Purgative for POWCII

...One has some interesting reporting on "disinformation" attacks on the Carter Administration by Reagan supporters who penetrated the national security apparatus...

...The Spike had been published much earlier, and, in fact, was a salient point of my article...

...It has to do with the politics of symbolism and the effective manipulation of the media—why Carter did so well walking down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day and did so badly coming down from Camp David at mid-term to lecture the nation on its failings...

...He condemns the press for failure to acknowledge its errors, yet says that for a Presidential press secretary to correct errors "does more harm than good...

...Now comes Jody Powell, the blindly loyal and unforgiving Presidential press secretary, flicking off the scars, ready to renew the battle with his journalistic tormentors...

...Columnists Evans and Novak are "two bombastic rascals...

...A sustained tantrum can be entertaining, and this one surely is, but it is not edifying...

...And here is a capsule on the tumult of Iran: "The Shah was tottering on the Peacock Throne...

...Reviewed by Daniel Schorr Correspondent, Cable News Network "How do you respond to those who say your book is self-serving...

...He would seek our advice, refuse to act and fall—with profound consequences for the American economy and the future of the Carter Administration...

...This could have been a constructive book by a talented observer, but he has yielded to the temptation to deliver a tirade...

...He denounces the press for making assumptions about the motivations of officials, yet does not hesitate to blame David Broder of the Washington Past for sensationalism and explain Broder's motive as a desire to "be a trend-setter...

...A few months later a book called The Spike waspublished...

...Finally, Carter did not work at being lovable...

...Powell admits to some tactical mistakes—leaking the story of the "killer rabbit" that attacked the President's boat, overreacting to the charge that Hamilton Jordan spat amaretto down a woman's front...

...Carter was smarter than most reporters and clearly knew it...

...An indictment of press inaccuracy should, at the very least, be accurate...

...Political figures write books to embellish their places in history...

...President Carter's visit to Jerusalem to save his Camp David agreement appears chiefly notable for the agony of Powell's misleading briefing about the outcome...

...There is a factual error in the brief, and unadversarial, mention of me in the Powell book...

...Anger tends to lead Powell into inconsistencies...

...Near the end of the book, when he calms down a bit, Powell has a couple of good chapters...

...The reader finds hindsight without insight, anger without perspective...

...He can only see a sympathetic article about Kennedy as "cellophane-wrapped horse manure" (a fair example of Powell's writing style...

...He did his job and expected everyone else, including journalists, to do theirs without a good deal of petting and stroking...

...the writer replied...

...The deepest conclusion he can reach is that the press was determined "to give Kennedy the benefit of every doubt, and Carter the doubt of every benefit...

...If one can get through Powell's invective about the "cuddly relationship between the press and Kennedy" and the "intense and growing dislike of Carter," there is a serious issue worthy of discussion...

...and why Reagan, for all his manifest shortcomings, still does so well with the news media...

...The entertainment comes in shots at famous names...

...Jack Anderson will unscrupulously "take care of those who feed him dirt...

...He concludes that nothing would have made much difference, though, given that: "Carter did not fit the Southern-pol stereotype, which was unforgivable...

...As was the case with Carter's volume, self-pity serves in place of self-assessment...

...Historic events get short shrift...

...One has a right to one's own epithets, but not to one's own facts...

...How is that for innuendo...

...Joseph Kraft is "one of the strangest sorts of a peculiar breed...

...National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, in Power and Principles, reveals himself as petty and power-hungry, relishing his palace guard vendettas and his inappropriate telephone conversations in Polish with the Pope...

...The Other Side of the Story is too exaggerated, too overblown, too parochial to represent more than a purgative for Powell and an entertainment for others...

...to stay out in front...

...Kennedy might not agree that the press glossed over his personal problems, but Powell's unremitting rancor against Carter's rival for the nomination seems to shut out any sense of reality...

...Another raises the question of self-examination and financial disclosure by journalists...

...Thus, accusing the press of favoritism toward Kennedy, Powell writes, "In normal times, their responsibility was to avoid saying anything bad about Teddy personally—keeping rumors about women and drugs out of the press, for instance...

...a local television interviewer once asked a touring author...

...Sam Donaldson, ABC's White House correspondent, is "a master provocateur...

...The chip-on-the-shoulder title, The Other Side of the Story, is only a clue to the explosion of outrage directed against the White House press corps, certain columnists and the press in general...

...Lou Cannon of the Washington Post denies having defended Reagan to other reporters on the Carter campaign plane...

...Many of Powell's facts have been challenged by his targets...

...Carter's Keeping Faith is a self-pitying memoir, long on bitterness, short on self-examination...

...Cokie Roberts of National Public Radio denies ever having referred to "anti-Semitic remarks" by Hamilton Jordan and Powell, as Powell charges...

...Well, I certainly hope it is...

...A succession of recent Presidents and their aides have honored this tradition...

...The error has no special meaning other than carelessness...

...he did not particularly enjoy bullshit sessions with the boys...

...So it is astonishing to note the penchant of Jimmy Carter and company, driven by un-mollified grudges, to come out with works that diminish rather than enhance themselves...

...Worst of all, Powell falls into the same kind of innuendo about Senator Edward Kennedy that he excoriates when it is applied to President Carter...

...Summarizing an article I wrote about a Right-wing attempt at character assassination against David Aaron, deputy to the National Security Adviser, Powell writes, "Shorr was more correct than he knew...

...Powell's perspective is too distorted by rage, however, to illuminate that issue...