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When Wingers Predict Media Bias

Last summer, radio talker and winger Neal Boortz predicted an “explosion in the media that will demonstrate media bias as never before.”

Boortz’s prediction centered on media treatment of Sandy Berger and Richard Shelby. Both were accused of mishandling classified information.

Berger reviewed certain classified documents related to the 9/11 investigation at the National Archives in connection to the investigation of the 9/11 Commission. Berger removed some of those documents without authorization. In addition, it appears that some of the documents may have been destroyed.

Republican Senator Richard Shelby served on the Intelligence Committee (including a stint as Chairman). In that capacity, he had access to classified information. In particular, Shelby was privy to information that the intelligence community had intercepted certain messages pointing towards the attacks before 9/11 but had not translated the messages before the attacks. He leaked that information to Fox News and to CNN. CNN aired the information.

Boortz seems to think that Berger’s actions are far worse than Shelby’s. It is hard to see why. Berger allegedly took multiple drafts of a Richard Clark authored report concerning the terrorist activities related to the millennium celebration. He is not accused of disseminating any classified information to any media outlet. It is hard to see how his actions could have jeopardized any current anti-terrorist programs. Berger already knew the information contained in the documents. Those documents had already been reviewed by the 9/11 Commission. The information was four years old. Itr seems that the greatest harm that could have come from the removal of the documents was that Berger and the Clinton Administration could have been spared some political embarrassment.

Shelby, on the other had, leaked classified material directly to the media. The leaked information included the exact language of intercepted Al Qaeda communications. That information was broadcast on television. By leaking the information to the media, Shelby risked allowing Al Qaeda to gain valuable information about U.S. intelligence collection techniques and resources. In addition, while Berger claims that his actions were inadvertent, it is clear that Shelby knew exactly what he was doing when he leaked classified intelligence information to two major news organizations.

For those reasons, it seems that Shelby’s sin is the greater. For the purpose of argument, though, lets assume that Berger and Shelby committed equally grave offenses.

Boortz believes that any disparity in reaction to those events must be the result of political bias. Last August, Boortz wrote:

Berger is a Democrat....and the media believes that the story might hurt … (John Kerry) in this year's campaign. They are sheltering him from bad publicity...he is being given a pass. It's no longer front-page news. In fact, you hardly hear about it anymore. Interesting, huh?

Now comes a story of a different sort. The Washington Post is reporting that federal investigators have concluded that Senator Richard Shelby divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. They're saying he told Fox's Carl Cameron and CNN's Dana Bash about it. The Justice Department declined to prosecute, and has referred the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. So what's the point?

Shelby is a Republican....and the worst kind to the left, he used to be a Democrat. To them, not only is he the enemy, but a traitor. Watch them nail him to the wall on this one....he won't get a single break, all because he is a Republican.

Five months have passed and we are in a position to assess whether Boortz was right. Did Berger get a pass? Was Shelby nailed to the wall? No and No.

There are two different types of reaction to the Berger and Shelby stories. There is the official reaction and the media reaction. With regard to official action, was it Berger or Shelby who got a pass?

The Shelby investigation was conducted by the Justice Department. After concluding that he did, in fact, leak classified information to the media, the Justice Department declined to prosecute and referred the matter to the Senate Ethics where is has not been heard of since.

The Berger investigation was also assigned to the Justice Department. Unlike in the Shelby case, they presented the matter to a Grand Jury. As the NY Post put it:

Federal prosecutors haven't forgotten about Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's national security advisor, who was caught smuggling classified documents from the National Archives by stuffing them down his pants and into his socks.

It turns out that career Justice Department prosecuters have taken the case before a federal grand jury in Washington.

Exactly who got the pass in the official reaction?

The media reaction was similar. According to the Carpetbagger Report, as of August 6 of last year:

Consider CNN, which is supposed to be the reasonable network. Starting with the July 19th edition of Aaron Brown's NewsNight, the network committed almost three dozen segments to the Berger "scandal" in just one week, including three separate episodes of Crossfire.

In contrast, CNN hasn't committed any real segments to the Shelby story -- that's right, not even one -- while the network mentioned the investigation in passing on Saturday.

And when I say "in passing," I mean that quite literally. On "CNN Live Saturday," after a commercial break, anchor Carol Lin said it was time for a "quick look at who's happening in the news." Eventually, CNN reported this:

A federal investigation into Republican Senator Richard Shelby, a Senate Ethics Committee is trying to determine whether he leaked classified information linked to 9/11 and al Qaeda. A separate investigation by the FBI is also underway.

That's it. Berger's photocopies generated a week of breathless excitement; Shelby's obvious leak of classified information to the media got 30 words on a Saturday.

What about more recent media coverage?

A
Google News search of “Sandy Berger” + “classified” returns thirteen media stories.

A Google News search of “Richard Shelby” + “classified” returns exactly one story about he leaked documents. That story is from the Madison County (Alabama) Record. The complete text of the only recent media reference to the Shelby leak is as follows:

Our senior U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby appears to have dodged a bullet during the summer when he was accused of leaking classified CIA information to the media.

It looked like a major investigation into the matter may develop. However, it failed to materialize and nothing has been mentioned about the CIA leak in months.

Boortz ends his August post as follows:

Is the media biased? Absolutely...need proof? Just sit back and watch.

I sat back. I watched. Where exactly is the proof? I think Neal Boortz needs to make a public apology. What are the chances of that? The same as the chances that the liberal media would nail Richard Shelby because he is a Republican while giving Berger as pass because he is a Democrat.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at January 25, 2005 02:31 PM | TrackBack