A seedy old hack asks, "How's my ratings now?"
Posted on 09/11/2004 5:22:19 AM PDT by Isara
Media: When memos "surfaced" from President Bush's commander in the Texas Air National Guard questioning Bush's commitment to serve, CBS' Dan Rather was all too ready to bite.
Now it appears the memos are going to bite back. They might just be fake. It all goes back to Wednesday, when CBS' "60 Minutes" aired a segment by its star anchor, Dan Rather, that cited memos from the files of Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.
According to the memos, Bush didn't want to take a physical, and Killian was urged to "sugarcoat" Bush's military evaluations.
Killian died in 1984. His widow, Marjorie, says the memos don't sound at all like her late husband. In fact, she says, he didn't keep much in the way of files. What he did keep tended to be handwritten, she says.
Besides, she adds, her husband thought the young Bush was "an excellent aviator." Why, then, would he write such a memo?
OK, maybe you don't think a widow is a credible witness. How about a half-dozen document experts? Are they credible?
That's how many experts ABC News assembled to inspect CBS' memos. The experts concluded the memos look like forgeries.
Among the evidence: The memos were written in a typeface typewriters of the early '70s didn't have. The apostrophes were curly — again, not found on '70s typewriters. Numbers with superscripts — the "th" in 187th — are common in today's word processing, but rare in typewriting.
Hmmmm. Could it be that CBS and Rather wanted to take Bush down a peg — especially given the questions about John Kerry's Vietnam service raised by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?
And could it be that CBS and Rather let their well-documented political leanings overrule their journalistic sense? Have they become just another hack voice in the political game?
Sadly, the answer seems to be yes. CBS' bias made it vulnerable to a hoax that fit nicely with the network's left-leaning culture.
Yet despite the evidence, Rather doesn't sound contrite — or even worried — about either the validity of the documents or CBS' credibility. "I know that this story is true," he said. "I believe that the witnesses and documents are authentic."
For its part, CBS says it won't look further into the memo's authenticity. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is under way at CBS News, nor is one planned. We have complete confidence in our reporting and will continue to pursue the story."
Given the mounting evidence, it sounds like a stonewall to us.
Journalists need to own up to their mistakes publicly — and not on page A32, near the truss ads, or on Saturday evening newscasts, when few people are watching.
It now appears CBS made a grievous mistake or knowingly relayed false information. If so, what credibility does it have left? Even an on-air correction won't undo the damage.
CBS would go a lot further in restoring its credibility if it at least checked into the source and authenticity of the memos.
If it's shown that Democrats or the Kerry campaign are the source — as suggested by comments to the American Spectator by an unnamed Kerry staffer — CBS better say so.
If the documents prove to be forgeries, resignations from Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward would be in order — along with a sweeping review of ethical practices at a once-proud news organization.
I cannot watch Rather anymore. Goodbye CBS!
Personally, I don't think CBS was a victim of this hoax. It was more accurately the perpetrator. They deliberately omitted facts that cast doubt on their story. Even after they got caught, they are still doing it. Rather says that other experts can't do a good inspection of these documents because they've been recopied. Why didn't CBS produce better copies, then? Where are the originals? Where did CBS get the documents? If Rather is going to try to manipulate public opinion in order to defeat GW Bush, then in fairness he's got to lay out all the facts and all the evidence.
I haven't seen a Rather report since our first satellite was installed 18 years ago. It was a gift when my daughter was born, a gift that keeps on giving.
Whatever gives us the notion that Dan Rather is biased just because sucks up to Fidel Castro?
A seedy old hack asks, "How's my ratings now?"
Putting aside his left-wing politics for a moment, people need to remember that Rather probably sees the Bush family as the beginning of the end of his credibility and has been seeking payback since at least 1988.
You might recall that, in 1988, during the primaries, Rather attacked Bush live on the air over Iran Contra as part of a "gotcha" interview. Unfortunately, the "gotcha" was on Rather, when then-VP Bush pointed out "how would you like it if I tried to frame your whole career on the basis of those 15 minutes of dead airtime when you walk off your show..." all Dirty Dan could do was stammer and babble.
That was the end for Gunga Dan with a lot of people and he knows it.
Ah yes, Dan Rather, the personification of fairness. /sarcasm
I'm convinced these documents are forgeries. Rather is so full of himself, he refuses to admit that he has been duped. Conversely, he may have even been aware of the hoax in the first place. Either way, he's now working for the Kerry Campaign.
can other networks or news organizations file FOIA requests or does that apply only to the government. Their refusal to conduct so much as an internal investigation is breathtaking in its arrogance. This actually makes CNN look good, given how it handled a comparable incident several years ago. They hired Eliot Abrams to thoroughly investigate and had to post an apology from the president of CNN, settle with some of those aggrieved by the story, ruined the careers of Peter Arnett, April Whatever her name is, and others. Who'd have ever thought anything could make CNN look good? Dan and CBS have everything they have coming.
Man named in Bush memo left Guard before document was written
BY PETE SLOVER
The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.
People are concentrating on those documents...because they are forgeries, fake, and a slap in the face of a free and thinking people. Those forgeries lay the foundation for the more relevent parts of the story and establish the whole thing as nothing but a sham and cheap political hack job.
If Rather thinks so little of the people of this country whom he tries to speak to...and it is clear that he believes we are idiots...then he had best be prepared for a continued fight until the truth of this obviious sham is made known from the rooftops and until his credentials and career are laid low in the mud from whence they have sprung.
CBS lost its credibility when Murrow was hired.
Bravo. Rather has got to go, and not with honors.
From a MRC article nearby:
1) Dan Rather, on Friday's CBS Evening News, spent nearly six minutes defending his Wednesday 60 Minutes story which used 32- year-old memos to impugn President Bush, documents which have come under wide suspicion of being forgeries. But instead of addressing those concerns, Rather stonewalled as he employed loaded language to reiterate the charges about supposed Bush misdeeds and put them in the worst possible light, denigrated his critics as "partisan political operatives" even though many mainstream media outlets have featured experts who concluded the memos are fakes, including NBC News and CNN (see item #2 below), distorted the issue of whether typewriters could do superscript in 1972, discounted the charge that the font used wasn't available on typewriters in the early 1970s by making the irrelevant point that the font was invented in 1931, ignored other font/spacing/kerning issues which have led experts to decide the memos are fakes, and he concluded by having a Bush-bashing author assert the White House was letting the "blogosphere" undermine charges they know are true.
All TOO frequent.
Is the Pope Catholic?
FOIA applies only to the Federal Government.
Excellent point.
I have been unable to watch CBS for years. Rather has had not credibility for years. He is awful anyway. Boycott CBS and their advertisers.
DAN RATHER ... HAVE YOU NO SHAME?
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