Senate Democrats grill Defense nominee

Senate Armed Services ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., vowed Tuesday to fight the nomination of a former ABC News executive as the Pentagon's next chief spokesman, taking issue with the nominee's published suggestions that U.S. television networks are partners with terrorist groups.

The views by Dorrance Smith, expressed in an April opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, were "so far over the top it is unacceptable," Levin told reporters after Smith's confirmation hearing. The remarks, he added, disqualify him for the job.

The op-ed, titled "The Enemy on Our Airwaves," criticized U.S. networks for rebroadcasting terrorist tapes originally shown on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television channel based in Qatar. Smith also wrote Al-Jazeera and terrorists "have a working arrangement that extends beyond a modus vivendi."

"Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and al-Qaida have a partner in Al- Jazeera and, by extension, most networks in the U.S.," Smith wrote. "This partnership is a powerful tool for the terrorists in the war in Iraq."

From September 2003 to June 2004, Smith served as the senior media adviser to Coalition Provisional Authority Ambassador Paul Bremer in Baghdad.

During a confirmation hearing Tuesday for several Pentagon nominees, Levin repeatedly pressed Smith about his op-ed, asking whether he believed there is a relationship between al-Qaida and U.S. television networks.

Smith did not refute the comments he made in the article, stating that there is a "collaborative" relationship between U.S. networks and Al-Jazeera to share videos, which then help terrorists promote their message around the world.

"You learn how the enemy operates from a communications standpoint," Smith said. It is a relationship, he added, the "enemy is quite aware of."

Armed Services member James Inhofe, R-Okla., said he supported Smith's comments, stating that "the one thing that bothers me more than anything else [is] the bias in the media."

Opposition to Smith's nomination is backed by several vocal Democrats on the committee, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Levin said.

Levin added that he will continue to oppose the nomination until Smith acknowledges that "what he said back then was inappropriate."

A Pentagon spokesman would not comment on the exchange between the two men, stating that, "Mr. Smith responded and we don't have anything further."

Tom Rosenstiel, founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said the allegations made in Smith's Wall Street Journal piece are not new criticisms of the media. The organization has not taken a stance on Smith, or any other administration nominee.

"The notion that publicity is a form of oxygen that helps terrorism is, by itself in isolation, not an entirely new idea nor one that journalists are insensitive to," said Rosenstiel, the former media critic at the Los Angeles Times. "But you can take that too far, certainly."

Smith, a former executive producer of ABC News' "This Week With Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts" and "Nightline," once served as a media affairs aide to President George H.W. Bush. If confirmed, Smith will take over the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs job once held by Victoria Clarke, who stepped down in June 2003. Lawrence Di Rita has been filling in as the acting public affairs chief.