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Press Ignores Murray Comments On bin Laden
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 24/12/2002 | Art Moore

Posted on 12/24/2002 12:34:04 AM PST by DocFarmer

SEATTLE – Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray's commendation of Osama bin Laden's nation-building tactics has generated an Internet and talk-radio firestorm since Friday but has garnered little notice in the mainstream media.

A Lexis-Nexis search turned up just 22 news stories on Murray's remarks. A similar search for stories on the controversy over Trent Lott's comments would not list the items because there were more than 1,000.

The New York Times made no mention of Murray's speech, while the Washington Post gave it only brief notice in the middle of a political roundup column by Brian Faler.

The Post's Faler began with, "Republicans are screaming about comments by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) that charitable works made Osama bin Laden popular in poor countries – and her challenge to the United States to do the same."

WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving said he called the New York Times national desk to ask why the story had not been covered. Michael McElroy told Kinsolving he had not heard of Murray's remarks, although they were distributed via the Associated Press wire.

McElroy said he would surely bring it to the attention of the editors, but would not promise to call Kinsolving back with their response.

Media analyst Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media says simply that he believes the U.S. mainstream media have their own agenda.

"Unlike Trent Lott's remarks, this is not something that excites them," Irvine told WorldNetDaily. "They don't want to weaken Patty Murray. After all, the people who are running the media, except for a few, are committed to the liberal side, and this is how the liberals get away with it."

But Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., thinks Murray's remarks are not getting attention because they largely were correct.

"The conservative media is trying to find an equal to the Trent Lott mistatements and are trying to build this up into an equivalence," said Felling, whose group describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization. "After the Lott brouhaha, a lot of public statements are radioactive and public mistakes moreso. So, I think people are trying to fight fire with fire."

Felling said Murray's only mistake was saying that bin Laden built day-care facilities.

"She overstated the problem," he said.

Murray's remarks

Last Wednesday, at the conclusion of a session with students at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Wash., Murray said she wanted to bring up a further point to add to their discussion about alternatives to war.

"We've got to ask, why is this man so popular around the world?" she said in reference to bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?"

Murray said, according to the Vancouver Columbian newspaper, that bin Laden has been "out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that."

The second-term senator then asked the students to ponder: "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

WND's first story on Murray was picked up by a pro-bin Laden website called Taliban Online.

The posting includes the first part of the story, which recounts the senator's remarks about bin Laden, then inserts this note: "The rest of the story [tries] to put down Osama with the same old rubbish ... ."

'Bottom-up rebellion'

In an interview with WND, talk radio host and former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Carlson compared the Murray story to the memorial for Sen. Paul Wellstone. That event, just before the November election, turned into a raucous political rally that apparently damaged Democratic candidates at the polls.

"The mainstream news media, if you look at reports that came out immediately, didn't see anything inappropriate in that," Carlson said of the Wellstone memorial. "But if you heard talk radio and saw the Internet – especially C-SPAN, since they showed it – you saw a bottom-up rebellion, a tide of anger beginning to build, and the same thing is happening here" with the Murray story.

"The mainstream media are buying her explanation and are burying the story," Carlson said. "But talk radio and the Internet, which are closer to America at ground level, are blazing with it."

Carlson believes, nevertheless, that Murray's remarks likely will not damage her.

"I think the holidays are going to rescue her," he told WND. "Plus, she is keeping a very low profile, and the Democrats have lost their majority."

The one political fallout he sees is that Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who is considering running against Murray in 2004, has publicly challenged the senator, calling her remarks "bizarre" and "uninformed."

"That is unusual for George," said Carlson. "It's not his style."

Carlson said that on his KVI radio show he heard from educators around the state who said they have heard Murray make these comments before.

One was a high-school teacher from the Navy port of Bremerton, "where soldiers happen to live," Carlson said.

"The kids argued back with Murray," he noted.

Another was a university professor in the Puget Sound area who wrote in to say, "please understand these were not isolated incidents; this is what she also said here," recounted Carlson, who believes the unidentified teacher was from the University of Washington.

"He said he was chagrined that [Murray] didn't know we were sending $3 billion a year to Egypt," recalled Carlson.

'Where was the outrage?'

Roger Hedgecock, filling in for talk radio host Rush Limbaugh yesterday, asked, after noting the story was picked up by only a few media sources, including WND: "Where was the shock? Where was the outrage?"

"Osama bin Laden hasn't been building schools and health-care facilities and infrastructure and roads," Hedgecock said. "He's been building terrorist training camps. He's been exploding bombs and murdering people. He hasn't building an infrastructure."

Hedgecock said he received a call on Friday from a man who has been to Afghanistan six times in the last year and "didn't see anything the Taliban or al-Qaida had done by way of building bridges and roads and schools."

"They've been shutting them down," Hedgecock said. "The only schools that opened up are these madrassas where they teach hatred and killing."

Hedgecock asked, where does Murray "get off characterizing the enemy, the sworn enemy of this country, the man who has declared war on every American, who would kill Patty Murray if he could, where does she get off praising him? This is like saying 'Hitler was a sensitive painter. You've got to be aware of why people like him. He was such a sensitive man. He was a painter.' Now no one would get away with that. How is Patty Murray getting away with this about Osama bin Laden?"

"How come they're completely ignored by the same national media that has the capability of blowing into the stratosphere comments by Trent Lott?" Hedgecock asked.

Struggle for freedom

A letter writer to the Washington Times yesterday, Henry Jacobsen of Fredericksburg, Va., said that he lived and worked in more than 50 countries with various foreign affairs agencies.

"So I was especially appalled by Washington Senator Patty Murray's comments regarding Osama bin Laden," Jacobsen wrote. "Her statements were a slap in the face to countless Peace Corps volunteers, U.S. Embassy employees, and specialists within the U.S. Agency for International Development who have dedicated their lives to a cause President John F. Kennedy called 'the long twilight struggle for freedom.'"

Jacobsen said that, "In her rush to blame America first, Mrs. Murray has forgotten the high price Americans have paid during this long twilight struggle."

"As I write this, I am fighting back tears, recalling the friends and colleagues I've lost over the years to senseless acts of terrorism while they tried helping others," Jacobsen wrote. "How could she be so ungrateful and insensitive? How could she be so ignorant? I would urge her and the high-school students she addressed to visit the State Department building in Washington, D.C. Within the diplomatic entrance, they will find a granite wall inscribed with the names of those who died in the service of their country and of humanity itself. May Mrs. Murray never disregard their sacrifice again."

Former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer said he believes Sen. Murray "will not face political death the way her colleague from Mississippi did."

"Her remarks only made the press Saturday morning and the story will be over by tonight," he wrote yesterday in his daily e-mail brief.

"Democratic Senators won't run to microphones to distance themselves from her," said Bauer, president of the lobby group American Values. "Her closest allies won't say she is an embarrassment to her party. The New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards will be silent. Liberals won't form a circular firing squad to destroy themselves over her gaffe. And I doubt the top political operatives of the GOP will spend any energy today on how to make this the national story it should be."

"Whatever one thinks about Trent Lott's gaffe," wrote Bauer, "no one would seriously argue his presence in the Senate would put our country at risk. But Senator Murray's mindset, shared by many on the radical left, is exactly the kind of blindness that could ultimately undermine our ability to win the war on terrorism."

(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: bias; duplicate; laden; murray; osama; press; usama
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To: DocFarmer
Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray is simply a Terrorist Sympathizer.It's another clear example of a DemoncRAT being allowed to spout off about any topic and not be confronted about it by the Alphabet channel/ evening news boys on ABC-CBS-NBC.The reason TV and Newspapers Editors don't cover it, is because they think and feel exactly the same way.They loathe America and what it represents.A consistently fascinating point it is, that they make millions of dollars,while they have the freedom to practice their Anti-American Bias.What a Country!
41 posted on 12/24/2002 9:27:38 AM PST by Pagey
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To: HadEnough
The real reason Murray was elected in the first place is because the Republican party in my state allowed themselves to be dominated by the Religious Right which then fielded candidates that were unelectable for a variety of reasons...tolerance not being one of them. The Democrats painted all Republicans with the same brush and the media celebrated "The Year of the Woman" to the extent that Murray's opponent [who was so moderate he was appointed by the Democrat governor to a political post after the election] went down in flames.

The "MORONS" you refer to reelected Murray because Smith ran a lousy race and allowed the D's to define her as a radical. And Ellen Craswell was one of the poorest candidates the R's in this state have run for governor in quite some time.

The D's on the west side of this state have a lock on senators and the governor until the Republican party gets it's act together and runs quality candidates.
42 posted on 12/24/2002 10:31:41 AM PST by Snardius
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To: gop_gene
Here in Illinois we once had a gentleman who got away with murder for years by playing Robin Hood with the locals. He was even noted for buying baseball tickets for young boys. He got their protection in return. His name was Capone
43 posted on 12/24/2002 11:00:48 AM PST by CrazyIvan
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To: HadEnough
John Carlson is great. Love his radio broadcast
44 posted on 12/24/2002 11:57:26 AM PST by ezo4
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To: SW6906

The Washintonian Magazine does an annual survey of Capitol Hill staffers to rate the members of Congress. For five years in a row now, Senator Murray has won the "No Rocket Scientist" award for being the dimmest bulb in Congress.

LOL, that's the one!
45 posted on 12/24/2002 10:23:38 PM PST by jennyp
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To: DocFarmer
Day care centers? The women are treated like cattle. They are not alllowed to work. They are not allowed to drive a car. Why would they have day care centers?
46 posted on 12/24/2002 10:28:43 PM PST by doug from upland
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To: DocFarmer
Merry Christmas Bump!

foreverfree

47 posted on 12/24/2002 10:31:40 PM PST by foreverfree
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To: Snardius
Spot-on analysis of what took place here in WA. I might add that King County, primarily the liberal core of Seattle, dominate elections in this state. If we don't have tremendous turnout in the rest of the state - especially the East side - liberals rule the day.
48 posted on 12/26/2002 8:46:11 AM PST by SW6906
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To: Snardius
I have become friends with Linda Smith as well as Bruce and Ellen Craswell. I don't know John Carlson personally, but I get to know him each day on his KVI radio show. All the politics aside I would definitely refer to them as "quality" people who have genuine compassion for the human condition.

After being in the Republicrat Party for 30 years, the Craswells let their consciences get the better of them and LEFT the party of the oligarchy to devote themselves to their families and grandchildren.

Linda Smith now devotes her wonderful talents to helping young girls sold into prositution in SE Asia. Her organization purchases their freedom from the sex trade then trains them so they don't have to return to selling themselves.

John Carlson keeps up the good fight, but alas, the Republicrats will eventually wipe him out too.

It is clear to me that Ellen and Linda are just not cut out to serve two masters!
49 posted on 12/26/2002 9:05:50 AM PST by HadEnough
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