Reporter smears President Bush with cocaine and AWOL charges
Gerard Jackson
There are media low-lifes and then there is the Bush-hating Roy Eccleston of Rupert Murdoch's Australian. Giving an impression of Plastic Man he twisted himself into numerous shapes to convey the impression that President Bush was a cokehead who shirked his National Guard duty (Outrage at Bush coke use claims, 11 September).
Eccleston claimed that certain documents "raise new questions about whether Mr Bush avoided his duties while posted in the Air National Guard". These "documents" were aired by the Bush-hating Dan Rather on CBS's 60 Minutes. Now even before the toxic Eccleston had touched his computer keyboard, these so-called "documents" had already been discredited as forgeries.
Dan Rather's shabby attempt to assassinate the character of President Bush has been exposed as a vicious fraud, leaving CBS executives running for cover, yet Eccleston still has the nerve to pass the documents off as authentic. Even as Eccleston was composing his own fraudulent piece Terry McAuliffe, Democratic National Committee chairman, was scurrying around screaming that Rove was behind the forgeries. It makes one wonder who the real cokehead is.
Like every bigot, Eccleston just doesn't know when to stop. He resurrected the Bush cocaine libel by bringing in Kitty Kelley's vile drug use allegations. Kelley claimed that Sharon Bush was the source, even though she denounced Kelley as a liar and denied that she ever said that President Bush took cocaine. Kelley had also falsely accused Nancy Reagan of being an abusive mother, promiscuous and of having an affair in the White House with Frank Sinatra.
They don't come more politically malicious than Kelly or, come to think of it, Eccleston. Unfortunately this is not the first time that Rupert Murdoch's Australian used vicious cocaine rumours to smear Bush's character.
On 21 August, 1999, Murdoch published The rumours that get up Bush's nose. This was an article by Cameron Forbes, the 'paper's then Washington correspondent, that demanded that Bush answer questions about alleged cocaine use.
This is the same Bush-hating Forbes who refused to report detailed accounts of cocaine use by Clinton. In a truly sickening attempt to blame Bush for the drug rumours Forbes asserted that the "cocaine problem . . .was of Bush's own making."
This was another vicious example of left-wing journalism. To fully grasp Forbes' hypocrisy and ideological bigotry one must examine the origins and 'content' of these rumours.
The cocaine rumours were promoted by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and a political bigot.[1] Although Kurtz admitted he had no evidence of any kind that Bush had ever taken cocaine he still published the rumour along with an arrogant demand that Bush be made to answer the allegation. A demand that was quickly taken up by other slimy members of the left-wing media.
This is the same paper and the same Kurtz who refused to publish detailed accounts of cocaine use by Clinton. (It will now come as no surprise to readers to learn that Kurtz is an ardent Clinton fan and that the Washington Post is in the Democrats' camp).
Compare Kurtz' demand with his supine support for Clinton when he declared to America's Leftist media in 1991 that "there are certain questions in the past that I won't answer." True to form, not one chose to travel to Little Rock to investigate claims about Clinton's alleged cocaine use. (Some of the allegations were made in a 1990 sworn testimony by Sharline Wilson to a Federal grand jury that Clinton took cocaine).
Fast forward 5 years and we fine that the Australian is now regurgitating the same lies, courtesy of Roy Eccleston. Of course, Eccleston can argue that he did refer to Sharon Bush's denial of Kelley's charges. But the point is that he still used Kelley to smear Bush and accuse his wife of selling drugs. If Eccleston was sincere he would have told his readers that there was not a shred of evidence to Kelley's accusations. But that would have required integrity — a virtue totally alien to Eccleston.
Determined to finish Bush off, or at least his character, Eccleston used Ben Barnes to insinuate that Bush had received favoured treatment to get into the National Guard. Missing from this is the fact that Barnes claimed he did this when he was Lt Governor.
Unfortunately for Eccleston, George W. Bush started his six-year term in the National Guard in May 1968. So how could Barnes have abused his position as Lt Governor to help Bush when he was yet to be appointed? And why did Eccleston ignore the fact that Barnes daughter has publicly stated that her father is lying about favouring Bush?
There are other facts that Eccleston ignored. For example, why didn't he tell us that Barnes is an extremely partisan Democrat and party fundraiser with links to Kerry and Dan Rather? Why didn't he also tell us that Barnes is a discredited official with a record of making shady, if not criminal, dealings? In other words, why won't Eccleston tell the truth?
Eccleston finished his hit piece with: "Second is the question of whether Mr Bush served honourably in the unit — or didn't show up for prolonged periods of up to six months and avoided his responsibilities. Mr Bush says he was there."
In fact, Bush's National Guard service records are open to the public, something that cannot be said of Kerry's military record.
OK, let's look at some of Bush's records, something that Eccleston refused to do. Almost from day one of joining the guard Bush started training. It began with 6 weeks of basic training followed by 53 weeks of flight training. This was followed by 21 weeks of fighter training. This amounted to 80 weeks of full-time training. All in all, total training amounted to nearly 2 years of hard work.
Bush earned 896 points for his service: more than necessary to fulfill his requirements.
In my opinion, Eccleston is a lying political bigot who wouldn't recognize integrity if it jumped up in front of him and spat in his face. Eccleston can always show Brookes kind of man he really is, as if we didn't already know, by directly challenging us on this issue.
On August 24, 1999, Kurtz was asked on CNN why the media had pursued Bush over a cocaine rumour while ignoring Broaddrick's allegation that Clinton raped her. Kurtz claimed that the media had pushed Clinton on the rape allegation, asking several times to answer it. Several times!
Kurtz has the nerve to compare this with the innumerable times the same media demanded that Bush answer the cocaine rumour. Moreover, Kurtz' statement is utterly false. Clinton was asked only twice with nearly all the networks deliberately ignoring Broaddrick's allegation. This makes Kurtz a liar. Unfortunately the Australian media is even worse, with Cameron Forbes actually belittling Broaddrick's ordeal.
Arnold Schwarznegger, Bush and our bigoted media
A Rupert Murdoch journalist takes a swipe at Ronald Reagan
A Rupert Murdoch journalist tries to belittles President Reagan's achievements
Roy Eccleston, a Rupert Murdoch journalist, is another Bush-hater
How Rupert Murdoch's Australian carrion leapt on Linda Chavez
How the Bush-hating media abetted Richard Clarke’s lies and attempts at character assassination
A Murdoch reporter reveals his loathing for Bush and Israel
A Murdoch reporter joins the Democrats against Bush
How one of Rupert Murdoch's reporters twisted the news about Bush and WMDs
Murdoch's rag lies about the CIA and Bush
Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 13 September 2004