Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Chris Vlasto: a name to remember   The latest attempt to slime Howard Dean comes courtesy of Chris Vlasto, among others, an ABC News producer who has a long history of manipulating or even inventing “evidence” against Democrats:   Click here to read about Chris Vlasto’s creative editing of videotape of Hillary Clinton.   Click here to read about Chris Vlasto’s loving embrace of Ken Starr and Vlasto’s lies concerning Susan McDougal.   Read how Chris Vlasto willing acted as Starr’s go-between in breaking down the weak-willed Jim McDougal’s resistance to lie about the Clintons.   Outside easy public view, Starr even received an unusual testimonial from one journalist whose role in reporting the rolling scandal since Whitewater has been substantial. Whitewater promoter Jim McDougal and ABC News producer Chris Vlasto became friends during Vlasto's Whitewater investigations. In Arkansas Mischief, his memoir with the Boston Globe's Curtis Wilkie, McDougal recounted how, in 1996, he was awaiting sentencing after having been indicted on 18 felony counts by Starr's Little Rock grand jury. Depressed, he told Vlasto he was afraid of dying in jail. "'Listen, Jim,' Chris said, 'you don't have to go out this way. If you walk in to see Ken Starr, he'll greet you with open arms.' He recommended that I at least talk with the independent counsel." I asked Vlasto whether McDougal's account was accurate. "In general, absolutely," he told me. "The gist of the story is true."   Vlasto, who is Jackie Judd's producer on the ABC Evening News and also produces for "Nightline," has been relentless in his pursuit of White House scandals. This does not, of course, mean that there is anything wrong with his fact-finding. The fact that he has written for The Wall Street Journal is not necessarily here or there. Neither is the fact that the organ in which he profiled Jim McDougal is the conservative Weekly Standard. Vlasto is entitled to his opinions, and entitled to advise a friend. I asked him whether he had become part of the story by virtue of his conversations with McDougal, in particular his advice. After a very long pause, he said: "I was acting as a journalist. It was a matter of my relation with my sources."   Want to falsely imply Iraq is behind the anthrax scare? Chris Vlasto’s your man:   On October 26, ABC News ran a special investigative report by Brian Ross, declaring that Iraq had been conclusively linked to the anthrax in a letter sent to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Ross reported that the spores found on the Daschle letter were “nearly identical to those discovered in Iraq in 1994. ABC NEWS also has learned that at least two labs have concluded the anthrax was coated with additives linked to the Iraqi biological weapons program.”   Ross claimed that “five well-placed and separate sources have told ABC NEWS that initial tests have detected traces of bentonite and silica, substances that keep tiny anthrax particles floating in the air by preventing them from sticking together—making them more easily inhaled.... As far as is known, only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.”   Ross has produced more than one television “exclusive” which served US interests in relation to Iraq. When he worked as an investigative reporter for NBC News, he filed a report in April 1990 on alleged Iraqi attempts to obtain nuclear “triggers” from Western high-tech firms, a story which clearly required the tacit or active collaboration of American intelligence agencies.   Also significant is the identity of one of the report’s producers: Chris Vlasto. He was last in the news when he was identified as a media agent of the right-wing operatives who engineered the Clinton impeachment. Vlasto picked up the tab for a celebratory dinner for Paula Jones and her Christian fundamentalist attorneys the day they succeeded in hauling Clinton before a grand jury and compelling him to testify under oath about his sexual history, including answering questions about Monica Lewinsky.   Want to plant false stories about Clinton “the rapist”… call on Chris Vlasto…   To anyone keeping track of leaks from the Office of Independent Counsel, it is interesting to note that ABC's Judd and her producer, Chris Vlasto, would know the identity of someone Starr is investigating. Apparently the ABC team has unusual access to Starr's ongoing investigations and to his witness Willey, who has been granted broad immunity despite her admission that she lied about certain matters to the OIC.   Heck, want to help throw an election by recklessly accusing one party of having moles in the offices of the other—Chris Vlasto again, that is, as long as it sabotages the Democrats …   ABC NEWS SPIKES STORY ON MOLE; REPORTER, PRODUCER 'FURIOUS'   **Exclusive**   ABC NEWS on Monday afternoon spiked a story that was set to air on WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH PETER JENNINGS -- a story that featured an on-camera interview with a source who claimed a Gore staffer bragged about a mole inside of Bush headquarters!   ABC NEWS award-winning reporter Jackie Judd and fearless producer Chris Vlasto sat in horror as they were told their investigation would not see the light of day.   There is now only a remote possibility the segment will reach air.   MORE...   The twelve minute long on-camera interview with a voice-modified and shadowed-out informant instead was edited and placed on ABCNEWS.com, the net's web outlet.   "ABCNEWS.com does not have the same 'editorial process' as the network news broadcast," said one well-placed source. "Thanks to the web at least some viewers got to judge the interview on its merits and draw their own conclusions."   Judd and Vlasto developed one of the most intriguing stories thus far in the campaign cycle, only to have it spiked by their editors.   Or better yet, Chris Vlasto can just spread rumors of people stealing votes without any actual evidence:   Police Say Florida Democrat Had a ‘Votamatic’ in His Car By Chris Vlasto and David Ruppe / ABC News Several days after presidential votes were tallied in what has become the hotbed of Florida’s post-election confusion, police in Palm Beach County confiscated a ballot-box mechanism from the car of a well-known local Democrat. The mechanism, called a “Votamatic,” did not contain any ballots. It’s a device used on some types of ballot boxes to punch votes through ballot cards, which are then tallied by computers.   Sexual tastes run a bit bizarre… not to worry, Chris Vlasto is here to cater to all kinds. And would could be better than doing so while simultaneously impugning a dictators virility:   The best of American reporters don’t seem to give a hoot about getting inside the country [Iraq] and looking around. Take the latest from ABC News. Producer Chris Vlasto spent months in an "unnamed middle eastern country" working his sources to get an interview for Claire Shipman with an alleged mistress of Saddam’s, just so we can learn this week that the freak uses Viagra and likes to watch torture videos of his enemies.   See how evenhanded Chris Vlasto is? He smears both sides: Democrats and Iraqis.   Clinton, Gore, Dean – the enemies may change but Chris Vlasto’s SOP remains the same: slime and smear with the most salacious of charges be they true or false; God can sort that out later. 9:25:21 PM

At least one Senator knows the score   Finally, someone calls the Iraq scam for what it is… but is anyone listening? The Iraq war was a "political product" marketed by the Bush administration to win elections, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a speech Wednesday. As a result, Kennedy said, Bush and the Republicans in Congress "put the state of our nation at risk, and they do not deserve another term in the White House or in control of Congress."… "The war has made America more hated in the world," said Kennedy. "And it has made our people more vulnerable to attacks both here and overseas." And why couldn't Gephardt and the other Senators figure this out? 6:50:14 PM