Presswatch/The Metzenbaum Difference
Barnes, Fred
PRESSWATCH THE METZENBAUM DIFFERENCE A few months ago, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina was getting ready to speak to several hundred folks at a fund-raising breakfast when he learned...
...It's not gales of praise they want, not transparent stuff like "that article you did on school busing was the best thing on the subject of race since Uncle Tom's Cabin...
...these are the two sins that assure him of unacceptability...
...He had few press friends to help protect him...
...He insisted that the reporter from the Raleigh News & Observer, a newspaper that regularly excoriates him, be invited in...
...There often isn't, but Fred Barnes is National Political Reporter for the Baltimore Sun...
...You shouldn't have to ask...
...Both said they were seeking to protect the little guy, the consumer, the average taxpayer...
...Simpson made the best list, Moynihan the worst, and why this happened isn't hard to understand...
...But a related issue did strike the fancy of the press, namely the alleged, dastardly leaking of classified information about the CIA by Helms the whistleblower...
...10022 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1984 25 ponent's abysmal lack of them, that he got gentler, less negative coverage...
...Bloomington, Indiana b y Alonzo L. Hamby ters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1950-1959...
...That medium is magazines...
...Helms and Metzenbaum aren't the only two similar fellows--similar in tactics and distance from the political center--who get disparate coverage...
...FREE ENTERPRISE WORKS...
...All had remained his personal property until his death and the settlement of his estate...
...Old Jesse's mellowing as he cranks up to run for a third Senate term, some of the attendees must have thought...
...he is an extraordinarily witty man, perhaps the funniest guy in Congress next to Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona...
...The New York Times didn't mention the case until Metzenbaum was shamed into returning the money...
...In fact, he's become so unacceptable that the issues he touches are no longer measured on their merits by the press but are reflexively judged to be irrelevant, kooky, or simply low-down...
...this time, as I say, his case was especially plausible...
...This new material--as opposed to the enormous body of formal letters, speech drafts, and public opinion mail that heretofore had made up the "Truman Papers"--was frank and revealing...
...Both are senior White House aides, both are conservatives, both are bent on getting President Reagan reelected in 1984...
...He is" the author of Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism and is currently working on a biography of Harry Truman...
...He had friends in the press to fall back on...
...Happily, there's one medium that people are looking at more than ever...
...as a wrinkled, shriveled old man in his late eighties posing for the artist Thomas Hart Benton...
...No need to guess who gets the nifty, adoring coverage and who doesn't...
...Meese is an ideological conservative who is of little help to reporters...
...Dole, along with Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, is the Republican party's chief advocate in Congress of raising taxes...
...So powerful is Helms's ability to tar an issue, at least as far as the press is concerned, that CIA intervention in the election didn't catch on with the press even after the Reagan Administration admitted that $1 million was pumped to Duarte's Christian Democratic party and $400,000 to another non-rightist candidate...
...the typewritten material had been handled and jealously guarded by his long-time confidential secretary...
...That, not his legislative record, catapulted him into the top ten...
...So much for the enthusiasm of the press for whistleblowers...
...Part of it, including some lengthy personal musings, was in Truman's own hand...
...What counts with them is a kind word or fleeting comment that indicates their stories are read and they are taken oh-so-seriously as major players in whatever activity they're covering...
...57 ~, Lex,ngmn A'.,'nue...
...The accompanying text is thin, apparently hastily written, and most effective when Truman addresses the reader directly via a well-chosen quotation...
...But Baker gets a terrific press, Meese the opposite...
...How could there be anything to the argument that the new tax is harmful if it's Helms who is making the case...
...He doesn't fawn and he's not flexible in his conservatism...
...And in the eyes of reporters, Helms has another flaw, besides being disrespectful: He's not a pragmatic conservative but an ideological one...
...Dole would never do that...
...In fact, a recent survey points out that readership is strongest in homes with 36-channel cable...
...Martin Tolchin of the New York Times wrote that Helms "found himself in the center of a controversy among his Senate c o l l e a g u e s . . , as he vehemently denied that he had disclosed information from the Senate intelligence committee...
...And so is pragmatic conservatism, which is what seems to motivate Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming...
...The biggest magazine readers are the people who watch network the least...
...Viking, $25.00...
...Metzenbaum wasn't...
...But he quickly rid them of that foolish notion...
...So it's small wonder Helms gets a bad press...
...Imagine the press reaction if Helms were to come forth with an explanation such as that...
...What would get big play, however, is a hint of scandal involving Helms...
...Kemp is the chief proponent of reducing taxes...
...My own favorites included Harry as a 12-year-old looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy...
...Magazine Publishers t~ssociation MAGAZINES REACH PEOPLE YOU CAN'T GET THROUGH ORDINARY CHANNELS...
...And so on...
...He's long-winded and pedantic...
...Or what about Senator Robert Dole of Kansas and Congressman Jack Kemp of New York...
...That is fine, however...
...Moreover, he talks incessantly about what many reporters have come to believe is the engine of the economy, the deficit...
...The interesting counterpoint to Helms in press ~overage is Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, who gets along with reporters only slightly better than Helms does and is also not noted for his pragmatism...
...Ass*KtatLon...
...D Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...Well, a revelation exactly as described was made last May about Metzenbaum...
...Martin Luther King Day...
...skulduggery is enough to incite their ire...
...Moynihan, on the other hand, is difficult for reporters to deal with...
...Another intriguing case is that of Alan Simpson and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York...
...In the Journal piece, it was noted that Senate conflict-ofinterest rules instruct employees of the Senate not to "practice a profession for compensation to any extent during regular office hours...
...Pay more attention to magazines...
...Helms's charges [of CIA interferencel were met with general indifference," TRB w r o t e : The only place they got serious ink was The Washington Times, a right-wing paper published by the Moonies . . . . The established media paid little attention, and devoted scant investigative energy to checking out whether there was anything in what Helms was saying...
...He got the $250,000 for steering a buyer 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1984 to a political friend who owned the Hay Adams Hotel in Washington across Lafayette Park from the White House...
...So is pragmatic liberalism of, say, the variety practiced by Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, a Democrat...
...As that episode suggests, Helms is not inclined to court reporters or their editors, a tactic which, for all you might read about how hard-boiled and cynical journalists are, usually works...
...Two books followed quickly: the immensely successful Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman and the less-noticed The Autobiography of Harry S. Truman, 2 a collection of Truman's reminiscences about his life and career...
...Helms doesn't offer much of that...
...the hotel was sold within 24 hours after Metzenbaum brought the two together...
...An account of all this appeared on the back page of the Wall Street Journal, but practically nowhere else outside Ohio...
...Magazine readership is even stronger in cable than in noncable homes...
...he's for restoration of a gold standard...
...Ordinarily the slightest hint of C.I.A...
...Helms, true to his convictions, proceeded to tell the crowd and the reporter that, nothing personal, but " y o u r newspaper is a suck-egg mule...
...How do we know this...
...Fighting a five-cent boost in the gasoline tax...
...Asked recently if reporters are biased against him, Helms said, " I think a great many reporters are biased against conservatism and a free enterprise system, except for themselves...
...After the death of Mrs...
...And it's proving very costly for the networks...
...Households across America are paying to watch cable...
...This time no one but right-wing nuts seem to care...
...The pictures are another matter...
...It is inevitable that in any collection this large, some will be familiar, but the most devoted Truman aficionado is likely to be surprised and delighted by others...
...Writing in the New Republic recently, TRB (a.k.a...
...Metzenbaum's liberalism is not only knee-jerk but unswerving...
...Whether reporters will give more weight to ideology than amicability (or lack of it) in judging a political figure is frequently uncertain...
...Ferrell found himself captivated by the "good stuff" so long denied historians...
...5.95 paper...
...Michael Kinsley) fastened on the latest instance in which a legitimate issue was treated as frivolous by the press and thus ignored merely because Helms had raised it...
...2Colorado Associated University Press, 1980...
...The suggestion was irrefutably true, but your average reporter didn't see it that way...
...How often have stories like that appeared about Helms, praising him for trying to keep taxes low and cut federal spending...
...Metzenbaum explained that his brief part in the hotel sale occurred on a "Wednesday evening...
...Little, Brown, $13.50...
...Well, compare the press coverage of Helms's 1982 filibuster against the five-cent hike in the gasoline tax with Metzenbaum's filibuster against reducing the windfall profits tax on oil in 1981...
...King's alleged ties to Communists or else why would Helms be making the charge...
...Simpson is as wellliked by reporters as anyone in the Senate...
...as a tousle-haired bank clerk at 18...
...Ferrell pounced on them like a jungle cat with a sure instinct for his prey...
...So is middle-of-th~-roadism, which is followed by Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, another Democrat...
...The Wall Street Journal rightly accused journalists and liberal politicians of a double standard...
...Helms was pilloried...
...Add the fact that half the country is expected to have 36 channels before long, and you realize how many people won't be watching network, or your advertising...
...Ne'a "r~rk...
...There Is opportun, ity in erlca...
...He seized the opportunity to make himself the editor of Harry Truman's own account of his life...
...Truman, the library came into possession of some 1,200 letters from her husband that she had saved over a period of half a century...
...And Jimmy Carter wound up losing the presidency...
...In a matter of months, he produced another successful book, Dear Bess: The Let'Harper & Row, 1980...
...as a senator in his fifties looking at the business end of what one hopes was an unloaded six-shooter wielded by John Nance Garner...
...Reporters crave flattery of a particular sort...
...But when Meese's nomination for Attorney General got into trouble, unfavorable stories proliferated...
...as a sixtyish President on vacation at Key West, stripped to the waist and proudly displaying a big fish that didn't get away...
...It wouldn't be just disbelief but hostility...
...Besides, at the time of the article, he was probably the nation's most well-known neoconservative, a title he has since shed...
...Reporters prefer short, punchy answers to their questions...
...A recent study showed that the primetime viewing audience plummeted to 56% in homes with 36-channel cable...
...He made Alonzo L. Hamby teaches history at Ohio University...
...Kemp insists that tax rates and monetary policy are the engines of the economy and that deficits result when taxes are too high and monetary policy wrongheaded...
...W.W...
...PRESSWATCH THE METZENBAUM DIFFERENCE A few months ago, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina was getting ready to speak to several hundred folks at a fund-raising breakfast when he learned that the press had been barred...
...Four years later, lightning struck again...
...Norton, $19.95...
...EMINENTOES ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF HARRY TRUMAN F i v e years ago, Robert H. Ferrell, an eminent diplomatic historian at Indiana University, happened to be in the Kansas City area on business...
...O IO83 Maga:me Pubhsher...
...A ~ l . l r r l c CA#JINOAN @p 'l'aw IIL~I H~STON _9 AUSTIN I a side visit to the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., hoping to find a few documents on Harry Truman's army service for a book he was preparing on World War I. He discovered that the library had over the past few years acquired and made available Truman's private correspondence and diaries...
...Kemp sometimes lectures reporters on economics, too, which they don't like...
...In the Washington Post, columnist Mary McGrory scolded the Senate for being by Fred Barnes pusillanimous in failing to rebuke Helms publicly, and expressed no dismay about the CIA's role in the Salvadoran election...
...as a would-be energy tycoon at 32 standing in front of an oil derrick...
...What if it were revealed that for a bit of work in June 1983 the Senator had picked up a $250,000 finder's fee...
...When the Debategate scandal came along, scarcely a negative story about Baker appeared...
...So it wasn't surprising that the liberal got tougher treatment by the press...
...It has to be a smear about Dr...
...3 Along the way, Ferrell also found time to write HaZy S. Truman and the Modern Presidency," a slim volume aimed primarily at the college classroom market...
...In one recent case, an ideological conservative's getting-along skills were so impressive, especially in contrast to his liberal op60 MILLION PEOPLE ARE PAYING MONEY NOT TO WATCH NETWORK TELEVISION...
...The issue: CIA involvement in the presidential election last May in El Salvador on behalf of moderate Jose Napoleon Duarte, who won...
...The story would be on the front page of all the major papers and given a loud airing on the TV networks...
...That couldn't have helped either...
...Reporters thought him kooky and illinformed on some issues, but he wasn't as unpleasant as his opponent, who had been quoted from time to time as suggesting that reporters were interested mainly in gaffes and incautious statements, not serious matters of government...
...as a Captain of Artillery sitting without his glasses for his World War I army identity card and thereby seeming somehow more the squarejawed, hard-muscled farmer that he was...
...It's what the people paying not to watch net work are doing...
...And he's no pragmatist...
...And in December 1982, a Washington Post reporter wrote a paean to Metzenbaum under the headline "Thank God for Metzenbaum...
...Most recently, he has produced Truman: A Centenary Remembrance.' A collection of 200 or so photographs displaying every aspect of HST's life, A Centenary Remembrance is clearly aimed at the coffeetable set...
...Dole is a pragmatic conservative who is usually accessible and often brimming with pungent comments...
...as a 42-year-old Lieutenant Colonel sporting a mustache and a field uniform at reserve camp...
...What won't do is unflagging conservatism...
...Nor is he witty (he is accessible...
...26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1984...
...What about James Baker and Edwin Meese...
...The reason is that Baker is a pragmatic conservative who treats reporters as people with meaningful roles and serious questions...
...A few years ago, a magazine called the Washington Monthly ran a piece on the ten best and ten worst senators...
Vol. 17 • July 1984 • No. 7
