- If Vlasto was an apolitical scandalmonger at ABC News, Dorrance Smith, producer of This Week, was ultimately political. Smith had been President Bush's communications director, and his secretary in the White House had been Linda Tripp. "The Washington bureau was like an outpost of The American Spectator," an ABC News correspondent told me. "Dorrance was in constant touch with Tripp. He was calling the shots. He kept opposing views off the air and put views supportive of Starr on the air." (...Jeffrey Toobin, the regular ABC News legal analyst, was not permitted to appear on This Week.)
