest. "She's an honor student, he's a medical doctor,"
Morrell explained, who "fear President Bush is rushing to war with
Iraq," so "they rode a bus all night from Asheville, North
Carolina. On board were businessmen, soccer moms and military
veterans -- all members of the same church."

Morrell beefed up Dr. Blake's credentials: "Dan Blake
supported the 1991 Gulf War, but says this President hasn't
convinced him Saddam Hussein is a threat to the U.S. or its
allies."
Blake: "I would like to see a smoking gun that makes me think
well, my family, my country, my community is in danger now."
Morrell contended Blake is very typical: "In that sense, Blake
is like most Americans who say they will support military action
if the President provides proof Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction."

Over a shot of a protester holding a "No Blood for Oil" sign,
Morrell concluded: "The Blakes doubt this protest, as big as it
was, will slow the march to war. But they say it certainly proves
there is a vocal minority opposed to it."


-- World News Tonight, Friday, January 17. Peter Jennings
insisted: "The nation, as we all know, is somewhat divided and
confused about attacking Iraq, you see it in almost every poll. In
cities across the country today, many people who are opposed to
war began to head for Washington. Here is ABC's Bill Blakemore."

Over video of a sign proclaiming "Drop Bush Not Bombs,"
Blakemore began his story from New York: "Never mind the cold,
they're going to protest. Democrats and Republicans. Many
middle-aged. From all walks of life. And some students. Nancy and
Steve Boyda are Republicans, he's a Vietnam veteran."
Steve Boyda, Vietnam Veteran, on bus: "As an American, as a
voter, as a participant on this side of the fence, I want to hold
our leaders accountable to showing us why we make these kinds of
decisions."
Blakemore: "There's a variety of worries.
Woman on bus: "These people have no control over what their
government does and we're about to go kill them and there is
nothing they can do about it."
Another woman: "We want to say, we love our country very
dearly, we love it so much, that we don't want our country to make
a horrible mistake."
Blakemore: "Many will represent the feelings of others back
home."
Woman at Chicago City Council meeting: "Who's gonna die?"
Blakemore championed a liberal government agency doing
something liberal as if that's newsworthy: "Chicago City Council
voted last night against rushing to war with Iraq 46-1. Forty
other city councils passed resolutions citing the loss of U.S. and
Iraqi lives or the money a war would cost. The organizers of the
march charged today that President Bush is lying about reasons for
war to cover oil interests."
Man at press conference: "This is a war for big oil."
Blakemore: "News polls indicate that if weapons of mass
destruction are found, three-quarters of Americans support a war.
But with no evidence, or heavy casualties, or going to war alone,
support drops to less than half."
Ann Florini, Brookings Institution: "This is not a group of
people who are opposed to all war at all costs. In fact, there is
a number of labor unions involved who supported the Vietnam War,
who supported the earlier Gulf War. But they have real questions
about this one."
Blakemore concluded: "Traveling from every state, these people
are what one analyst calls a large 'reservoir of unease.'"



> 2) What the media whitewashed. The Web site for the rally
organizer, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) clearly
proclaimed the group's very radical agenda to eliminate U.S.
defenses:
"Jan. 18 NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON to demand:
NO WAR AGAINST IRAQ
ELIMINATE U.S. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION"

The ANSWER Web site: http://www.internationalanswer.org/

Amongst those listed as part of the coalition:
Ramsey Clark
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
New York City Labor Against the War
San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO)
Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
Black Voices for Peace
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Global Exchange
Jessica Lange
Janeane Garofalo
Michael Moore

That list is posted at:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/c...endorsers.html

Another page outlined ANSWER's case against "Bush's criminal
war" for "oil," denounced "the nuclear threat posed by the United
States" and demanded "the immediate elimination of U.S. weapons of
mass destruction" as "a people's inspection team will call for
unfettered access and a full declaration of U.S. non-conventional
weapons systems" since the "trigger-happy George W. Bush," not
Hussein, is the real threat by which the world is now "menaced."
An excerpt:

When Congress rejects the will of the people, the people must act
themselves. Congress has rubber-stamped Bush's criminal war that
seeks to conquer the oil, land and resources of the Middle
East....

This week Bush signed into law Congress's new defense budget that
transfers a billion dollars a day from the people into the hands
of the military-industrial complex....

The world is being menaced by Weapons of Mass Destruction in the
hands of a government that is openly threatening and planning to
use nuclear weapons in preemptive wars of aggression against
others, including non-nuclear countries. While all eyes are
focused on the purported threat coming from Iraq, the Bush
Administration has sharply reorganized U.S. military doctrine and
strategy as it prepares to actually use Weapons of Mass
Destruction in coming conflicts as a matter of declared policy.

It is for this reason that on January 18, people across the United
States will converge at the West side of the Capitol Building in
Washington DC and march in a mass demonstration to the Washington
Navy Yard -- a massive military installation located in a working
class neighborhood in Southeast Washington DC that parks warships
on the Anacostia River. We will demand the immediate elimination
of US weapons of mass destruction and a people's inspection team
will call for unfettered access and a full declaration of U.S.
non-conventional weapons systems.

Bush seeks to have world attention focused on the disarmament of
Iraq as the preeminent threat to world peace, while the real
threat of nuclear war and the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
arises within the U.S. Administration....The nuclear threat posed
by the United States is neither rhetoric nor speculation, it is
the now announced doctrine and strategy of the Bush White House.
It represents the ushering in of a new era of unrestrained and
unprovoked catastrophic violence....

A.N.S.W.E.R. believes that all Weapons of Mass Destruction should
be banished from the planet. But this is impossible until the
biggest arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction -- the one at the
disposal of trigger-happy George W. Bush and Co. -- is eliminated.
Any other call for disarmament will not be viewed as legitimate by
the rest of the world....

It would be cowardly and foolish to turn our attention away from
the open threats and plans to use Weapons of Mass Destruction that
are issuing from the White House, not Iraq, and are embodied in
the new Bush military doctrine.

We must stop the Bush Administration from threatening and killing
the people of the world who are not our enemy.

END of Excerpt

The full rant/statement is online at:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/c...18endorse.html



> 3) Newspaper whitewash too/Too embarrassed to report what
was said from the stage?

A 1,500-word article in Sunday's Washington Post contained a
single nine word quote from an official speaker while a 1,000-word
New York Times article failed quote a syllable from the DC stage,
but offered statement made by Martin Sheen in San Francisco.

From my casual watching of only a part of the program on C-
SPAN I know there was plenty of wacky far-left stuff said from the
stage including advocacy of all sorts of Muslim causes,
Palestinian liberation and, as noted in #1 above, characterizing a
convicted murderer of a police officer as "a political prisoner."

A story in Sunday's Washington Times offered a hint of what
the Washington Post and New York Times blacked out. Reporters
Denise Barnes and H.J. Brier relayed:
"Ramsey Clark, U.S. attorney general during the Johnson
administration, called for Mr. Bush's impeachment, evoking cheers
from the throng.
"Mr. Clark noted the U.S. Constitution's impeachment criteria
-- 'treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors' --
then laid out his case against Mr. Bush in a stream of rhetorical
questions.
"'Has he assumed the power to wage aggressive war by himself?
Is that an impeachable offense? Has he threatened to use nuclear
weapons? Is that an impeachable offense?' he said, as the crowd
yelled 'yes' after each question. 'Then let's impeach him.'
"Mr. Clark and other rally organizers said a Web site will be
set up to enlist support for Mr. Bush's impeachment."

But the Post didn't mention any of that. "Thousands Oppose a
Rush to War," announced the headline over the lead story in
Sunday's Washington Post. The inspirational subhead: "Chill
Doesn't Cool Fury Over U.S. Stand on Iraq." But in the 1,500-word
story reporters Manny Fernandez and Justin Blum quoted a mere nine
words uttered from the stage, an innocuous-sounding comment from
Jesse Jackson: "'The world is cold, but our hearts are warm,'
Jesse Jackson told the crowd to applause."

That was it, the totality of what Post readers learned about
what the officially sanctioned speakers had to say as the
reporters focused on what people in the crowd told them.

Fernandez and Blum began their glowing article: "Tens of
thousands of antiwar demonstrators converged on Washington
yesterday, making a thunderous presence in the bitter cold and
assembling in the shadow of the Capitol dome to oppose a U.S.
military strike against Iraq." For the entire story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jan18.html

A Post story datelined San Francisco carried the upbeat
headline: "Antiwar Sentiment Galvanizes Thousands." The agreeable
subhead: "Groups See Numbers Rise as They Reach Out to Supporters
Via Internet, E-Mail"

Reporter Evelyn Nieves admired the diversity of those who
supported the marches: "The rallies organized by A.N.S.W.E.R. here
and in Washington, D.C., were promoted through Internet networks.
Demonstrating just how effective the Internet has become in
expanding and diversifying the antiwar movement since the last big
rallies in October, contingents carrying banners in San Francisco
included 'Labor Against War,' 'Environmentalists Against the War'
and 'Students Against the War' -- national groups that didn't
formally exist two months ago."

"National groups" or really just three people with signs they
painted up?

Nieves admiringly observed: "The marchers on a day reminiscent
of late spring represented a cross-section of the nation, from
World War II to Gulf War veterans, baby boomers and their
children, teenagers and many older citizens. The Green Party
brought a contingent, as did the American Indian Movement and many
other groups."

That's a cross-section to the Post: radical environmentalists
to radical Indian activists!

For the January 19 Nieves article in full:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jan18.html

Another Post story looked at various crowd estimates, from the
probably too conservative 30,000 suggested by the U.S. Capitol
Police, to the ludicrous claim of 500,000 forwarded by event
organizers. (On Sunday's This Week on ABC George Stephanopoulos
cited the range of "50,000 to 500,000.") For the Post story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jan18.html

In Sunday's thousand-word New York Times story reporter
Lynette Clemetson didn't find space for any quote from a DC
protest rally speaker, but did relay this from the San Francisco
event: "'You all know what I do for work, this is what I do for a
living,' said Mr. Sheen, who plays the President on the television
show The West Wing. 'If the people lead, the leaders will
follow.'"

Clemetson described ANSWER as simply an "activist" group:
"Both marches were sponsored by the activist group International
Answer, after months of intense local organizing following a
similar large demonstration in the capital last October."

She offered more innocuous labeling: "Among the groups in
attendance were the Gray Panthers, a social advocacy group; Code
Pink, a women's group; Black Voices for Peace, an African-American
group; and the Green Party, representing environmentalists."

For the Times story in its entirety:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/national/19PROT.html



> 4) To illustrate worldwide opposition to President Bush's
Iraq policy, ABC anchor Terry Moran on Saturday night cited how
"thousands of demonstrators blocked traffic as they marched in
Syria's capital, Damascus." But, as an AP dispatch noted, those
marchers were hardly advocating peace since "some people shouted,
'Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv,' a refrain from the 1991
Persian Gulf War."

Following the stories recited in item #1 above, on ABC's World
News Tonight/Saturday, Moran intoned from the anchor desk:
"The scene was similar on the West Coast where anti-war
protesters marched in San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people
packed the city's streets and, as in Washington, they called for
the U.S. to resolve the crisis in Iraq peacefully. And there were
anti-war demonstrations in dozens of cities around the world as
well. Thousands of demonstrators blocked traffic as they marched
in Syria's capital, Damascus. In Tokyo, the scene was similar...."

However, an AP story in Sunday's Washington Post pointed out:
"Not all protesters were pushing for peace: In the Syrian capital,
Damascus, some people shouted, 'Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel
Aviv,' a refrain from the 1991 Persian Gulf War."



> 5) ABC News President David Westin, who maintained he flies
the flag "on the Fourth of July, I put one on the antenna of my
car and drive through the main street of my hometown for the
parade," on Friday's Nightline/Viewpoint special defended his ban
on any ABC News personnel wearing a flag lapel pin as based on the
"patriotic duty" of journalists "to try to be independent and
objective and present the facts to the American people."

Keep trying.

Near the end of the 90-minute January 17 Viewpoint from the
National Defense University, "Patriotism, Journalism and War,"
host Ted Koppel raised how panelists from the military were
wearing a flag pin as was panelist Tony Snow of Fox News, but not
CBS News reporter David Martin or Westin.

Martin defended his decision: "I wouldn't wear it because it
looks too much like part of a uniform. I mean, the Vice President
wears one. And you just look a little too much like an
administration 'suit' when you're up there on television. If I
wore one, I wouldn't do anything differently. It's strictly an
appearance factor. The day we started bombing in Afghanistan,
October 7th, when I left home that morning, I put an American flag
up outside my house. Had no problem with that, a personal show of
patriotism. But I wouldn't wear one in public appearing on
television."

Koppel soon fretted to Snow about how those who wear one make
him look bad: "I'll tell you the one thing that troubles me about
it, is that because you wear it on the air, David [Martin] and
David [Westin] and I and my colleagues who choose not to wear it
on the air, are in some eyes then regarded as less patriotic. I
understand, not your problem."
Snow: "I look on that as bull. For anybody to draw assumptions
about your patriotism about whether you wear a lapel pin or not,
to me is nuts."
Koppel: "It's surprising how people make their judgments."

Westin noted that "after 9/11, the question came up and we, as
a matter of policy at ABC News, tell our people on the air, you
shall not wear an American flag or any other symbol on the air."
His explanation for the policy:
"I think our patriotic duty as journalists in the United
States is to try to be independent and objective and present the
facts to the American people and let them decide all the important
things. Now, I respect Tony's right to wear one. I respect any
other news organization taking a different tack, but for me, part
of the symbolism of the fact that what we're doing in our
constitutional democracy, what we're trying to do to help quote,
'the cause of the country overall,' is to be objective and give
just the straight facts to the American people and let them decide
what they want to do about it."

A nice goal.


> A lot I didn't get to today, including a fun exchange on
FNC's After Hours with Cal Thomas. When Lesley Stahl denied
there's any liberal bias and claimed the networks are packed with
conservatives, Thomas asked her to name a conservative at CBS
News. She couldn't.

-- Brent Baker


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