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Edited on Fri May-11-07 10:55 PM by Hart2008
Gary Hart issued no challenge. He made a statement in exasperation after E. J. Dionne Jr. insisted upon discussing rumors about his personal life. To quote Bill Bradley: “Two days after the stakeout began, as this story spread, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published a generally glowing cover story on presidential frontrunner Hart, written by the paper’s then chief political writer E.J. Dionne. (The former student of CNN’s Bill Schneider, mentioned above as a debunker of this story we think we know.) In that story, Hart, exasperated for a moment by Dionne’s returning to questions of dalliances with women not his wife in the midst of all the weighty talk they were sharing, challenged Dionne to follow him around. Which he did not.”
http://billbradley.pajamasmedia.com/2006/02/20/what_we_think_we_know.php
(One of the people known to have been spreading rumors that Hart was a womanizer is Susan Estrich, who ran the pathetic Dukakis campaign. Another Dukakis campaign staffer ruined Biden’s ’88 bid with the tape that “proved” Biden plagiarized Neil Kinnock.)
Dionne himself remains an admirer of Hart:
“Gary Hart the only candidate in either party to offer a fully thought-through alternative foreign policy. Hart, who was much taken by Gorbachev during a visit to the Soviet Union, called his plan Enlightened Engagement and suggested that in the next period, the United States and the Soviet Union might find that they had many interests in common. The real problem the US faced, he said, was the proliferation of conflict in the Third World. In light of the subsequent developments, notably those in the Persian Gulf, Hart’s grand vision was prophetic. But it never got much of a hearing, since his candidacy collapsed in the far from grand controversy over his personal life.”
Why Americans Hate Politics, by E.J. Dionne, 1991
Dionne continues to laud Hart’s service to the nation:
“It is not only a great honor to be here at Yale Divinity School to give this keynote address. It is also intimidating, and on many fronts. First, this audience includes many people whom I admire and who have given serious and profound thought to the issues I’m addressing, notably the two Yale Divinity grads who have rendered so much distinguished and courageous service to our country, Gary Hart and David Price.”
(Quoted from Dionne’s submitted prepared remarks: “The Quest for a Beloved Commity: Religion, Democracy and Civic Life” keynote address at Yale Divinity School, May 3, 2007. We are still waiting for a transcript of this occasion since Hart and Dionne may have had more to say on the previous controversy.)
The whole business that Hart “challenged” the media to follow him is a media created fig leaf to justify what was an unprecedented invasion of a candidate’s privacy. The Miami Herald set out to destroy Hart’s reputation. They DID NOT FOLLOW GARY HART. They claim to have followed Donna Rice, lost her at the airport and then began spying on Hart’s rented Washington townhouse. (Hart’s wife and family never lived there contrary to the Miami Herald’s reporting that Lee Hart wasn’t home. Lee Hart’s home always was in Colorado. So the bit about Hart’s wife wasn’t home was crap too.) They saw Donna Rice and two other people enter the townhouse. Shortly thereafter, Hart saw the reporters hiding in his bushes and went out the front door to confront them, while at the same time his guests left by way of the back door. Either the Miami Herald’s reporter’s didn’t see them leave, or having to defend the cost of sending three reporters and a photographer by air to D.C., didn’t want to see them leave. They persisted in printing the story that Donna Rice spent the night in Hart’s townhouse even though Hart and all of his guests said otherwise. Donna Rice spent the night at the home of Mr. Bill Broadhurst, a D.C. attorney with another friend. The truth didn’t matter because sex sells.
Twenty years ago, Rice, a Phi Beta Kappa, said that she slept on a different boat than Hart in Bimini. Despite being offer millions of dollars for an interview on the subject by major news organization, Rice has never changed her story. Presently she works to protect children from Internet pornography. In the only interview she has ever given on the subject, she speaks of Hart being a gentleman and her troubled past that included being raped:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/6w5/6w5042.html
The whole of his relationship with Rice, who had been the girlfriend of the Eagles Don Henley (who wrote “Dirty Laundry” about the Hart-Rice story), consisted of the trip to Bimini onboard the stately yacht, some phone calls, and Rice’s very brief visit to Hart’s D.C. townhouse.
Supposedly, the Miami Herald began investigating the story based on an anonymous informant who claimed that Hart’s relationship with Rice, whatever it was, was the equivalent of the Iran-Contra affair, a Constitutional crisis. At best the anonymous informant was a deceitful woman who needed a published story to sell the now infamous photo of Rice, which was stolen from her, sitting on Hart’s lap on a dock. At worst, the anonymous informant was working for another campaign and sought to sabotage the Hart campaign. Since the Miami Herald never bothered to confirm the identity of the source, we can only surmise who it may have been. (And we will on our website…) The absurdity of the Iran-Contra comparison is that Iran-Contra had roots in Miami, which to the best of my knowledge the Miami Herald never broke a single story about it, but could spare three reporters to find and then follow an unknown woman, so they said, through the Miami airport to D.C., and to “stake out” Hart’s townhouse. Furthermore, the Miami Herald was named by the Church committee report as a news publication, which had previously received money from the CIA to publish favorable news stories. Combine that with the fact that Hart confronted George H. W. Bush at his confirmation hearing for CIA director with CIA records indicating that he was CIA asset in Miami at the time of the JFK assassination and Bush was the ring leader of Iran-Contra and you may draw your own conclusions as to what the Miami Herald’s agenda was here. If you follow the links, Bradley blames Bush for the Miami Herald:
"There was also an agenda to knock out Hart, which the Bush people were very much behind. This is a much longer story."
http://billbradley.pajamasmedia.com/2007/05/08/nonrando...
The Miami Herald did not drive Hart from the race in ’87. To again quote Bill Bradley:
“The Donna Rice incident is not the reason Hart fatefully withdrew from the race. The real reason Hart withdrew ultimately led the Washington Post’s chief political reporter to quit journalism in disgust. But that’s a story for another time.”
http://billbradley.pajamasmedia.com/2006/02/20/what_we_think_we_know.php
Unfortunately, while Hart was defending himself against the incorrect Miami Herald story, the Washington Post blackmailed him with publishing accounts of his activities while separated from his wife if he didn’t drop out. (Hart had roomed with Bob Woodward during one separation.) THAT caused Hart to drop out of the race. Hart protected a lady’s reputation, which is far from being a womanizer.
The whole of the matter was completely unprecedented. Reagan had been the first divorced President. No one ever demanded to know why his marriage failed. (After he left office, I read one story that he forced himself on an actress in her trailer while filming a movie with her.) It was common knowledge in D.C. that George H.W. Bush had an “office wife” in Jennifer Fitzgerald, but it was not reported:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Fitzgerald
Why should Hart have known that his personal life was open to publication?
Why the double standard for Hart?
How much better the country would have been if the party gave Hart more support in '87 and '88.
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