Posted on 04/21/2004 10:56:23 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Conservatives in general, and conservative radio talk show hosts in particular, are responsible for causing death threats against 9-11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick?
NPR's Nina Totenberg sure seemed to imply so in a Monday Morning Edition story, which Rush Limbaugh highlighted on his radio show on Tuesday.
CUT
NPR Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports."
Totenberg began: "Jamie Gorelick served for three years as Deputy Attorney General in the first term of the Clinton administration. In Washington, she has a reputation as a smart administrator with a cool head. But she admits she lost some of that cool last Friday."
Jamie Gorelick, 9/11 Commission member: "Someone called the house and threatened to blow it up, and blow me up."
Totenberg: "FBI agents were soon swarming over Gorelick's house and office. She had received hate mail at the office, she says, as have other commissioners, but it had suddenly intensified."
Gorelick: "After John Ashcroft testified, there was an escalation."
Totenberg: "Ashcroft, himself under fire from the 9/11 Commission, in prepared testimony blamed a policy of the Clinton administration for 9/11."
Attorney General John Ashcroft at hearing: "The single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem was the wall that segregated, or separated, criminal investigators and intelligence agents."
Totenberg: "The wall, he said, had been created in a Clinton Era-memorandum."
Ashcroft: "Full disclosure compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the Commission."
Totenberg: "The member, of course, was Jamie Gorelick. Within 48 hours, House GOP leader Tom DeLay and House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner were calling for Gorelick's resignation. And conservative talk shows were taking up the battle cry."
Rush Limbaugh on his radio show: "Who are the Clinton people, who were they, Jamie Gorelick, Clinton, Gore, all these people? They are '60s relics. These are people who grew up hating the FBI. These are the people who gave law enforcement the name pigs. And they now are in charge of it when Clinton assumes office. Now what's the first thing they do? Handcuff the FBI."
Totenberg: "In fact, however, by all independent accounts, the wall was not created during the Clinton administration but by the Reagan and first Bush administrations in the 1980s in response to court rulings. Those court rulings sought to ensure that wiretaps justified as necessary to gather intelligence were not used to circumvent the Constitution's demand for a tougher standard in prosecuting a criminal case. David Kris, a career Justice Department prosecutor who served as Associate Deputy Attorney General for three years under John Ashcroft says the Department struggled with the wall for decades, and indeed the Bush Administration, when it came to office, reexamined and reaffirmed Gorelick's memo."
David Kris: "You have to live with the law as you find it, unless you are able to change it."
Totenberg: "Ironically, says Kris, Gorelick's memo sought in some respects, to bridge the wall."
Kris: "You have somebody at least straddling the wall."
Totenberg: "The Gorelick memo came in response to a particular problem. The prosecutors in the first World Trade Center bombing case thought they could not pass on information to the intelligence investigators looking for more plots. Jamie Gorelick."
Gorelick: "And so the, the goal was to preserve the conviction, to make sure the terrorists didn't go free, and at the same time make sure that the intelligence information got from the criminal side of the house to the intelligence side of the house. I told the intel side of the house, you can wiretap criminal defendants."
Totenberg: "Even after 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act, the Bush administration was unable to tear down the wall until it appealed to a special appeals court that had been authorized by law in 1978, but never before convened. In 2002, that court said that the Justice Department and the lower courts had been wrong since the early 1980s in erecting the law. As for Jamie Gorelick, she says she has no more conflict of interest on the 9/11 Commission than any other member, most of whom, she notes, were chosen precisely because of their experience in the intelligence field."
Gorelick: "I'm recused from anything that occurred during my tenure."
Totenberg: "On the question of the wall, she says, she has in fact been a witness and been interviewed. Her fellow commissioners, including the Republican Chairman Tom Kean, have forcefully defended her. And privately some believe she's been targeted because she's the work horse of the commission. Indeed, when the White House told the commissioners only one of them could review the President's Daily Briefings, the commissioners, Republicans and Democrats alike, chose Gorelick. Gorelick admits the last few days have been rough."
Gorelick: "The notion that someone would blow me up, blow up my children, blow up my house, that's scary to any human being."
Totenberg: "But she says she will not quit."
Gorelick: "I don't think the Commission should be intimidated. Then it would be a mistake for any one of us to be forced off the Commission. I think it would be terrible."
Totenberg: "Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington."
Of course, faithful CyberAlert readers will recall that Totenberg issued a death threat of her own a few years ago against Senator Jesse Helms.
That comment was a runner-up in the "I'm a Compassionate Liberal But I Wish You Were All Dead Award (for media hatred of conservatives)" category in MRC's 1999 "DisHonors Awards" for the most outrageous quotes of the decade. To view a RealPlayer clip of Totenberg in action: http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/dishonor1999/welcomeaward6.asp
Then last October she seemingly desired to hasten the death of Army General Jerry Boykin for having supposedly expressed the view that the war on terrorism "is a Christian crusade against Muslims." Totenberg hatefully advocated: "I hope he's not long for this world." When the other panelists on Inside Washington were taken aback by her wish ("You putting a hit out on this guy or what?" and, "What is this, the Sopranos?"), she quickly backtracked: "In his job, in his job, in his job, please, please, in his job." See: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20031020.asp#1
For RealPlayer video of that exchange: http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/bestof/2003/best1-3.asp
That quote was a runner-up in the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2003: The Sixteenth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting."
And for examples of media figures blaming conservatives and talk radio hosts for the Oklahoma City bombing, see our 1995 "Special Purveyors of Hate & Division" issue of Notable Quotables: http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/1995/nq19950508.asp
I have cut the body of the story leaving the transcript. Visit the http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20040421.asp for full text.
In the meantime, she and the gang at NPR should be sued.
Surely you cannot make such a serious charge without more to backup than face value e-mails from your computer.
Wrong. Jimmy Carter admin. I believe 1978?
So true; and after they get the news bump for their efforts; probably cancelled their next meeting.
Want to know; just what is going on re this investigation. . .
Jamie Gorelick, 9/11 Commission member: "Someone called the house and threatened to blow it up, and blow me up."
You know, Jamie, if this story were actually true, you could call the FBI and they could trace the call. If the call was placed from anything other than a pay phone, they could catch the person making the terroristic threats against you.
Of course, since it didn’t happen, don’t bother.
Inside Washington host Tina Gulland: "I don’t think I have any Jesse Helms defenders here. Nina?"
Nina Totenberg: "Not me, I think he ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind, because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."
Translation:
I may have screwed up the ability to track down and prosecute terrorists that I will not testify.
Our friends at MRC bust da bee-atch.
On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude/PNMCH ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/
One has to wonder how your every day right wing nut gets a hold of a high profile commissioner's private home phone number anyway.
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