Kerry Scandal: A Double Standard or Cover-Up By The American Media

February 19, 2004

The Web is full of articles from around the globe about presidential hopeful John Kerry's alleged two-year affair with a journalist named Alex Polier (see, e.g., google.com), yet none of America's TV networks (except Fox) or mainstream newspapers are reporting about it (except the Washington Times, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News).   She is a journalist who apparently fled to Kenya, and her father has reportedly called Kerry a "sleazeball," but the American media is only reporting about George W. Bush's military record more than 30 years ago!  What a double standard and a travesty.

I spent time some years ago with Teresa Heinz Kerry's husband who was killed in an airplane accident, former Senator Jack Heinz of Pennsylvania, because he was a Harvard Business School classmate of a client and old friend of mine, who was CEO of a major bank.   On one occasion, the three of us strolled the Capitol grounds in Washington together, a day that I remember well.   Heinz was a terrific person, who lacked the pomp that might accompany someone of privilege or the scion of one of America's most prominent families.   He had movie-star good looks, and he was personable and seemingly unaffected, and truly a very nice person.   He was a man's man, and totally unlike John Kerry.

Kerry is full of himself—and of pomp and circumstance; and he is one of the most arrogant senators on Capitol Hill.   He has lied, about his Irish origins and other issues; and his anti-military views are as well known as Jane Fonda.   John Kerry is no Jack Heinz, nor does he even have the "intellectual honesty" of a male Jane Fonda.   He seems to be a phony through and through, as the lovely Teresa Heinz must have been realizing for a long time now.   She is a gutsy woman; and sooner or later, she may come to the conclusion that she does not need Kerry, and that she made a grave mistake in marrying him.   While she does not seem to be a phony, it appears that he has always been that way.

Stories abound about how Kerry "pulled rank on his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives."  Similarly, nowhere has Kerry responded to the “sleazeball" remark by Polier's father, nor has he responded to presidential hopeful Wesley Clark's apparent statement to reporters that Kerry's campaign would “implode” over the issue.   Indeed, the American media seems to be engaged in a news "blackout" of historic proportions with respect to this scandal, despite the fact that stories of Kerry's alleged infidelities are being trumpeted around the world, via Internet sites such as the Drudge Report that broke the story and publications abroad including the London Times and the U.K.'s Telegraph, and the BBC.

This may develop into an enormous scandal, coming on the eve of Kerry's likely anointment as his party's standard-bearer; however, of equal significance is the fact that the American media has apparently chosen to cover it up.   Obviously, if a Republican presidential candidate was involved, a feeding frenzy not unlike that surrounding the O.J. Simpson or Scott Peterson murder cases would ensue, but the mainstream press is conspicuously silent and AWOL.  Have network or newspaper executives applied a double standard or orchestrated something more (e.g., a taped network interview may exist of the woman admitting to the affair), and if so who is responsible?  Certainly this warrants a thorough investigation, among other things to insure that there is fairness in the media.

Let the investigation begin, and let's get to the bottom of this!

Timothy D. Naegele