By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
August 24, 2001
The question that popped into my mind, after watching Connie Chung's thirty minute interview with Congressman Gary Condit about Chandra Levy last night was: Why did she ask such stupid questions? For example:
CHUNG Did you kill Chandra Levy?CONDIT I did not.
Why in the world would she waste time asking such a question? Did she actually think he might say,
Somehow, I don't think so. So, why ask the question? That was pure TV soap opera, not news.
Right after asking Condit if he murdered Chandra Levy, Chung asked Condit if he knew what happened to Chandra Levy and the exchange went as follows:
CONDIT: Well, I met Chandra ... last, um, October. And we became very close. I met her in Washington, DC.
CHUNG: Very close, meaning ...?
CONDIT: We had a close relationship. I liked her very much.
CHUNG May I ask you, was it a sexual relationship?
CONDIT Well, Connie, I've been married for 34 years, and I've not been a ... a perfect man, and I've made my share of mistakes. But um, out of respect for my family, and out of a specific request from the Levy family, I think it's best that I not get into those details uh, about Chandra Levy.
CHUNG Congressman Condit, do you recall when ... it was during President Clinton's impeachment hearings, you called for, and I quote, "The public airing of every detail of his affair," saying, quote, "only when we strip away the cloak of secrecy and lay the facts on the table, can we begin to resolve this matter." Shouldn't those rules apply to yourself?
CONDIT Well, I've watched that clip, and I've heard that quote. My view of that is it's taken out of context. The fact of the matter is ... is that the Starr report was there. And the Republicans were drip, drip, drip, releasing that report, and it was embarrassing ...
CHUNG (Overlap) But we want to talk about you and not President Clinton. If Connie only wanted to talk about Gary Condit, not President Clinton, why did she bring up his statement during Clinton's impeachment? Condit was determined to finish. He said:
Chung again interrupted with:
CONDIT Well, once again, I've been married 34 years. I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life. But out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the relationship. So, what was the "specific request by the Levy Family?" Chung didn't ask. What she was fishing for was some kind of justification for the media frenzy that has been taking place all summer about Gary Condit. And, why, do you suppose, the Levys all the sudden decided they didn't want Gary Condit talking about what he knows about their daughter? For weeks they were demanding that he publicly reveal ALL that he knew about their daughter.
Twice Chung charged Condit with protecting his privacy, his family privacy "at the expense of a, of a woman who is missing."
The Congressman replied:
Chung accused Condit of not cooperating with the police and impeding the investigation, to which he replied:
And again, Chung interrupted. She didn't seem to be willing to ever let him finish response. However, the point he made several times was that the four interviews were with four different sets on interrogators and that they all asked about the same questions, which he answered truthfully. Chung would have none of it. She charged ahead with her agenda:
CONDIT (Overlap) No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that, that you're, going on unnamed sources of the third interview of people who were not even in the room. Determined to justify the weeks of media speculation, Chung demanded repeatedly that Condit "clear the air now by revealing exactly what kind of relationship you had." The reply was:
Then Chung demanded to know why Chandra Levy came to his apartment:
CONDIT I have people that have come to my apartment all the time. But she came to my apartment that day to tell me that she had just lost her internship, with the Department of Justice. And that was the discussion we had that day. Chung tried to trap Condit repeatedly demanding to know, for example,
CHUNG: "Ann Marie Smith said that she had a year-long relationship with you. And that you asked her to lie about it. True?"
I didn't ask anyone to lie about anything. I did not ask Ann Marie not to cooperate with law enforcement. That's an absolute ...
CHUNG (Overlap) (Inaudible) ... sorry.
CONDIT Absolute lie. Chung then demanded to know Why Condit would want her to say that she didn't have a relationship with him and the Congressman's response was:
CHUNG Why, why would she make it up?
CONDIT You know, Connie, I'm, uh ... I'm puzzled by uh, by people who take advantage of tragedy. A missing person that they don't even know.
CHUNG You're saying that she completely fabricated this?
CONDIT ..she's taken advantage of this tragedy. She didn't know Chandra Levy. So she gets to have her moment of publicity, of financial gain. And I'm puzzled by that. At the end of Chung's interrogation she asked if Condit believed his constituents "deserve the truth." He responded with:
CONDIT They deserve the truth. And the truth is that I have done everything asked of me by the people who are responsible to find Chandra Levy. I have done everything. I've given you the list. I mean, I have not been part of the media circus if, if that's your point. But it's not the news media's responsibility to find Chandra Levy. It's law enforcement. And I made a decision that I would work with law enforcement to do just that.." At the end the public is left with a relatively simple question: Do you believe the media speculation about what happened, which led Chung to ask Congressman Condit in an interview that will be haggled over throughout the world: "Did you kill Chandra Levy?" Or, do you believe Gary Condit? Do you believe an unidentified, unnamed, unverifiable and mysterious "source" who was not in the room when Gary Condit was questioned by the Department of Justice, or do you believe Congressman Gary Condit who said publicly from the very beginning that he had a "close relationship" with Chandra Levy.
What Chung tried to force Condit to reveal were the details of that relationship which she and most of the rest of the media have already concluded was a Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky sort of relationship. Chung apparently thought by shocking Condit with a question like "Did you kill Chandra Levy" she could either make him mad enough to lose his temper or fluster him into saying something that she could use to support her obvious speculations.
What happened last night was not an effort to find the facts. . It was a new form of TV Soap Opera that I am sure will boost the ratings for ABC and Connie Chung. Lots of people undoubtedly were titillated by Connie Chung's prosecutorial and sexy cross examination. However, it says more about the American public's level of culture at the end of eight years of Clinton scandals than it did about What Happened to Chandra Levy.
And, while it may help temporarily boost ABC ratings, I suspect it will also add to the number of Americans who have just quit listening to TV news and reading the newspapers. What they are getting isn't news. It's soap opera and sex.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
CHUNG Can you describe your relationship? What exactly was your relationship with Chandra Levy?
CONDIT (Overlap) "Well, let me finish. Yeah, let me finish ... because it relates to President Clinton. And I asked that the Starr report, along with other people, be released in its total, so that we could get to the impeachment hearing. And the real issue here, that the media seems to have forgotten in this report many times, is that I voted four times not to impeach President Clinton. That's the real issue."
"CHUNG (Overlap) We're not talking about that right now. What we're talking about is whether or not you will come forward to uh, lift this veil of suspicion that seems to have clouded you. Can you tell us ... did you have a romantic relationship with Chandra Levy?
CONDIT Well, that's not correct. That's not correct at all. Because I have cooperated with law enforcement. The people who are responsible for finding Chandra. No, I haven't held a news conference, and no, I don't do talk shows. But I have cooperated
"Let me tell you, Connie, I have interviewed four times. I interviewed with the Metropolitan police department. I've interviewed a second time with the Metropolitan police department and the commander. I interviewed with the Department of Justice, the federal prosecutor, also with the MPD. I interviewed with the FBI. I allowed them to search my home, where they ripped up my carpet, they took the paint off the walls, they put the drains down the, the pipes..
CHUNG So you're suggesting that the police didn't quite ask you the right questions (Inaudible)?
CONDIT Well, but you and I work under two different assumptions here, I think. I think it's my job to work for the people who ... have the responsibility to find Chandra. Not to go out and do news conferences and do talk shows to talk about that...
CHUNG: She's a single woman, you're a married man. Did she always come to your apartment to visit you?
CONDIT Because she didn't.