WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, sharply attacked The Washington Times on the Senate floor Thursday for a syndicated column that implied Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, is 'an unrepentant Stalinist.'
The article actually was written by syndicated columnist Reed Irvine, who runs a conservative organization called Accuracy in Media that is meant to be a watchdog of the press. His byline appeared above the column in Tuesday's editions.
'We stand by our editorials,' a spokesman for the Washington Times said, 'but Irvine will have to take his own heat.'
Irvine, surprised at the newspaper reaction, denied calling Metzenbaum names and said, 'I don't feel any heat. I think the heat is on Sen. Glenn to defend this action.'
Glenn spokesman Mike McCurry said the senator would stand by his accusations, made in a letter to the newspaper, because an editorial that appeared in The Washington Times the same day 'worked in tandem with the column to imply Metzenbaum is a communist.'
Irvine accused Glenn of misinterpreting his column and offered to run Glenn's letter -- with changes that Irvine, not the Washington Times, was responsible for the article -- in the 100 newspapers that run Irvine's column nationwide.
'I did not call Sen. Metzenbaum an unrepentent Stalinist as he (Glenn) alleged,' Irvine said.
In his floor speech, Glenn said, 'It has been a blessedly long time since Washington has witnessed character assassination by innuendo. Unfortunately, that destructive tradition has now been revived on the pages of The Washington Times.
'And how else can one characterize the implication that Sen. Metzenbaum is an 'unrepentant Stalinist.' Such journalism is tawdry, offensive and a slander on the reputation of a United States senator who has served the people of this nation with courage and distinction,' Glenn said.
Glenn was referring to the Irvine column about Metzenbaum, who has been leading the fight in the Senate against the confirmation of White House counselor Edwin Meese as attorney general.
The column said, 'Now we learn that while Mr. Metzenbaum was going after Ed Meese hammer and tongs, he had himself recently added a new skeleton to several old ones he was keeping in his closet.
'It long has been known that Mr. Metzenbaum was once an official of a communist front group known as the National Lawyers Guild. When he was in the Ohio legislature in the 1940s he was an incorporator for a school designated by the attorney general as a communist front, and, according to an FBI document, he sought the help of Gus Hall, the present leader of the Communist Party USA in his campaign.
'Things like that don't interest our big media these days,' the article said. 'Any mention of such connections is likely to be attacked as 'McCarthyism' even if the charges are correct. These days there is nothing wrong with having been a Stalinist, even an unrepentant Stalinist.'
But Irvine contended he was merely pointing out 'certain associations that Metzenbaum had had several years ago with communist front groups' and did not directly call him a Stalinist.
Irvine accused Glenn of 'dragging a red herring' across the issue to 'cover up the fact Metzenbaum has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.'
Irvine said his column addressed financial misuse allegations that Metzenbaum received a huge finders' fee for helping a friend sell a hotel.
The Washington Times ran an editorial in Tuesday's editions that briefly referred to the communism allegations and said, 'Even after Attorney General Tom Clark had branded the school a 'communist adjunct,' Mr. Metzenbaum, then a state senator, refused to dissasociate himself from it. If he has ever repudiated this association, it is unrecorded.'
