Reporter's recording puts Clarke on the record

USA Today ^ | 3/25/2004 | Peter Johnson

[Utah Girl]

I think a few of the WTC victims families are playing this for all its worth. And they are besmirching the rest of the families. which they don't care about, as long as they get theirs. Depressing.

[Utah Girl]

I saw that interview with Blather. Stone Phillips also did an interview with former President Bush, asked him if he'd played around on Barbara. Absolutely disgusting.

[Humidston]

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't too late for the sheeple of this country. Problem is, we're forced to live in their world.

[Shermy]

Meanwhile, sales of Clarke's book are soaring. Publisher Simon & Schuster said that Against All Enemies, released Monday, is already in its fifth printing with 500,000 copies in print, the Associated Press reported. The book was No. 1 on Amazon.com Thursday.

How many did Soros buy?

[Utah Girl]

Setup, I smell a setup.

[teletech]

Andrea Mitchell was at that briefing too. Can't say what I think about her, I'd get banned.

Evil comes easy to Andrea.

[Jeff Head]

The critics, in many, many instances (not all, but far too many), carry the water for people like Clark.

Unfortunate, but true.

The media (as you have pointed out) also does the same for the most part.

But I believe (and hope and pray) that they are misjudging and underestimating the majority of the American people.

Keep spreading the word, here on FR, elsewhere, through email chains, at your local grocer...wherever and whenever and however you can.

[NonValueAdded]

How can those "journalists" - if that word even fits anymore - say this is playing into the White House's timeline??? The clown is giving false testimony in just about every forum he can get his hands on!!! What do they propose the White House should do??? Wait until after the election??? This isn't a smear campaign by GWB against Clarke. A three year old could see Clarke is the one doing the smear. All they did is release permission for Clarke's OWN WORDS to be made public. I'd like to see the dictionary that the "journalists" are using.

[Humidston]

We lived in NY for two years.... EVERY time there was a minor fender-bender involving a bus, people rushed INTO the bus so that they could pretend to have whiplash and sue the pants off the city.

Plenty of slick lawyers hovered 24/7 licking their greedy chops.

[teletech]

Well, what is their answer to this: if a reporter knows a person is lying, are they just suppose to sit back while a guy takes down the entire government?

If politicians lie, when is it that that is NOT news?

Are reporters suppose to be complicit in the lies?

If a DemocRAT lies, the press gets behind the lie but if a Republican lies, He is hung IMMEDIATELY!

[Humidston]

I will NEVER forget the fawning provocative smile Andrea had for BJ Clinton - as he came into the Congress to speak right after his impeachment.

He paused and embraced her lovingly. If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn it was a scene straight out of a love story!

[Shermy]

Newt, hillary, wright, etc. Book deals are a way to launder money...sometimes with hefty advances.

[F16Fighter]

Kerrey said, "I mean, Fox should say 'occasionally fair and balanced' after putting something like this out, because they violated a serious trust."

Got a two-fer here...

Clarke was caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar, while Kerrey has given up his academy award-winning performance of trying to act "non-partisan."

[FreeAtlanta]

I wonder how Clark's readers are going to feel when they realize they spent so much money to buy a liar's book?

It won't phase them. They are the same sheep who buy Al Frankin and Michael Moore books, and they love the ugly words about the president, whether the words or true or not.

[Alas Babylon!]

This is about the most incredibly partisan I've seen the mainstream media act since impeachment....maybe. They are always partisan to a degree.

Yup. It's been relentless all this year. Like the Bush "AWOL" story, concocted by Terry McAullife. Big media just about tripped over their willies getting that story out and investigated whether they could find some record of Bush down here. Many people did speak up and said they remembered him being here, but I only heard about them locally or on Free Republic, not on big media. Even so, doesn't any one think the story then should have been, at least a little, about how and why the DNC chair could make such a charge yet provide no evidence to back up his accusations???

How about the so-called outrage over the "9/11" ads Bush ran just a few weeks ago? Seems like the family members who were outraged belong to a leftist organization getting multi-million $ funds from MRS. KERRY!!!! But do we hear that from big media??? Not a word.

And let's not forget how none of them would even mention the Kerry intern story, which I guess wasn't true (although I still have questions), but had this rumor been afloat about a republican, does anyone think the press would have held it?

I'm telling you, they're absolutely relentlessly biased. Big media might as well be the DNC.

[Spotsy]

I swear to you that some of the families actually said that THEIR loved one WAS more "valuable" than the waiters in the Windows on the World restaurant.

This is the most outrageous thing I have heard yet.

[Spotsy]

Newt didn't get to keep his book money

[kcvl]

I did not find the Fetchets. They found me.

I wrote a column Sunday in which I questioned whether we were turning the survivors of Sept. 11's victims into millionaires at public expense and whether it was right to do so.

The Fetchets, in Clearwater from Connecticut to visit Mary's mother, called to object. They want you to know that people like me are portraying them unfairly. They never use the word millionaire.

Mary Fetchet is a social worker, and her husband is a salesman for IBM. They are not rich. But they have enough. They are good people. You can tell that too. Money is not what they want, they say. They want what they call fair.

Some of what they get will come from private charities, particularly the United Way and Red Cross. The Fetchets have received some money for burial expenses. Nevertheless, Mary Fetchet said the charities' funds have been so tied up in red tape that it's almost not worth applying for it.

"It's forms, forms, forms," she said. "I want to remove the word f-o-r-m from the dictionary." Every form revives every sadness. Every form demands bills and explanations. "It's demeaning," she said.

Mary Fetchet has been active among the families of World Trade Center survivors, so active that she has been invited to appear with President Bush on Wednesday when he signs a bill that returns the last two years of income taxes paid by victims to their survivors.

The Bush administration must be courting Mrs. Fetchet. For she is among those fighting to change the way the other big source of money for the survivors, the $6-billion federal victims compensation fund, will be divided.

Put simply, Mrs. Fetchet objects to being denied the right to sue the airlines, where financial settlements can reach well into the millions, and the government. Giving up the right to sue would be part of the deal for those who accept federal money.

She also objects to the formula used to determine what a victim's survivors would get. The formula is based on the victim's projected life-long earnings, and Mrs. Fetchet believes the figures are too low.

The New York Times has reported that the survivors of a single 25-year-old man with no children -- a man like Mrs. Fetchet's son -- would get more than $917,000, tax free.

According to Mrs. Fetchet, however, the government could take into account "life insurance, workers' compensation, 401Ks, pensions and Social Security," leaving her son's survivors with far less from the feds.

It is also unclear who would be eligible for the money, the Fetchets or their son's fiancee. If it were his parents, Frank Fetchet said the money would go to the scholarship fund. Mrs. Fetchet said they might also use some to pay the $60,000 loan they took out for Brad's college education.

All this is reasonable enough, but I am still bothered by the sums of money being talked about.

The Fetchets were notified last week that more of their son's remains have been found. There will be another ceremony, another burial, another day for the deepest mourning. All this is true. But what price do you put on grief?

-- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.

[No Blue States]

"Critics said the timing — during the commission's televised hearings — underscored the lengths to which the administration is willing to go to undermine Clarke's credibility."

He is undermining his own credibility in how OWN WORDS, which you so rightly point out.

Im so fed up with the bias in regular media, sadly I was hardly aware of it before finding FR.

Now it is almost too obvious.

[Shermy]

Newt didn't get to keep his book money

He should have been a "(D)"