Nothing But the Truth

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

February 7, 2007

Who can we count on to tell us the truth — free from the taint of sexism and greed? Clearly not the media, or many of our representatives in Congress. With a pivotal 2008 presidential campaign on the horizon and critical issues before us today, we need the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. At this rate, we're going to have a long wait.

Once Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her intention to run for president on January 20, I expected the usual suspects to attack her, as they have reliably done for the past 15 years. I knew we'd suddenly hear more than usual about her "calculating" moves, her "ambition," her use of Rodham, and her choice of clothing (at least they've stopped the decade-long commentary on her hairstyle, or have they?)

The National Review didn't surprise anyone with its recent commentary on Clinton's apparel, entitled "Pretty in Pink," nor did Ann Coulter raise any eyebrows when she suggested that Democrats "tell the chick to butt out." As they become all too predictable, reliably sexist media outlets and pundits are losing their shock value (indeed, the only value they have).

It wouldn't have surprised me on Fox News or MSNBC, but I was disgusted by the bias in the early morning Associated Press story released after Clinton's announcement. Several passages ruffled my feathers, starting with unattributed negative statements like: "She is often compared to her husband and found lacking in his natural charisma. Others have criticized her for being overly cautious and calculating when so many voters say they crave authenticity." Just who is criticizing Clinton and comparing her to her husband? The story didn't say. While making negative statements about Clinton as though they were fact, the AP reporter attributed Clinton's positive characteristics to the opinions of her supporters.

Most irksome of all was the sentence declaring that the Senator is "best known for her disastrous attempt in 1993 to overhaul the nation's health care system and for standing by her husband after his marital infidelity."

Disastrous? Last I checked, adjectives like that are reserved for the commentary section unless you're quoting somebody. I'd expect a news story to report the facts: as first lady, Hillary Clinton headed the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, which recommended a plan for universal health care that was attacked by the health insurance industry with a multi-million dollar ad campaign — a campaign that effectively defeated an effort that could have changed the face of health care in this country for the better. Evidently, when dealing with a "polarizing" woman running for president, careful reporting is just not a priority. Everyone already "either reveres or reviles her," so what's the point of an unbiased source, right?

I mean, really, with Bill O'Reilly on one side spewing his usual lies, and with Chris Matthews right beside him Photoshopping a poodle skirt onto Senator Clinton for his 500,000 viewers, I was hoping to be able to count on the Associated Press for "just the facts, ma'am."

While Hillary Clinton stories proliferated these past few weeks, the Senate's consideration of raising the minimum wage got a little lost in the frenzy. Actually, consideration isn't really the best word for what happened to the minimum wage bill. Perversion is more like it. Republican senators are bent on denying minimum wage earners — the majority of whom are women — a $2.10 raise. That is, of course, unless they get to lower taxes for corporate America. In a previous column about the House, when I talked about 267 reasons to curb our enthusiasm about Democratic power in Congress, this is exactly what I was talking about. We need more than a narrow majority in order to achieve real victories (like raising the minimum wage), without having to give up our rights or raise the deficit to quell the greed monster that the Republican leadership has become.

In the midst of the Senate floor debate, Senator Ted Kennedy asked the poignant question: "When does the greed stop?". He went on to spell out what was really happening to the minimum wage bill: "This is filibuster by delay and amendments."

Despite that fact that over 80 percent of people in this country favor raising the minimum wage by a couple of dollars, the Senate spent days and days — on top of 10 years of inaction — deliberating whether the price of that small increase should be requiring billions of dollars in tax breaks for those that have already had more than their share.

The great Molly Ivins said it best almost exactly a year ago in her column: "What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake...to speak up and say what needs to be said? The majority of the American people think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich.... That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?"

Molly Ivins passed away on Jan 31, 2007, just days after Ted Kennedy heeded her call — spoke up and said what needed to be said. In her honor, we must do the same. Enough deception. Enough sexism. Enough greed. As Molly said, "We are the people who run this country."

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