| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fred Stone" |
| Date: |
21 Jan 2008 01:57:12 PM |
| Object: |
What The Media Won't Report About The Hillary Papers |
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016702.php#comments
After last week's release by Judicial Watch of internal documents of
Hillary Clinton's Health Care Task Force, many of us waited to see the
national news media cover their disturbing contents. No surprisingly,
none of them did so. Despite the proposals to use smears against critics
of the government and to turn the DNC into a domestic espionage unit for
the White House against its opponents, the mainstream news media has
shown little interest in even noting the fact that this evidence appeared
in a microscopic sample of the three million documents that have been
blocked from public scrutiny.
Let's recall what the media has ignored. The following comes from my
earlier posts on the subject.
Senator Jay Rockefeller proposed that the federal government conduct
smear campaigns against the opponents of the plan:
A “Confidential” May 26, 1993 Memorandum from Senator Jay Rockefeller
(D-WV) to Hillary Clinton entitled, “Health Care Reform Communications,”
which criticizes the Task Force as a “secret cabal of Washington policy
‘wonks’” that has engaged in “choking off information” from the public
regarding health care reform. The memorandum suggests that Hillary
Clinton “use classic opposition research” to attack those who were
excluded by the Clinton Administration from Task Force deliberations and
to “expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of lobbyists” in order to
deflect criticism.
Rockefeller had allies in mind for this effort:
Senator Rockefeller also suggested news organizations “are anxious
and willing to receive guidance [from the Clinton Administration] on how
to time and shape their [news] coverage.”
Rockefeller also offers a little intellectually honest advice at least
twice. When discussing abortion, he gets very terse (emphasis mine):
Response concepts: ... Full Reproductive Services. Do not engage on
this topic.
And remember, this isn't a political action commitee or an electoral
office campaign. This was the elected government of the United States
discussing how it would steamroller opposition to nationalizing an entire
industry by smearing them and by avoiding discussion of the policy
itself.
The HCTF anticipated a tough debate over its proposal to nationalize
American health care, and it proposed some specific remedies -- including
using the DNC to conduct intelligence operations.
A February 1993 memo to Hillary Clinton from Alexis Herman and Mike Lux
proposes that the HCTF -- a White House policy group -- enlist the DNC
for several purposes, discussed on page 5:
C. The DNC Role
The DNC clearly has a critically important role to play in the
campaign. I would suggest the following roles ...
3. The DNC can be instrumental for us in intelligence gathering and
opposition research. Their staff will hear talk about things that may
never reach us inside these walls.
All of that falls into the category of "politicizing" the White House,
and much more than having Karl Rove as deputy chief of staff. But this
goes beyond mere politicization. The HCTF foresaw using the DNC to
"gather intelligence" on political opposition -- a way to gain
information to intimidate or extort their critics. It's bad enough when
electoral campaigns do this, but having the White House use the DNC for
these purposes doesn't border on abuse of power but invades it with a
vengeance.
And this memo came to Hillary Clinton a mere two weeks after her
husband's inauguration. The impetus for this kind of political warfare
existed within the Clinton administration within the first hours of its
birth.
Where are the media organizations that style themselves as the bulwark
against governmental abuses of power? Why haven't they reported on these
memos, which clearly delineate a type of attack on government opposition
that hasn't been this baldly proposed since the Nixon administration?
Given Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency -- one on which she
relies on her experience in her husband's administration for her
qualifications -- isn't all of this terribly relevant to the question of
how she will run the White House, and what kind of treatment her critics
can expect to receive?
The silence from the Fourth Estate is deafening. It screams either
cowardice or collaboration.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan
are the problem to begin with.
C. Hitchens
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
