Posted on 01/10/2005 2:16:16 PM PST by swilhelm73
I would encourage everyone to make sure they read the entire report coming from the Thornburgh-Boccardi panel on the Killian memos. I have read a number of comments on my earlier post, and most of you see the report as a whitewash. I agree in part with this analysis, mostly on the question of motivation. The report gives way too much credence to the notion that the only motivating factor involved in Mapes' and CBS' decision to run a story without ever checking its central "evidence" was competitive pressure to air their exposé first. CBS and Thornburgh-Boccardi never discuss in any detail Mapes' five-year quest on Bush's National Guard service, nor does competitive pressure explain how so many safeguards and direct orders from management were ignored, both before and after the segment aired. (See also this excellent piece of reporting by Michelle Malkin.)
However, on the question of authentication, the report itself damns Mapes and CBS rather conclusively. Read pages 133 - 150 especially, and appendix 4, where (as I pointed out earlier), the panel's documents expert concludes that the memos came from a computer. In the main report, the panel takes Mapes' assertion that she authenticated the Killian memos via a "meshing" method, meaning that she reviewed the documents in the context of other known-authentic memos from Bush's file. Thornburgh-Boccardi makes hash out of this argument:
The Panel addresses the meshing claim these issues in this Chapter. The Panel observes at the outset, however, that what was at first asserted by Mapes prior to the broadcast of the Segment to be a good meshing without any apparent qualification has now been transformed into an argument that there is nothing in the official Bush records that would rule out the authenticity of the Killian documents. This is similar to statements made by Matley, one of the document examiners, before the airing of the Segment that he could not see anything in the Killian documents that would rule out the possibility that they were authentic. While such an argument may have legitimacy in an advocacy proceeding, the Panel does not find it to be a sufficient standard for journalism, which should not stand on a “nothing to rule it out” foundation. ... The Panel reaches no definitive conclusion as to whether the Killian documents are authentic. Given that the Killian documents are copies and not originals, that the author is deceased, that the Panel has not found any individual who knew about them when they were created, and that there is no clear chain of custody, it may never be possible for anyone to authenticate or discredit the documents. However, based on a comparison to the official Bush records and the other data referred to in this Chapter, the Panel finds many reasons to question the documents’ authenticity. At a minimum, if the official Bush records had been compared carefully to the Killian documents prior to airing the September 8 Segment, there would likely have been, in the Panel’s view, enough issues raised to prevent a rush to air within days of obtaining them.
In lawyerese, the panel politely told Mapes that she's full of crap. Later, it goes on to say that while one could cherry-pick one or two items and claim they mesh, doing that while ignoring the vast number of other differences is intellectually indefensible.
So far, from what I read, the panel report tells us this:
1. CBS did not follow its own standards and practices in producing the segment.
2. CBS stonewalled and actually flat-out lied in its initial response to criticism on the segment. (page 155)
3. The documents on which Mapes relied for the story most likely were produced by a modern computer. (appendix 4)
4. CBS News management did not follow up on its own doubts about the story, allowing Mapes to continue her desperate cover-up. (page 161)
In other words, we have CBS producers lying, management AWOL, and the entire enterprise embarassing itself. These aren't minor points, and admitting them doesn't make this a whitewash. The executive summary reads like a deposition in some sense, and while it gives a good overview of the conclusions Thornburgh-Boccardi were willing to unequivocally reach, the report itself contains much more meat, and many revelations that CBS will not find particularly complimentary in any journalistic or management sense.
I'll have more later when I can read the entire report and its appendices.
UPDATE: I've read the section of the report (pages 211-216) where it discusses potential political bias. Here I think the panel became way too timid, hamstrung by its legalistic approach to the subject matter rather than its analytical mandate. For instance, it dismisses without any adequate explanation why Mapes' five-year pursuit of the National Guard story had no political connotations:
The Panel does not view the length of Rather and Mapes’ pursuit of this story as persuasive evidence of a political agenda. Mapes did not believe that she was able to gather enough meaningful information for a story in 1999 and 2000. Mapes and Rather pursued the story again in 2004, but only after a significant number of stories had appeared in the national media on the subject beginning in or about February 2004. What the panel leaves out is that while Mapes didn't develop a story during the first Bush campaign in 1999-2000, several others brought the issue up -- and it was quickly discredited. The story had not changed significantly in the intervening time; the same sources were alleging the same charges. Why, then, pick it up again in 2004? If that question had been asked by the panel, perhaps they would have found the bias.
I find this analysis to be completely laughable:
The Panel reports elsewhere about Mapes’ contacts with the Kerry campaign. Mapes informed the Panel that she did not think that her request to have someone from the Kerry campaign call Lieutenant Colonel Burkett would result in anything that would assist the Kerry campaign. Well, if Burkett couldn't help the Kerry campaign, then what good was he to CBS? Obviously, if the Killian memos were on the level, they would have seriously damaged Bush's re-election chances. Moreover, the reason given by Mapes for the contact assistance was that she hoped to get more information from Burkett. Doesn't this fall within the lines of paying Burkett off? The appearance and the reality was that putting Burkett in touch with Lockhart allowed the Kerry campaign to coordinate its attack on Bush's service with the 60 Minutes Wednesday report -- a rather obvious conclusion, and one that the panel avoids.
The Thornburgh-Boccardi panel has done some good work here, but they punted on the political-bias issue.
Of course there was no political bias. Just because CBS spent five years trying to find some evidence that Bush may have missed some guard meetings, but wouldn't even ask Kerry to release all his documents. Who could suggest that there was political bias?
I find that they could not say for certain the documents were fake to be laughable. The amount of evidence against the documents is enough to even convince to OJ jury.
The fact that Dan Rather was not fired is actually an insult. They are basically saying Rather is just a dumb TV anchor who reads the story and not a journalist.
Good post. Thanks.
Dan rather has been holding a grudge against Bush since the 1970's. You can't tell me there was nothing but animosity in the decision to get Bush with that completely untrue and forged CBS journalist hit job.
I cannot imagine that within all of this there could not be the fundamentals for a shareholders lawsuit.....
Pres. of CBS should have been fired along with Rather and Mapes. There then should have been a very public apology. Because none of this happened, the network has lost what credibility it had, it's losing viewers, revenue, and employees' (the little guy), jobs will be cut. But Rather and the bigwigs will slide out from under because they live in rarified PC land and as usual, it's the guy at the bottom who gets kicked in the teeth.
All this and the sole motivation was to be the first to get the story out ? Cut me a break.
Of course it wasn't politically motivated. Everyone hates Bush, don't they ?
43 years at SeeBS and Rather now has a legacy. And ain't it great? Forever known, not for 43 years in the news but for this scandal. YES!
Yep. Sweet, isn't it? Here's hoping the Killian family has some form of legal claim in the memory of their father. Confidential $$ settlement and public apology from Rather and CBS comes to mind. Just a little more for the legacy...
Another example of the power of Okham's Razor:
Ockham's Razor (also Occam's Razor or any of several other spellings), is a principle attributed to the 14th century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham that forms the basis of methodological reductionism, also called the principle of parsimony.
In its simplest form, Ockham's Razor states that one should not make more assumptions than needed. When multiple explanations are available for a phenomenon, the simplest version is preferred. A charred tree on the ground could be caused by a landing alien ship or a lightning strike. According to Ockham's Razor, the lightning strike is the preferred explanation as it requires the fewest assumptions.
The principle is most often expressed as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, or "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity", but this sentence was written by later authors and is not found in Ockham's surviving writings. William wrote, in Latin, Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, which translates literally into English as "Plurality should not be posited without necessity".
"Rather informed the Panel that he still believes the content of the documents is true because “the facts are right on the money,” and that no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic."
Unbelievable. He should have been fired. Andrew Heyward should be fired also.
CBS Radio News at 5:00 CST leads off with the mudslide and rains in California. It does get to Rathergate as the second story.
I think it's a whitewash. Rather and the executives who produced the story must have known that the documents were faked. They claimed that "experts" vouched for their authenticity, but in fact none of the experts did anything of the kind.
Ten days later and they were still lying and stonewalling.
I also fail to see why the investigators could not trace the provenance of the documents. Did they ASK Mary Mapes where she got them? Did they follow the back trail? Did they look at telephone records between CBS and the DNC? Considering the amount of time they took to produce this report, they surely could have done far more.
Does the word "forgery" appear anywhere in this long document?
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