In the midst of network reporters happily promoting the Democratic/Gore
opposition research hits on Dick Cheney, a CNN reporter actually picked up on the
Bush team’s counterattack on Gore, an angle ignored by ABC, CBS and NBC. In a
story on CNN’s Inside Politics Wednesday night, but which did not run on The World
Today, Jonathan Karl showed how in the 1980s Al Gore voted just like Dick Cheney on
guns and abortion, positions for which the Gore camp is now accusing Cheney of being an
extremist.

On Special Report with Brit Hume, FNC’s Jim Angle made a brief mention of how Gore
got good grades from the NRA in the early 1980s. (Referring back to item #2 above, that
Gore could earn a 66 percent ADA rating while voting conservative on issues on which Tennesseans were on the right –
like gun control — suggests how liberal he must have been in many other areas.)

Karl informed viewers of the July 26 Inside Politics: “On the potentially explosive issues of gun control and abortion,
the Bush team says Gore was often voting the same way as Cheney. Take gun control. From 1980 to 1984 Gore
received virtually straight A ratings from the National Rifle Association while representing his conservative Tennessee
district in the House, grades similar to Dick Cheney’s on the gun issue.”

On screen CNN displayed a graphic:
NRA Grades
Gore Cheney
1980: A- A
1982: A- A
1984: A A

Karl continued: “And on abortion, Gore voted with he National Right to Life Committee 94 percent of the time
[1979-84] in the early 1980s, nearly as high as Cheney’s 100 percent rating. And in 1984 Gore voted for an amendment
banning federal funding of abortion that said quote ?the unborn are persons from the moment of conception.’ Cheney
voted for that too. It lost.”

Karl explained the Bush strategy: “Attacked on Cheney’s voting record the Bush campaign will respond with an attack
on Gore’s, telling voters Gore has flip-flopped on hot-button issues like gun control and abortion. Bush calls it political
judo and it’s the modus operandi of his campaign — use an attack against you as an opportunity to turn the attack back
on your opponent.”

But that only works if the media report your counterattack and so far ABC, CBS and NBC have all ignored this
“political judo.”

+++ Watch a clip of Karl’s story. On Thursday the MRC’s Eric Pairel will post a RealPlayer video clip from this story.
Go to: http://www.mrc.org