Gerard Jackson
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 31 May 2004

While brave coalition troops fight and die in Iraq our anti-American media scum continues to report the war as a disaster. Some of these journalists even paint the troops as sadistic killers of women and children: a vile libel that the rancid Brian Toohey of Fairfax Press has perpetrated (Journalist accuses America of war crimes in Iraq).

This hatred of America has been fermenting for decades, particularly in our universities where most of our maleducated journalists were indoctrinated. Rupert Murdoch's Australian has for years been a comfortable refuge for anti-American journalists, which brings me to Roy Eccleston.

Like the rest of us, Eccleston has a history. By studying some of the stuff he has written over the years we come to understand why he seems incapable of writing an honest report about President Bush. It is as if he has been hardwired to respond negatively to conservatives, especially if they are Americans.

So deep is Eccleston's loathing for conservative that he portrayed President Bush as a corrupt extremist (Bush denies he rewarded big business, 18 March 2001). Not content with just maligning Bush he also attacked his daughters (In the Bush family is more than any president can handle 2 June 2001).

Mr Eccleston is clearly not a very nice man, so it should come that Rupert Murdoch's Australian, under the pen of Mr Eccleston, came out in support of Sen. Tom Daschle (The Democrats new post-poster boy, 23 June 2001).

Not only did Roy Eccleston, who is still the paper's Washington correspondent, recall that Daschle was an altar boy, he even portrayed him as one, which will be news to those who have had the misfortune to deal with Daschle’s vicious brand of partisan politics.

Is Daschle an egotist? Not according to the leftwing Eccleston, nor is he a "headkicker". Dear old Tom is just "tough and easygoing", "solid, studious and approachable", "a reasonable and modest demeanour", and so pleasant he "could tell you to go to hell in such a nice way 'you enjoy the trip'".

And from whom did Eccleston get these supportive quotes? Why, from Daschle's fellow Democrats. This is what lefty journalists like Eccleston call honest reporting. The rest of us have another name for it.

Eccleston told us how Daschle could claim most of the credit for Jeffords' defection, a man, in Eccleston's words, who was forced to "become an independent in despair at Bush's right-wing presidential agenda,"

This statement is a bald-faced lie, but this was not the first time Eccleston lied about Jeffords' motives. What the politically bigoted Eccleston did not report — again — is that Jeffords never complained during the campaign about Bush's conservative policies, just as he never complained when he served under the very conservative Reagan administration.

Eccleston also neglected to mention the 'ethical' Jeffords' secret book deal with publisher Simon & Schuster, the same outfit that did an outrageous $US8 million publishing deal with Hillary Clinton. Just as there is more than one way to skin a cat, there's more than one way to bribe a politician.

More importantly, Eccleston left out the fact that Daschle bribed Jeffords with the promise of the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

For Eccleston to have reported these facts, which as a reporter he was supposed to do, would have revealed Jeffords for the treacherous, venal hypocrite that he is. It would also have reflected badly on the Democrats, and we could not have that, could we, Mr Eccleston? Let us not forget that it was the same 'ethical' Jeffords who said of Clinton's rape of Juanita Broaddrick "that rape is a private matter".

The following is from the left-wing Mother Jones and demonstrates that it was been vastly more forthright on Jeffords' treachery than Murdoch's Australian:

Jeffords' move was one of the most blatant cases of political bait-and-switch in memory. Vermont voters went to the polls last November, just six months ago. As he had been for 26 years, Jeffords was listed as, and voted for, as a Republican. Countless Vermonters voted for him because he called himself a Republican — and countless Democrats voted against him for the very same reason. If Jeffords had made his thoughts known before November, there’s an excellent chance that he wouldn't have been returned to the Senate. He sold out his supporters, and the party that funded his campaign, in a cold-blooded manner rendered all the more cynical by his recognition of the opportunity presented by a 50-50 Senate.”

Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor