Gore Finally Makes Moving Speech
The New York Times and Washington Post
lead with--and everybody else fronts--Al Gore's announcement that he is moving
his campaign headquarters to Tennessee, a move designed to symbolize a break
from inside-the-Beltway politics and a too-close association with President
Clinton. It is largely perceived by the papers as a sign of distress in the
Gore campaign, which the NYT calls "lagging" and the
Post calls "troubled"--references to a fund crunch
and Bill Bradley's much improved polls. The Los Angeles Times leads with a California
appeals court ruling that gun manufacturers can be sued for negligence for
promoting weapons in such a way that they would appeal to criminals. The
unprecedented decision is stuffed elsewhere. USA Today leads with "STATES TO TIE
TEACHER PAY TO RESULTS," about how today, at a national education summit (Bill
Clinton in attendance) at least 10 states will agree to test a program in which
faculty checks and student grades go hand in hand. With the federal government
having just given itself pay raises across the board without having produced a
budget for the fiscal year that starts tomorrow one looks in vain for the
alternative headline "STATES TO TIE POLITICIAN PAY TO RESULTS." Oh well.
Some of the papers seem way too caught up in the
Gore move. True, the WP calls it "largely symbolic"--but not until the 10th paragraph,
after first calling it "a dramatic upheaval" and "part of a broad make-over."
And high up, the Post reports, without breaking
stride, that the campaign's other new changes include "an updated wardrobe."
There's also the pseudo-drama of the WP describing
how Gore summoned two top aides to his house Monday night to tell them of his
decision to move and asking them if they would move with him. "Both replied
yes, although," throbs the Post , "other stunned
aides were uncertain what to do." USAT says of
Gore's announcement: "The air of nervousness and tension in the room was
palpable," giving as evidence--hold the front page--that Gore first headed
toward the wrong microphone. The NYT is more
analytical, spending much of the top part of its story focusing on Gore's money
troubles, even noting that the move to Nashville will mean lower rents.
The papers contain reports of the discovery in East
Timor of 10 badly burned bodies, almost surely civilians. Lest one slip into
thinking this is something only "they" do, the NYT
and LAT go top-of-the-page with an Associated Press scoop that former American soldiers
have recently revealed that in the early days of the Korean War, they
machine-gunned as many as several hundred Korean refugees. The AP research was
thorough--130 interviews including all 24 Korean survivors. The Pentagon
response thus far has been that there is no archival evidence of any such
incident. (The papers should have dug up the initial denials issued by
five-siders when My Lai was first reported.) On the other hand, there's this
from a veteran who claims to have been there, quoted in the NYT : "On summer nights when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear
their cries, the little kids screaming."
Yesterday, Bill Clinton announced that he would cancel
all $5.7 billion of the debt owed to the U.S. by 36 desperately poor countries,
provided they channel the money thus saved into the likes of education and
health. How to explain the meager play the announcement gets? The
WP , for instance, puts it on Page 18.
The NYT fronts the U.S.
government's warning that parents should not sleep in the same bed with a child
less than 2 years old because of the danger of accidental smothering or
strangling. The WP puts the story inside. The
Times notes that the recommendation was met with
outrage from many pediatricians and parents, on the grounds that bed-sharing
provides many benefits, such as bonding and the promotion of
breast-feeding.
The Wall Street Journal
runs a commentary by Donald Trump saying that yes, he is seriously
considering a run for president and will make his mind up later this year. He
states that he has been influenced by the entreaties of Jesse Ventura and
further convinced of the appropriateness of running by the tepid response among
Republican candidates to Pat Buchanan's Hitler remarks. Trump lays out a few
positions, promising to get tough with Castro and saying no to the stock
marketization of Social Security. He offers as proof of his fiscal acumen his
management of the repair of the Wollman Skating Rink.
Yesterday, Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer
held a press conference to deny rumors (launched by former officials of his
campaign) that he's had an adulterous affair with an aide. The papers put the
story inside. The WP effort features a sampling of
policies of various people in public life designed to avoid baseless rumors of
sexual misconduct: The Rev. Billy Graham has refused to be alone in a room with
any women besides his wife since the 1940s; Rep. Steve Largent insists on
having a male staff member present whenever he meets with a woman; and John
Ensign, running for the Senate in Nevada, will not be alone in a car with a
woman.
