Kumbaya Watch: Jennings on Bush
The latest in foolish commentary.

By Ross Douthat
September 25, 2001 5:30 p.m.

oor, poor Peter Jennings. For the last week, Howie Kurtz reports in his Washington Post Media Notes column, ABC has been flooded with "angry calls and e-mails since its veteran anchor was reported — erroneously — to have criticized President Bush for not returning directly to the White House after the attacks on New York and Washington." Erroneously, hmm? Well, maybe. The comments in question were uttered by Jennings on September 11, when President Bush was flying from Louisiana to Kansas, with the media in the dark as to his whereabouts and destination. Quoth the anchor: "The country looks to the president on occasions like this to be reassuring to the nation. Some presidents do it well, some presidents don't." Now maybe that "some presidents don't" was a reference to, say, Jimmy Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis, or James Buchanan facing the Civil War. But maybe, as David Limbaugh argued on NRO (and as this writer, who happened to be watching ABC at the time, certainly thought), Jennings was taking a backhanded swipe at President Bush's temporary (and sensible) absence from the media's all-seeing gaze.

What Kurtz does not mention, meanwhile, is that Jennings' comments were part of a larger pattern of bizarre reporting decisions and inappropriate emphases, which culminated in the ABC anchor's coverage of President Bush's speech to Congress. As Washington Post columnist Tom Shales (no lefty, he) pointed out last week, when Bush was finished speaking, Jennings's network did not even deign to broadcast the joint Daschle-Lott follow-up address. Instead, Jennings "quizzed ABC correspondents and interested parties on their reactions ... [and] the first interested party Jennings consulted was Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University." This, writes Shales, "was a bizarre choice journalistically yet in keeping with the personal predilections of Jennings, who thought the burning question of the moment was whether Bush had come out strongly enough against bigotry toward people of Islamic faith. Not surprisingly, Hendi thought not."

"'He needed to be more aggressive or more assertive in that message,' Hendi said heatedly. 'I need to hear him more clear' regarding hatred and acts of violence committed against Muslims living in America."

As Shales points out, these comments followed a speech in which "Bush said America's prayers were being heard whether 'in English, Hebrew or Arabic' ... [in which] he said later that America has 'many Muslim friends' and 'many Arab friends,'" and added that "'no one should be singled out . . . because of their ethnic background or religious faith." "But that," Shales concludes, "wasn't enough for Hendi or, perhaps, for Jennings."

And people think that ABC's anchor might be biased? How silly of them.

Meanwhile, in a related item, Kurtz reports that ABC News has barred its reporters from wearing American-flag lapel pins while on the air. "Especially in a time of national crisis, the most patriotic thing journalists can do is to remain as objective as possible," spokesman Jeffrey Schneider is quoted as saying. "That does not mean journalists are not patriots. All of us are at a time like this. But we cannot signal how we feel about a cause, even a justified and just cause, through some sort of outward symbol."

As objective as possible? Maybe they should start with their anchor.