IRS: We Bite Too
The IRS firestorm leads at USA Today , the New York Times ,
and the Los Angeles Times . At the Washington Post , the lead national story is President
Clinton's appearance at ceremonies commemorating the 40th anniversary of the
forced integration of Central High in Little Rock.
President Clinton used the occasion to issue a warning about the trend
toward the re-separation of the races, a trend both the WP and
NYT had no trouble observing at Central High, where the dining areas and
academic tracks are largely de facto segregated. And both papers noted that the
local chapter of the NAACP voted not to support or participate in the
ceremonies. More heartening was the revelation in both papers that a white
woman famously captured in a 1957 photograph cursing the entering black
students was present to publicly apologize for her long-ago actions. (Just
wondering: Couldn't they also have found one of the paratroopers who escorted
the students?)
The NYT Little Rock coverage includes a nice little survey of the
nine original black students and what they're doing today. The list includes an
investment banker, a writer, a lawyer, a college professor, and an unemployed
woman. Two of the nine live overseas. The LAT has a nice photo on its
front top of Clinton with some of the nine, but runs the story inside.
The LAT and USAT continue pressing on the IRS story, with
leads describing yesterday's testimony, in which a number of current agents,
speaking from behind a screen, their voices electronically altered, blew the
whistle on the agency's shady practices; and in which the acting commissioner,
Michael Dolan, continued to apologize and pledge reform. After ignoring the IRS
story yesterday, the NYT plays catch-up today. Surprisingly, the
WP sticks the story way inside.
The LAT breaks the story that former senior White House aide Harold
Ickes has this week told federal investigators that he was in the same room at
the White House with President Clinton when Clinton made telephone fund pitches
to several Democratic contributors during the run-up to the 1994 elections.
This is the first corroboration of the claim that Clinton personally solicited
money from inside the White House.
The NYT front page states that Newt Gingrich has ruled out any chance
the House will pass the major campaign-reform bill banning all soft money that
has been advancing in the Senate. Gingrich favors instead lifting all limits on
political contributions.
The Wall Street Journal 's "Washington Wire" reports that the
probe into the fund-raising behind the election of Ron Carey as president of
the Teamsters could, because some DNC officials allegedly are involved, result
in the appointment of yet another independent counsel.
At first, the NYT didn't even mention the Marv Albert trial, then
dealt with it deep inside and at arm's length. (Yesterday's Times edit
of the AP story about the second woman's testimony didn't mention, for example,
that she said Albert was wearing women's clothes.) But today, with the
resolution of the case, the Gray Lady hikes her skirts, putting the story on
the front page and deigning to mention all the tawdry details. The story is
also on the front of the LAT , alongside a picture of Albert that makes
him look downright scary, and is the second lead at USAT .
The WP , which was much more aggressive from the git-go, simply raises
the ante today, with not just a long front-page piece but also not one, but two
additional Albert pieces elsewhere in the paper, one a ramble wondering if
Albert can rebound professionally, the other a thumb-sucker about women who
stand by their man when he's in trouble. In the Post 's main Albert
piece, the accuser is never mentioned by name, a practice the paper explains
thus: "The Washington Post does not identify victims of alleged sexual
attacks." But it turns out that the paper isn't able to stick to that policy
for more than a few paragraphs. A little further down, the paper identifies by
name the second woman who testified that she, too, was bitten and sexually
assaulted by Albert. So what's the actual policy, Post ?
