Letters
Letters A Quick Fix I read your May article on Medicare and Medicaid fraud with particular interest. As a trial judge who has sat on a dozen or more Medicaid fraud cases in New York state, I...
...The average Senate incumbent spent about one-third...
...I have been in this business 51 years...
...As one of the leading experts on voting behavior, Gans is to be heeded when he warns us about declining voter turnout...
...Regrettably, he fails to acknowledge my explicit caveat that these weather events become significant only when they are added to four other compelling bodies of evidence of climatic instability: the warming-driven spread of infectious diseases, the weather-related losses by the world’s property insurers (which are rising by orders of magnitudes), the consensus findings of the world’s leading 2,000 scientists, and a series of troubling and rapid changes to the Earth’s oceans, glaciers, forests, and mountains...
...He attempts to falsely portray me as “new” and inexperienced, but never mentions anything about my extensive work in auto safety since 1965...
...The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street 30~rnali,n lengthy front page stories, reached that conclusion in 1986...
...The errors concerning my tenure could easily have been avoided with a simple phone call...
...as if the past 30 years somehow don’t exist...
...HERBERT A. POSNER Jamaica, NY Just Another Dis...
...I was in charge of editorial policy as well as news coverage, and not once did I receive a hint of a whisper from any representative of the owners as to what our editorial line should be on an issue...
...Without the brightest of bright-line rules against them, TV ads will go on undermining the foundations of popular government...
...The reporter who was trying to start a Guild unit at that time circulated a petition protesting my Contra editorial...
...The reporter who told me that at his job interuiez Mr...
...Bill Cheshire staged his walkout not for the reasons you mention...
...ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE Washington, DC One comment on the Monthly‘s article on The Washington Times...
...Indeed, Gans’s own data suggests there has not been that big a leap in the importance of TV advertising to campaigns...
...Numerous press accounts of thepetition protesting Mr...
...Nonetheless, Cheshire ’s allegations of owner meddling contributed to the “rumors of Moon’s inj-luence” that plagued the paper in its early years-the situation I was using this episode to describe...
...How else to interpret gratuitous commendations of journalists accompanied by back-handed references to their choice of faith...
...As incentive for people to contact the appropriate agency so that fraud can be detected, we could offer the patient (who is generally indigent) a reward-such as 5 to 10 percent of the money saved or recovered...
...From 1990 to 1994, House incumbents spent about 25 percent of their money on TV and radio...
...Scarborough was mentioned only in passing as the author of an article I used to illustrute my point...
...How else to interpret the repeated use of the pejorative term, “Moonies...
...But I can say emphatically that this report went to every length to disregard the Reverend Moon and to perpetuate a culture of contempt toward the Unification Church...
...I have never declined a request for an interview, and I would have been more than happy to discuss The Washington Times (May 1997) with Nurith Aizenman...
...Your report fell far short of being an interesting account of The Washington Times’s process from what you describe as its early days as persona non grata among the D.C...
...Analysis by the Campaign Study Group has shown that-contrary to public perceptions- the proportion of the average congressional candidate’s budget spent on broadcast advertising has remained fairly constant...
...He had been led to believe he would get the job I was offered and had been gunning for me from day one...
...The reality could be far worse than the science is currently able to determine...
...He refers to my early college grades and first few jobs, but never tells you that was back in the 1955-1964 era...
...He got 27, not 5.5, reporters to sign...
...that the Times did not enjoy total editorial independence...
...There is one glaring defect in the system: The government agency that approves and makes payments does not send a copy of the medical provider’s invoices to the patient...
...But during these past 30 years, the courts have repeatedly ruled that my hands-on evaluation of accident vehicles and exemplar vehicles, plus extensive studies of crash tests and other efforts, has qualified me as an auto safety expert in product-liability trials coast-to-coast...
...From 1976 to 1994, if we are to use his numbers, advertising has gone from consuming just under half of a candidate’s budget to six-tenths...
...May 1997) certainly has a point, but Gans is wrong to pin all the blame for the rising cost of campaigns and declining voter turnout on the increased use of TV advertising...
...de Borchgrave’s editorial announcing the Times-sponsored ‘T\ricaraguan Freedom Fund” listed the number of signatories at SS...
...The next time one ofyour reporters writes a paragraph that calls me obsessive, denigrates 10 years of defense reporting, and attacks my professional competence, I think the least the reporter should do is call me so I can defend myself...
...By and large yours was a fair story...
...Dis” a newspaper if you will...
...I can only speculate whether folks at the paper would consider the piece just another “dis” by a journalistic grandstander...
...ROSS GELBSPAN Brookline, MA Firing Back In his April article ‘A New Breed of Hired Gun,” Preston Lerner seriously misleads his readers...
...The constitution should be amended to forbid, simply and clearly, the purchase of televised advertising in political campaigns...
...Easterbrook nor I nor the best of the world’s scientists know the answer...
...Research indicates that prehistoric climate changes have occurred as abrupt shifts rather than gradual transitions and that small changes have precipitated catastrophic outcomes...
...As a trial judge who has sat on a dozen or more Medicaid fraud cases in New York state, I have observed numerous ways that have been devised to cheat the system...
...A simple procedure such as this could stop fraud in its early stages...
...Letters A Quick Fix I read your May article on Medicare and Medicaid fraud with particular interest...
...Until we change that, we’re just nibbling around the edges...
...I would say the cases I have tried during the past six years involved the loss of more than $20 million to the state and federal government...
...Where did Mr...
...But don’t succumb to the lowest form of bigotry and disparage an entire religious community in the process...
...Easterbrook takes me to task (‘Apocalypse Later,” May 1997) for including in my book a large number of recent record-setting extreme weather events around the world...
...But the core problem with this system is candidates’ dependence on private money to pay for their Campaigns...
...Do you really think I am dumb enough to ask someone how he/she voted in “the last election...
...Regarding Bill Cheshire’s resipation, I noted that “de Borchgrave vehemently denied...
...Lerner get the expertise to condemn the trial testimony, the judge’s verdict, and the Louisiana Supreme Court...
...The truth is that neither Mr...
...While he criticizes the Mistich case as his leading “no brainer” example, Mr...
...To me, that’s Journalism 101...
...BYRON BLOCH Potomac, MD...
...de Borchgrave asked him how he bud voted in the last election is a veteran journalist in whose reliability I have great confidence...
...DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, THE HOLY SPIRIT ASOCIATION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY New York, NY The Bigger Picture Curtis G a d s jeremiad against “phony campaign commercials” (“Stop the Madness...
...Lerner conveniently fails to note that in January of 1996, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the original Mistich v. VW plaintiff verdict and also the trial judge’s ruling of my expertise...
...How else to interpret the tone of contempt toward the Reverend Moon...
...ROWAN SCARBOROUGH Washington, DC Nurith Aizenman responds: Although I interviewed 20 current and f m e r Washington Times employeesfor my piece, I regret not contacting Arnaud de Borchgrave and Rowan Scarborough...
...Are my concerns overinflated...
...The solution to cutting down on fraud may not be as difficult as was postulated by the authors of the article...
...When he couldn’t get more than 27 to sign, the matter was dropped...
...Your piece concludes that The Washington Times is “not just that Moonie paper anymore...
...HAL RIEDL Baltimore, MD Apocalypse When...
...whatever the correct figure, the fact remains that a significant group of Times reporters registered their objiection...
...In most of the cases before me, the patient was unaware of the fraud being committed...
...Some were recent hires and several told me privately that abusive threats were part of the pressure tactics...
...Final totals for 1996 are not yet available...
...Lerner also ignored a most basic rule of journalistic integrity, since he never called me to check my version of his illusory story...
...It could have been a lot meatier if someone had bothered calling me...
...As for Rowan Scarborough’s complaint, the paragraph in question criticized the Times as a whole for itsfixation with the feminization of the militmy...
...While the science regarding rates of future change is uncertain, that uncertainty cuts both ways...
...MICAH L. SIFRY PUBLIC CAMPAIGN Washington, DC As much as I admire Curtis Gans’s powerful case against televised political advertising, I fear that his range of solutions may not be equal to the emergency...
...press corps to something of a useful curiosity...
...PETER D. ROSS, ESQ...
Vol. 29 • July 1997 • No. 7
