Oregon Magazine

Is Big Media Suppression Protecting Kerry From a Sex Scandal?

Once again Matt Drudge has run across a Democrat shocker. Once more, the mainstream media seems to be ignoring it. Will this one turn out to be as true as the Monica Lewinsky story? If it does, all hell is going to break loose inside the Democratic Party, and once again proof of Leftwing media bias will emerge.. First the charges.

Alex Polier is her name. She has been located in Nairobi, Kenya, where the early Drudge Report had pinpointed her. She was said to have recently gone there at the request of Senator Kerry or campaign associates of his, though neither the affair or the escape to Africa for the reasons suggested have been admitted. Kerry, interviewed by Don Imus a few days ago, said that there was no story, here.

The Drudge source said that Miss Polier, a graduate of Columbia University, met Senator Kerry after she had begun her career in journalism by going to work for the Associated Press. The claim is that an affair began in 2001, and lasted for two years. Kerry is married to a Heinz catsup heiress who has publicly stated her disapproval of such activities. These public statements remove the “mutual consent” and “if Hillary wants to ignore it, it’s nobody else’s business” arguments offered in defense of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky (and many, many other) scandals..

Kerry aides have blamed the charges on Republicans, calling them part of a dirty tricks campaign, but others have suggested that it is more likely that the information came from Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Clintons have their man, Terry McAuliff, running the Democratic National Committee, and it has been widely reported by political insiders that this is part of a manipulation process designed to guarantee a Democrat loss to Bush in 2004 so that Hillary can run for the presidency in 2008.

It is certain that the networks and America’s large news organizations, including the press services and newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post, have been suppressing this story, defending such suppression on the basis that there is no “smoking gun.” This does not compare favorably with their approach to a similar charge against George Bush Sr.

Here are some examples from the Drudge Report.

As main press players blast the DRUDGE REPORT and foreign outlets for revealing details of a behind-the-scenes campaign drama surrounding candidate Kerry and the nature of his relationship with a mystery woman, just 12 years ago pre-Internet mainstream media assaulted President
George W. Bush's father with questions surrounding a romantic rumor.

In 1992 top reporters swiftly reacted to a footnote in a book by Susan Trento, wife of CNN reporter James Trento who was the source of the original rumor -- apparently from an interview with a long dead ambassador.

CNN rushed to get the rumor into the media stream as White House correspondent Mary Tillotson confronted President Bush as he hosted Israel Prime Minister Rabin in the Oval Office. "There is an extensive series of reports in today's New York Post alleging that a former U.S. ambassador, a man now deceased, had told several persons that he arranged for a sexual tryst involving you and one of your female staffers in Geneva in 1984."

NBC's Stone 'Stone' Phillips to the president's face at the height of the rumor mongering: "Have you ever had an affair?"

CBS' Harry Smith then confronted Bush spokesperson Mary Matalin with the rumor over morning coffee: "Let me ask you about something else. There's a book out, or a book that's just about out that in a footnote names that then-Vice President Bush had an affair with an assistant when he was on a mission in Geneva."

Jonathan Alter, who never came to embrace the Lewinsky rumor -- even when it was proved to be true -- defended the aggressive adultery rumor line-of-questioning of the first President Bush: "In this situation, the Oval Office isn't a temple. The President is a candidate and he has to be asked tough, often distasteful, but nonetheless important kinds of questions."

Alter's freedom of the press to sniff out sex rumors was seconded by UPI's Helen Thomas (another Lewinsky-era convert to bold privacy lines between press and president):
"Some people might have felt that it wasn't appropriate. But when you have the President there, I think it's very legitimate to ask him any question."

CUT TO 2004:

NEWSWEEK'S (Jonathan) Alter blasted reportage of the Kerry infidelity probe last week on a New York City talkradio outlet -- calling the investigation 'sleazy'.

The media outrage over an erupting story of possible infidelity of a presidential candidate peaked with top Lewinsky rumor quasher Joe Conason's "thought piece" in SALON [There he goes again! Matt Drudge and the GOP smear machine are back in the Democrats' pants] in which he lamented aloud: "But the kind of proof usually required by national news organizations isn't what Drudge needs in order to put innuendo into circulation. "

Yes, this is the same Joe Conason who in the Summer of 1992 wrote a Spy magazine cover story entitled "1,000 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR GEORGE BUSH".

Consaon's reason #1?

"He cheats on his wife."

The rumor of President Bush having an affair was never proved by the media that raised the question aloud in the first place, and now claims with a straight face that affair rumors are strictly forbidden.

At least against their candidates.

Here at Oregon Magazine, we are reminded of Oregon’s Bob Packwood and Newt Gingrich, both of whom were driven from congress because of similar activities. Our complaint is not that bad character is found in individuals on the Right. It is that the Right seems to be the only place where bad behavior is bad to the folks on the Left.

These are the same people who defended Bill Clilnton, claming there was no “smoking gun,” and when one turned up (the famous blue dress) went on a binge of vitriol against the people who provided the evidence, the people who condemned him for his shabby activities and the people who attempted to prosecute him for lying under oath. Some of the same people who in the end formed a senate jury that violated their oaths of office by not removing a proven perjurer from the White House.

We see the wall forming for Kerry as this latest scandal progresses. We expect venomous diatribes against this young woman, and trashing of all who attempt to discover the facts behind the charges. Counter-charges of Republican dirty tricks, as mentioned above, have already surfaced, and will instantly be trumpeted by the same cast of liberal characters. From direct experience with Packwoof and Newt, we know that if the same charges are made against a Republican these people don’t need a smoking gun. They accept them without proof and immediately demand resignation based on the “seriousness of the charge.”

In spite of the Left’s attempt to suppress this, it is growing. If there is any truth to it, that is what should happen, because when it comes to a U.S. President, character matters. As the famous (now retired) congressman, J.C. Watts once said, “My daddy told me that character is when you do the right thing even if nobody is looking.”

Under the present world circumstances, we need no more philanderers in the White House. There is serious business before us, and this sort of thing is a distraction best left for when we have time for such foolishness. Senator Kerry had better be telling the truth about all this. If he isn’t, then the Clintons should get their way, here, and another Democrat should get the nomination.

(LL)

Related Stories:
This won't go away -- the UK Telegraph.
John Kerry girl tells all -- the Sun
The latest from the Drudge Report

Note: 2/16, 10:42 AM, PST -- the AP has released reports of denials by Alex Polier and her parents. No such affair took place, they say. We began this story by asking if there was any merit to it, and will conclude this stage by asking if there is any merit to the denial. We recall Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. The first never heard of Watergate and the second didn't have sex with that woman. In our opinion there is more to this story than meets the eye. (It could easily be one of many kinds of setups.)