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06/24/2002
This week ABC News President David Westin put an end to the worst kept secret in broadcast news and officially declared that George Stephanopoulos would take over as the host of ABC's This Week in September. Media bias activists don't buy the magical metamorphosis from Clinton's spin doctor to unbiased newsman, but most had been reading the smoke signals and were not at all surprised.

What was disturbing was some absurd commentary from people who ought to know better. Consider the comments of Eric Burns, host of Fox News Watch, who advises us to wait and see what kind of job Stephanopoulos does as anchor!

"…By the time this column appears, some conservatives will be officially irate.

They believe that because Stephanopoulos was once Bill Clinton's right-hand man, which is to say a publicly declared Democrat, which is to say a card-carrying liberal, he is unqualified to hold a position as a network news anchor. They believe that ABC's naming him to such a position is an example of the network's bias.

What I believe is that conservatives who feel this way are demonstrating a bias, or at least closed-mindedness, of their own."

Mr. Burns should be advised that calling names would certainly get folks officially irate if they weren't before. But putting that aside, there are mountains of evidence suggesting that George Stephanopoulos will continue his liberal activism unabated as he has since leaving the employ of President Clinton. Let's look at a few recent examples:

• Solidly opposed to tax cuts - "But this argument somehow that because we're going into some kind of a dip, even if it's not a recession, that you need to have a HUGE tax cut now is completely specious, especially because, as you pointed out in your questioning, the tax cut is not going to take effect right away and the real effect, when it really costs a lot of money, is many years down the road, five or ten years down the road. It was interesting when Mr. [Lawrence] Lindsay said we might then speed up the tax cuts. That means it's going to cost even more, far more than the $1.3 trillion they're talking about." - 01/07/2001 on ABC's This Week



• Called Bush "too hard line" on China - "He did do well here. Listen, he succeeded. It's Easter. Everyone is home, everyone is safe. It's a win no matter how it happened. We'll never know if it could happened earlier if he hadn't been so hard line." - 04/15/2001 on ABC's This Week



• Perpetuated the myth of the Social Security "lock box" - "After this mid-session review budget report came this week, both you and President Bush mentioned what seemed to be a new exception to taking money from the Social Security lock box. You said that when there's a recession you can dip into the lock box. What's the economic rational for that?" - 08/26/2001 on ABC's This Week



• Ready to blame the U.S. for "people that hate us" - "One of the things that's been lacking here in the States is a real open debate about the effect of our policies in the world, about why some people in the world do hate us and the effect of our policies on them. I think we need a little bit more of that in the coming year." - 01/01/2002 on ABC's 2002 special with Peter Jennings

Burns pleads: "Do they not realize that he is already so sensitive to charges of liberal bias, so aware that some on the right will take him to task for even so minor an offense as turning his head to the left to sneeze, that he is likely to work harder on his neutrality than virtually anyone else in a similar position?"

What kind of crazy talk is this? Based on his performance to date, why would we expect a sudden trend toward neutrality? In fact, it is not a stretch to say that expecting neutrality from George Stephanopoulos is like expecting Arafat to put a stop to terrorism against Israel: If it happens, it is only a cosmetic change and only for a too-brief period of time.

Please join me in urging Eric Burns to seek professional help for the delusions he is suffering. Below is the contact information.

Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036

Phone 212-301-3000
FAX 212-301-4229

E-mail

Read more here:

Eric Burns: Watch First, Judge Later
MRC Spotlight: George Stephanopoulos
MRC CyberAlert, 06/19/2002: Stephanopoulos: “Analytical,” Not “Ideological”
Media Reality Check: Devoted to Bringing About Liberal Change
fairpress.org: Stephanopoulos and the Imaginary Lock-Box
fairpress.org: Clinton Shill Test Drives Morning Host Job