Ad Nauseam
The Washington Post , Los Angeles
Times , USA Today and the Wall Street Journal all lead with upstart Mississippi-based
telecommunications company WorldCom's bid to acquire MCI. The New York Times
goes with the latest target of Senate and Justice Department investigators: the
alleged Clinton-Gore use in 1996 of state parties as a vehicle for end-running
legal spending limits.
The NYT account of Clinton-Gore spending practices is unusually free
of legal qualification. It straight-out says "The Democratic National Committee
quietly transferred at least $32 million to state Democratic parties in the
last election as part of an elaborate plan to spend more money than federal
election law appeared to allow on a massive advertising campaign that
indirectly helped re-elect President Clinton." The paper makes it clear that
the strategy was directed not independently by the state parties but centrally
by the campaign. Dick Morris is among those quoted in support: "It was a
charade to say those were ads of the state parties....I never spoke to anyone
from any state."
The story also notes that the Republican Party used similar strategies
during the last election, and that the Justice Department is reviewing its
spending in this area as well, but doesn't note this until the twenty-third
paragraph. And it's not mentioned at all in either the story's headline or
subhead.
The Times story has this juicy detail indicating that there were some
worries inside the campaign about the scheme's propriety: During the campaign,
senior Clinton aide Harold Ickes pressed for an indemnification clause in the
media consultants' contract that would have forced the consultants to pay any
fines levied if the plan was found to be illegal. The consultants refused.
The WorldCom bid for MCI seems to have enraptured the press because of its
size--it would be the largest U.S. takeover ever--and because WC CEO Bernard
Ebbers, a former junior high basketball coach and motel operator, is good copy.
(Both the NYT and LAT report that he told the head of MCI that if
he wanted to join WorldCom he'd have to come to work earlier.) The WSJ,
NYT , and LAT pantingly describe the fabulous returns enjoyed by
WorldCom's stockholders in recent years, while the WP focuses instead on
how the deal might lead to more competition in local phone service.
USAT 's second lead reports that after a landmark study finding
multiple SIDS deaths within families was rebuked in the leading medical journal
that originally published it, police in Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis have
reopened dozens of SIDS cases.
With negotiations on an international global warming treaty coming up in
Kyoto soon, the Clinton administration is, according to the WSJ , roiled
in internal debate on the U.S. position for the talks. On one side, says the
paper, is the president's economic team, including Robert Rubin and Gene
Sperling, saying go slow. And on the other are the greens, including Carol
Browner and Tim Wirth. Apparently, Clinton himself has emerged as the enviros'
strongest ally because Al Gore, normally in that position, is distracted by his
fund-raising troubles and concerns about not alienating manufacturing states
for the 2000 election.
The NYT reports that, as part of the run-up to Kyoto, the Clinton
administration yesterday invited more than 100 national and local television
weather forecasters to the White House for briefings on climate change in hopes
of rallying public support for new measures restricting greenhouse gases. Mike
McCurry tells the Times that the weather folks "appreciated being
treated as something other than airheads."
