Friday, 02 April 2004
Dick Clarke's American grandstand - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - Has this been, as the White House spokesperson Scott McClellan has termed it, Dick Clarke's American grandstand?
The story consuming everyone in the United States this time is the whole palaver over Richard Clarke and his new book, where he castigates President Bush and his efforts in combating terrorism, where he also criticises Bush and his motives for going into Iraq. The book is getting a lot of press naturally, and is selling well, and Clarke is getting a lot of airplay ever since the book came out a week ago. It started two Sunday's ago when in two segments on the venerable 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl interviewed Clarke, which to some more objective media observers amounted to nothing more than a shill job for a book that conveniently was published by Simon and Schuster, which happens to be a division of Viacom, which also owns CBS which airs 60 Minutes.
This past Sunday Stahl, reacting to mounting criticism from Don Imus among others, stoked on no doubt by Matt Drudge, said it was but an oversight that neglected to inform viewers that Clarke's book was published by a Viacom company, even though, as Stahl claims, she had fought in a bidding war with other television journalists for the exclusive. Stahl was no doubt limping from the torrent of abused heaped her way by Don Imus himself. Scheduled to appear on his program, Imus was going to hammer Stahl on why she had neglected to mention the Simon and Schuster connection. Shrewdly, Stahl cancelled. Imus, as the New York Post reported, ripped into Stahl, calling the veteran journalist a gutless, lying weasel, citing her further as one of the more dishonest members of the media.
Suffice it to say, questions arise as to whether it's legitimate for news programs like 60 Minutes to do so-called exclusives with people with books to sell, which happen to be published by companies under the same corporate umbrella. The Ron Suskind book, which came out earlier this year, was also a Simon and Schuster book, and lo and behold, the author and the subject of the book, the former treasury secretary John Snow, appeared on a 60 Minutes broadcast. 60 Minutes will be showcasing, later this month, an exclusive with Bob Woodward on the release of his forthcoming book, published by you guessed it, Simon and Schuster. (As an aside, a week or so ago I rented the movie Shattered Glass, about the disgraced former New Republic writer Stephen Glass. On the DVD, there were special features that included the 2003 60 Minutes piece where Glass was featured. It so happened that it coincided with the publication of Glass's book The Fabulist last spring, and of course, the book happened to be a Simon and Schuster book.)
One naturally, isn't terribly upset that corporate interests may use one arm to help another arm. (NBC is guilty of this, with their upcoming shilling of Donald Trump's book and reality series, when NBC News's Dateline will air stories related to Trump and his entertainments.) However if the entertainment arm has anything to do with a news arm, then one would hope that the news arm would have the temerity to point out the corporate connections. Again, it isn't a big deal, and it wouldn't be a big deal had it not been for the controversial figure involved - Richard Clarke.
Richard Clarke, a terrorism expert from the Reagan administration through to the Bush administration to the Clinton, to this current President, has written a book where criticism for the administration is rampant and rife. He considers the war waged in Iraq misconceived and wrong, while the war on terrorism he charges is not being fought effectively, and further was not conceived well as Al-Queda was not on the radar screen of this President and those around him, namely National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The story developed into a seesaw as to whether or not Dr. Rice would testify in front of the 9/11 commission under oath. At one point, she was going to behind closed doors, and then it was a question as to whether she'd be under oath. Now, it appears she will testify, and it will be interesting to get the administration's point of view, to counter the outlandish criticism of Clarke. Clarke's testimony last week was a lightening rod for debate. Some considered Clarke's demeanour, after the 60 Minutes piece through to his testifying as mere showboating to sell his book. Clarke made an extraordinary apology to the families of victims of September 11th claiming that the government failed them in protecting them from terrorism.
Dr. Rice, who appeared on 60 Minutes this past weekend with Ed Bradley, was given the opportunity to make the same apology that Clarke made in front of the commission. She didn't so much as decline, but point out that it would be redundant for her to do so, considering it was not the government which perpetrated these attacks but rather Al-Queda. She goes on to claim that the calls for public apologies move away from the real question of getting those terrorists. Richard Clarke, on the other hand, will claim that all the sniping and rejoinders he's getting from the White House, is an effort to discredit him and move away from dealing with the administration's failure to protect American lives from terror on 11 September 2001. Clarke does this, by the way, whilst appearing on every talk show from Larry King to Charlie Rose to Jon Stewart; amidst by the way, the backdrop of his book being a bestseller nationwide.
It is obvious that if you take Dr. Rice's story and put it up against Dick Clarke's, it's clear one side is being truthful while the other is not. Are there motives behind each other's story, of course there are. Clarke wants to sell his book as well as get a job, while saying he's only in it for pointing out the failures and deceptiveness of the Bush administration. However, under the threat of perjury, we will find out the White House's side and it'll be interesting if Dr. Rice in her testimony slays Clarke's argument, or only emboldens it with evasiveness. More knowledgeable media personalities have claimed that neither side will be found out, as it's a question of semantics. The only difference between Clarke and Rice's statements and beliefs are the degree to which they disagree. It's the old half-full or half-empty glass argument. At the end of the day, though polls now say otherwise, one suspects the Bush administration needs to get away from this Clarke debacle healthy, or else it will only enliven and animate the Kerry campaign. The Dick Clarke sideshow has proved bothersome, if only for the fact that there are less then honourable reasons behind Clarke's motives in pointing out the missteps of the Bush administration.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .