Posted on 03/12/2004 8:41:17 AM PST by fight_truth_decay
Susan Lindauer, a former reporter for U.S. News & World Report, whose byline appeared over some 1991 stories about the "Air Sununu" scandal, was arrested and arraigned in federal court in Baltimore on Thursday, charged with various counts related to working for and accepting payments from the Saddam Hussein regime, in violation of working with a terrorist state. In the late 1980s and early 1990s she worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Fortune before jumping to U.S. News in 1990 and then, by 1993, moving into a career as Press Secretary to a series of liberal Democrats: Then Congressmen Peter DeFazio and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and, briefly in 2002, for California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren.
But while CNN and FNC stories noted her specific journalistic associations and how she toiled for years for Democrats, the CBS and NBC stories on Thursday night skated over both parts of the resume, despite the fact that AP stories fully outlined her background, with NBC not even alluding to her Democratic connections, though both networks made sure to mention how she's a "distant cousin" of White House Chief-of-Staff Andy Card.
ABC's World News Tonight did not mention the arrest of the resident of Takoma Park, Maryland, a city which has declared itself a "nuclear-free zone."
On Thursday's CBS Evening News, anchor John Roberts referred vaguely to how she "worked at various times for four members of Congress." Reporter Jim Stewart noted: "A former journalist who briefly worked as a speechwriter for Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Lindauer comes from a political family. Her father once ran for Governor of Alaska. White House Chief-of-Staff Andrew Card is a distant cousin." (Stewart also passed along how her neighbors said she was a "klutz" as one recalled how "she couldn't even turn on her lawnmower last year.")
Over on the NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw announced: "An American woman is being accused tonight of conspiring to act as an agent for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service. Susan Lindauer, who describes herself as an anti-war activist, is a former journalist. She's also the second cousin of White House Chief-of- Staff Andy Card. She was arrested today at her home outside of Washington, DC. Prosecutors say she went to Baghdad and then returned to the United States on Iraq's behalf to try to persuade administration officials not to go to war. For her part she says she is innocent."
The MRC's Rich Noyes alerted me to Lindauer's role in covering the controversy over President George H.W. Bush's Chief-of-Staff supposedly mixing personal business and vacation time in with official trips for which he got free plane rides on government aircraft. Using Nexis, I tracked down these two 1991 U.S. News stories which carried Lindauer's byline:
-- May 6, 1991 edition, "The flights of Air Sununu: The White House chief of staff mixed politics and playtime on some of his 'official' trips." The byline: "By Kenneth T. Walsh; Stephen J. Hedges; Susan Lindauer; Missy Daniel."
It began: "When George Bush learned about John Sununu's aerial joy riding, he was distressed. Bush never realized, advisers say, that his chief of staff had been jetting around the country so often and had mixed together so many official, personal and political trips, mostly at taxpayer expense. Then came damage control, as congressional Democrats launched investigations of the more than $ 615,000 worth of travel by Sununu since he became White House chief of staff. Bush ordered a review of White House travel policy. 'I want our administration to be above even the perception of impropriety,' a piqued president declared. But the damage was done. Sununu was no longer the president's problem solver. He was, at least temporarily, his problem child..."
-- May 13, 1991 edition, "Sununu's final days among the jet set: A crackdown begins as new questions arise." The byline: "By Kenneth T. Walsh; Stephen J. Hedges; Susan Lindauer; Missy Daniel."
It began: "When two aides showed up five minutes late to a 7:30 a.m. senior-staff meeting last week, White House Chief of Staff John Sununu glowered in mock anger. 'I guess,' he announced, 'they must've just landed.' The wisecrack prompted nervous laughter, but many of President Bush's advisers were not amused. They feared that the chief of staff's cavalier attitude only invited more scrutiny of his taxpayer subsidized personal and political air travel -- and that of other administration figures..."
Just another mainstream Democrat.
Maybe she'll sing. I wonder if McDermott (D-spider hole) is talking with his lawyer today.
Half hung, drawn and quartered, the quarters displayed at the four cardinal gates of the city. A section of Ms. Lindauer dangling from an overpass on I-95 would be "sobering"
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