Inside Politics

Media vs. Bush

“The press hated Richard Nixon — but he gave them a lot to work with. Today, there is a Watergate-like press feeding frenzy, and it is against the entire presidency of George W. Bush,” Stephen Spruiell writes in National Review’s special media issue, now on the newsstands.

“The present media environment may even be worse than Watergate — as former Nixon hands can attest,” Mr. Spruiell said.

“Chuck Colson says, ’I think the attack on Bush has been, if anything, more vicious. We started out with the press disliking Nixon and Nixon disliking the press. We inherited a very unpopular war. The attacks on Nixon were more understandable.’ He adds, ’It does seem to me now worse than it was then, because it’s so unprovoked.’

“According to Ray Price, ’The intensity of the media hostility to George W. Bush, as compared with that toward Richard Nixon, is all the more remarkable considering that Richard Nixon, when he took office, had long been the figure the Left loved most to hate — going back to his being the one to nail Alger Hiss.’

A Teflon president

“Media coverage of President Bush has been largely unflattering this campaign season, but there’s little indication the bad press has affected the country’s view of him,” the Boston Globe reports, citing a survey released yesterday.

“The findings may be more ominous for the Democratic challenger, John Kerry, who — at least until last week’s selection of John Edwards as his running mate — was largely missing from national campaign coverage and had left an ’indistinct’ impression on voters with one notable exception. The study found that the public says he is significantly more likely to ’flip-flop’ on the issues than Bush,” reporter Mark Jurkowitz said.

” ’Neither of these guys is in control of their message, but it’s probably not hurting Bush as much,’ said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. ’Bush has suffered a huge onslaught of [negative] news coverage, but it’s generally not having any impact on people’s perceptions. Meanwhile, Kerry has not made much of an impression because he’s been absent. … The news is probably, on balance, worse for Kerry.’

“The survey, produced by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in conjunction with the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, evaluated how major ’character themes’ about the candidates were portrayed in the news media as well as in political ads and on late-night comedy shows this year from March to June. …

Frist’s assignment

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will chair the Republican committee that writes the party’s platform, the Associated Press reports.

A Republican source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the wire service yesterday that the committee will meet in the coming weeks to draft the document. Delegates to the Republican National Convention in New York will be asked to approve the platform.

Over the years, there has been a tug of war between conservative and liberal Republicans over social policies outlined in the platform.

Mr. Frist, who was a Tennessee surgeon before joining the Senate in 1994, was a member of the platform-writing committee four years ago. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, who was then governor of Wisconsin, was the previous chairman.

Da senator?

Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka is mulling a run for the U.S. Senate seat for Illinois — one in which his considerable name recognition would be a powerful asset.

“I’m getting excited about it,” Mr. Ditka told a Chicago TV station yesterday.

The 65-year-old football Hall of Famer told WGN that he was just evaluating the idea, but added, “If you’re going to tell me I couldn’t be a better senator than Ted Kennedy — I could be.”

Republican Party officials have not formally approached Mr. Ditka about joining the race, for which they have no viable candidate after Jack Ryan quit the race late last month over a sex scandal.

U.N. observers

“A baker’s dozen of congressional Democrats, among them four New Yorkers, has petitioned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to dispatch international observers to Florida to oversee this year’s presidential balloting there,” the New York Post notes in an editorial.

“Signatories include Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan; Edolphus Towns of Brooklyn and Joseph Crowley of Queens,” the newspaper said.

“They should be ashamed of themselves.

“On one level, the letter represents naked race-baiting.

“The effort is led by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus — who justifies the invitation by asserting that ’African-Americans [and] women … have fought too hard and too long for us to allow our votes not to be counted.’

“It’s hard to argue with the sentiment — except that it’s totally irrelevant to the Florida election results of four years ago: There is no evidence that a single voter was disenfranchised in 2000 for any reason whatsoever.

“Not one.”

Lack of enthusiasm

Fewer than one in three (32 percent) blacks say they definitely believe that Sen. John Kerry is the best candidate to replace President Bush, according to a poll commissioned by Black America’s Political Action Committee.

The poll was conducted June 30 to July 4 among 800 black registered voters via phone by Wilson Research Strategies.

Twenty-one percent said they think that Mr. Kerry probably is the best candidate to replace Mr. Bush. Thirty-two percent said they would have preferred someone other than Mr. Kerry to replace Mr. Bush (18 percent said they probably would have preferred someone other than Mr. Kerry to replace Mr. Bush; 14 percent said they definitely would have preferred someone other than Mr. Kerry to replace Mr. Bush).

Flowers for a foe

On Friday, as the Senate began debating a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage from activist judges, the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual-rights advocacy group, took out an ad in Roll Call listing California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Gov. George E. Pataki, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

“Want to get a prime time spot at the Republican National Convention?” the ad asked. “Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment.”

The New York Times reports that Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, thinks the ad unwittingly made the point that conservatives are being overlooked for prime speaking slots at the convention. Mr. Perkins sent flowers to Cheryl Jacques, the executive director of the Human Right Campaign, with a note that said, “Dear Cheryl, per your ad in Roll Call — thank you.”

* Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.