Stevens: Local Paper Out to “Assassinate Me”Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) finally stood up for himself. He called out the Anchorage Daily News for trying to destroy his credibility during an interview with its editorial board last week. Presumably Stevens is upset about coverage of events like the FBI raid of his Girdwood home, which marked the first time in history federal investigators searched a sitting U.S. senator’s residence.
Stevens initially threatened to leave the interview when a reporter brought up the ongoing federal investigation, but Stevens did respond to a question about his “ability to be effective in Congress”:
A. What about it? You’re destroying it. More people are repeating what you’re writing in your paper than anything else in the country. This paper has caused me more difficulty, and I’ve told you that before, than anything else. You’ve created me as the senator-for-life. You’ve been hanging me weekly.
You read any paper, the information — most of it is not true — started right here. And your guys just yesterday, they taunt me. They taunt me with statements that really no respectable reporter would ask a senator. It was already said I’m not going to answer your questions. They say, don’t you have any concerns for your own integrity? Don’t you have any conscience? That’s what your reporters do to me. …
I’ve spent hours here with you here in the past, and I’ve never seen any result of it at all. … This paper has done nothing but try to assassinate me.
Yeah Daily News, ease up.
