NBC Trumps Rice With Anti-Bush Widows

MRC ^ | 4.09.04 | Tim Graham

[fight_truth_decay]

NBC and MSNBC Allowed No Pro-Bush Mourners to Express Their Feelings About Condi Testimony

Who are the most important judges of the investigation of what went wrong before September 11? The media elite have provided one consistent answer on who is in the political driver’s seat: the relatives of the victims. But not all of them.

In recent weeks, the networks have interviewed a selected set of 9-11 widows and other relatives, and most have focused the lion’s share of their outrage at the Bush administration. Viewers at home might assume that a poll of 9-11 families would find they almost uniformly blame Bush more than the terrorists and want him to lose in November.

Minutes after National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice finished testifying, Tim Russert told Tom Brokaw live on NBC: “But the real issue will be, how did the families of the victims of 9-11 respond to this testimony? They have been the driving force for the commission, for information from the White House, for Dr. Rice to testify under oath.”

On this morning’s Today and for multiple segments in a 90-minute post-Condi Hardball special on MSNBC, only four widows were singled out as judges of Rice’s testimony. The four were celebrated in the April 1 New York Times as “nonpolitical.” NBC has emphasized Kristen Breitweiser, who has appeared in four Today interviews in four weeks.

Mrs. Breitweiser insists that she voted for Bush in 2000, but has wildly declared that “Three thousand people were murdered on Bush's watch.” Times arts editor Frank Rich also noted how she tartly complained that a Showtime 9-11 docudrama failed to display President Bush reading to school children “while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers” because it would have been contrary to “Karl Rove’s art direction and grand vision.” She’s hardly “nonpolitical.”

In fact, these widows are liberal lobbyists against the Bush team, even as they claim to speak for all 9-11 victim families. Even Tim Russert linked the widows and John Kerry as two forces who will now press the White House for a complete declassification of the much-discussed August 6 presidential daily briefing. (One weblog even urges Kerry to pick Breitweiser for veep.)

In their front-page widow story, the New York Times noted that liberal Senators Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer were advising the widows to demand Bush and Cheney also answer commissioner questions (and speeches) on live TV. Print accounts have also noted these widows tried to get the 9-11 commission’s director, Philip Zelikow, fired for being too close to Condi Rice.

(NBC wasn’t all alone today in the anti-Bush widow department. On ABC’s Good Morning America, widow Beverly Eckert was charging “Everybody’s basically been covering up, I think, for the administration, this whole Washington scene.”)

In March, 9-11 relative Ernest Strada sounded a different note, telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball that “anybody can be a Monday morning quarterback.” Strada says he told Bush at a memorial event: “Mr. President, you are on the right side of the issues. We’re with you 100 percent. Forget what the media says, the country believes in you.” Is it any wonder he didn’t get to debate the Kristen Breitweiser crew on this important occasion?

[soxfan]

I wonder how Ted Olson feels about all of this...

Let me see if I've got this straight now: The Bush Administration had enough advance knowledge of 9/11 to have been able to prevent it, but they choose not to.

Can somebody tell me why they would do that? What would be their motivation? Political calculus? Laziness?

Do these people actually despise Bush so much that they honestly believe he intentionally allowed Al Qaeda to attack the United States? And then he would sit back and let them kill Barbara Olson, just to make it look authentic?

Once again, the Law of Unintended Political Consequences will bite the Democrats in the keister. First, they have now created a new, rising All-Star in the post-2004 Republican Party. And they have served to remind all Americans to focus on the fact that we were attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists, Al Qaeda is still attacking the Western World, and President Bush is our war-time President. The Democrats are reminding us that while our Commander-in-Chief is running for re-election, our brave Soldiers and Marines carrying out his policy are in a desperate battle against the very terrorists who are doing everything in their power to kill as many American citizens, home and abroad, as they possibly can.

Make no mistake, the polls are clear: if the 2004 campaign is going to be decided about 9/11, Bush wins big-time. Double digits.

If, however, the election instead becomes a referendum on: "Who do you think is more likely to stop the flow of jobs overseas, reduce deficits, provide better health care, improve our schools, reduce gas prices, protect the environment, and save Social Security?", in my view, the President will have an uphill struggle to convince a majority of the electorate that he is the better candidate. The polls seem pretty clear on that right now: IMO, the GOP sacrificed that principled high ground a long time ago. The 2004 Republican Party is basically Dem Lite on those issues. Why vote for a RINO, when you can get the real thing?

[Steve_Seattle]

The commission is a sham; it's ONLY purpose is to try to hurt Bush. And the press won't have it any other way; they virtually ignored Rice's rebuttals of Clarke, ignored Kerrey's idiotic references to Rice as "Dr. Clarke" and his irresponsible description of the U.S. Army as a "Christian" army, and grasped at straws (the classified memo)to create innuendos of missed opportunities. Given Ms. Breitweister's pedigree, it's highly likely she's lying about having voted for Bush in 2000, but don't expect anyone in the media to question it. And Richard Clarke's blatant contradictions would render him red meat for the media if he were a Republican. "Today Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld said this, apparently contradicting what they said last year," ergo they are lying, confused, stupid, etc.

[Ben Chad]

Not to mention our brave sons and daughters who are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan with little recompense to their wives and children.

[StarFan]

How frustrating that they didn't post a snail mail or e-mail address for these grieving widows. The fact that the media doesn't care to refute their claims shouldn't preclude us from setting the record straight.

[afz400]

It strikes me as curious that they don't seem to care about bringing the MUSLIM (bin laden) that was behind the attack to justice, and dont seem the least appreciative that Bush has captured Sadaam. Also, it would be interesting to see if the "grieving widows" are out screwing other guys after their tearful interviews.

[Eva]

Tell these hate mongers to give back the money that they accepted for the deaths of their husbands.

[Eva]

I'd like to expound a little on my label of these women as hate mongers.

It occurs to me that the Democrat party has become the party of selfish hate, and that is the reason that they relate so well to the terrorists. The only thing that matters to the various special interest haters that make up the Democrat party is the destruction of the opposition, just like the Islamofascists.

[elbucko]

.....how she tartly complained that a Showtime 9-11 docudrama failed to display President Bush reading to school children “while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers”....

I don't like the idea of a president visiting a school to begin with. A state public school is not a federal venue and IMHO, is simply "baby kissing" to garner the female vote. If any "Bush" should have been reading to kids in a FL school, it should have been Gov. Jeb or Laura Bush.

The only fault I find in "W" on 9/11 was he was that he was not engaged in FEDERAL executive endeavors, rather than reading to a group of primary school children. This is not what presidents are for, though it seems "nice".

As for the 9/11 widows, they do their husbands memory shame by selling their grief for 15 minutes of fame and 30 pieces of silver from Kerry.

[BSunday]

NBC (Attempts To) Trumps Rice With Anti-Bush Widows Democrat Whores

After all, that's what we call people who sell themselves.

[elbucko]

But the NBCABCCBSPBSCNN crowd are going WAY over the top these days.

They're nothing more than Democratic party PR firms.

The networks have always served the Democrat Party. The obvious bias presented by the networks in 1964 between Johnson and Goldwater was incredible. The phenomenon is nothing new.

[elbucko]

Needed to be said.

[elbucko]

Given Ms. Breitweister's pedigree, it's highly likely she's lying about having voted for Bush in 2000,...

I agree. I think she voted for Clinton twice, Gore once.

[DannyTN]

lol but she's really not sure who she voted for... those ballots are so hard!!!

[SevenDaysInMay]

IMO, these people are immature, greedy, pathetic useful idoits.

These fools have refused to grow up.

Islam's long preached hate commanded by their koran and other "holy scriptures" emboldened with oily petro-dollars of islam's kingdom is to blame.

Clinton, following Carter's, Reagan's, and Bush-41's failures, established his policy avoiding effective confrontation of islamo-terrorists setting the 2001 stage for the surviving and thriving islamists to infiltrate our open, PC society in order to take our planes and murder our thousands.

The blame rests with those who killed these sorry people's loved ones. Embitterment is an emotion beyond reason.

Childishness is rewarded in DNC-Politburo's media politics.

UnConstitutional taxpayers' payoff money is not enough. Sue the perps!

Face time is not enough. Oprah should be confronted for demands to interview each survivor to blame someone.

These miserable and irritating people are selfish and destructive.

The next islamist success shall kill more of these crybabies and their handlers.

[hgro]

I and I'm sure many others have s stomach full of these "Professional Victims". They go from grieving widows to tools of fat Teddy Kennedy (you get pregnant and I'll drown you) and that MSNBC suckup Chrissy Mathews, Tip On'Neills butt boy.

[bornintexas]

The most sickening thing I read yesterday......

Chrissyspit/loudmouth asked the widows who they would like to force to take chemicals so they could question them. He was in full denial yesterday about Condi's testimony and was egging these women on to the point that I thought his head was going to explode! He ALWAYS anchors from emotion when something big happens......remember Algor's consession speech......mathews was crying! Saying it was the best speech he ever heard......lol. He's a pimp for the dnc, nothing more.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

These women are endangering the husbands and sons of other women that are fighting to avenge 9/11, by aligning themselves with the anti American crowd.

They are dancing on the graves of their loved ones to the jig sung by the Democrats and NBC.

Did the widows and mothers of those killed at Pearl Harbor align themselves with Yamamoto and Tojo ?

The Democrat media has gone so far overboard, that they are not only endangering the lives of the troops on the ground, they are putting the security of all citizens at risk.

[nutmeg]

Major-league media bias alert ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[nutmeg]

I saw the email addresses for these four 9/11 widows posted somewhere on FR yesterday. Now I can't find the post...

[nutmeg]

Major-league media bias alert ping!