Meet Your Liberal Media

Spoiler Alert: Contains Excerpts From Sid Blumenthal's New Book (via Salon)

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

From Sidney Blumenthal:

The degeneration of politics into personal demonization reflected the growing frenzy of the effort to overthrow the president. On Sunday, September 6, the unveiling of the Starr Report had been prepared for by two conservative panelists on ABC's "This Week." George Will stated, "We have the experience recently of a member of the White House staff, Sidney Blumenthal, calling journalists in an attempt to smear Henry Hyde." Bill Kristol jumped in: "It is a fact that Sidney Blumenthal has called members of the press to try to get them to look into congressmen's private lives."

Though I was unsurprised at being used as a scapegoat, I still registered alarm at hearing false allegations about me on national television. The charge was, of course, completely false. It was not, as Kristol blithely said, "a fact," and neither he nor Will would or could offer any facts. In the curious ambit of Washington, these ideologues with their counterfactual slurs were accorded respect, deference, and, most important, time on television. In their punitive ad hominem style, their insults substituted for facts. They indulged in character assassination while parading as the ones exposing it.

A correspondent at ABC News told me that Dorrance Smith, executive producer of "This Week" and communications director in the previous Bush administration, was pushing the line against me hard.

But, wait, there's more:

If Vlasto was an apolitical scandalmonger at ABC News, Dorrance Smith, producer of "This Week," was ultimately political. Smith had been President Bush's communications director, and his secretary in the White House had been Linda Tripp. "The Washington bureau was like an outpost of the American Spectator," an ABC News correspondent told me. "Dorrance was in constant touch with Tripp. He was calling the shots. He kept opposing views off the air and put views supportive of Starr on the air." (One of the Smith-promoted commentators, Jonathan Turley, a George Washington Law School professor with a specialty in environmental issues, testified before the House in favor of impeachment, and another, Brad Berenson, was to become an associate counsel in George W. Bush's White House. Jeffrey Toobin, the regular ABC News legal analyst, was not permitted to appear on "This Week.")

(Buy the book here.)