Posted on 01/10/2005 9:29:13 PM PST by nickcarraway
CBS's blue-ribbon panel on journalistic fraud at the network has extended rather than ended the fraud. Instead of exposing a fraud the panel advances a new one: that Dan Rather's fabricated National Guard story wasn't influenced by liberal bias. The panel's report contains a heading called "Factors that Support a Conclusion that a Political Agenda Did Not Motivate the September 8 Segment." Guess what the panel puts under it? "The Previous Work of Rather and Mapes." In other words, the panel considers their previous stories evidence of political neutrality. Are they kidding? The previous work of Rather and Mapes is a glaring factor that supports the conclusion of motivating liberal bias.
Straining at the gnat and swallowing the donkey, the panel produces over 200 pages of Columbia Journalism School-style navel-gazing without bothering to mention the salient fact that Dan Rather has a direct political tie to the Texas Democratic circle from which the forgery came. Nowhere in the report will one find -- even in its pro forma "Information that Might Suggest a Political Agenda" section -- that Dan Rather had helped raised $20,000 for the Travis County Democrats in 2001. David Van Os, the lawyer for Bill Burkett, the crackpot who gave Rather the fabricated documents, is a former chairman of the Travis County Democrats.
Like a Politburo report exonerating a Communist crook, the panel treats Dan Rather's denial of bias as dogmatic proof in his favor. "The Panel asked Rather directly to comment on whether he was motivated in any way by a political animus in pursuing the September 8 Segment. He responded, 'absolutely, unequivocally untrue.'"
Yet the same panel that accepts this denial without question has to admit that it finds Rather's refusal to disavow his fabricated story "troubling." In questioning before the panel, Rather stood by his forgery. And so what does CBS do? It sends him back into the field. That's right: CBS is willing to continue to entrust its anchor's chair and high-profile reporting assignments to the only journalist in America who still believes those documents could be real.
The report calls the National Guard story "myopic" -- a quality on display in the report itself. To blame the story on bumbling bureaucracy and competitive pressures rather than bias is the height of obtuseness. Look at what Mary Mapes wrote when she thought she had George Bush nailed: "Lots of goodies…we are in pursuit…as are Vanity Fair, New York Times, New Republic, various others." This desire to beat other liberal publications to the punch is obvious evidence of liberal bias. And where did CBS hear inklings of the existence of the fabricated documents with which to smear Bush? From a website with the banner, "Bush Lied, Americans Died."
And look at CBS's criterion for determining the credibility of its source for the story, Bill Burkett. Mapes had persuaded CBS's vetters to accept the fabricated story because Burkett was a "Texas Republican of a different chromosome" and a "John McCain supporter." This was Mary Mapes's way of saying: Here's a Republican you guys can trust. Under CBS's mode of thinking, a Republican who criticizes George Bush must be credible. And it goes without saying that support for media mascot John McCain confers instant authority on a source.
By a "Republican of a different chromosome," Mapes didn't mean what Al Gore meant when he said that conservative Republicans have an "extra chromosome." She meant that Burkett was a Republican who thinks like CBS. Panel member Dick Thornburgh apparently fits into the category of a Republican of a different chromosome. He was the tame Republican CBS needed to give its white-wash a patina of fairness. Lou Boccardi, a friend of Dan Rather, added another paint layer of "respectability." This veteran of bias-denying panels had performed the same service for the New York Times after the Jayson Blair debacle. Boccardi contributed to a report that insisted affirmative action played no role whatsoever in that scandal.
But while Boccardi and Thornburgh are skeptical to the point of stupidity on the question of CBS's political bias, they have no problem dismissing those who first exposed the forgery as "bloggers with a conservative agenda." CBS's panel can authoritatively muse on the motives of Rather's critics while interpreting his motives in the most generous light possible.
Yes, bloggers were "partisan" -- partial to the truth. But so what? CBS's blue-ribbon panelists can turn up their noses at pajama-clad partisans on the Internet, but the fact is they ferreted out a forgery liberal partisans faked up -- and CBS's unpunished star reporter still won't admit it.
George Neumayr Ping
Where are Mapes e-mails?
Thanks for the ping!
I think the backlash from the forged documents combined with the Swift Boat Vets is what pushed us over the top.
If CBS had not displayed such ineptitude & bias we might have had a harder time of it.
Of course they should still be punished for their crimes. And they were crimes.
There was a deliberate attmept to bring down a sitting president using forged documents. Where is the federal investigation? Where are the indictments? People belong in prison over this.
If this had been tried on a Democrat the trials would already be underway.
Brit asked that of powerline writer tonight..I guess itthe emails are in the addendum at the back of the report..
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
latest entry
So The Panel has concluded "that a Political Agenda Did Not Motivate the September 8 Segment". I was raised to understand that if you are caught in just one lie, you will never truly be trusted again. That one little section of the report has destroyed the credibility of the entire report. The report is not worth the paper it's printed on.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1317710/posts
Full CBS Report on "RatherGate" (Long)
CBS News ^ | 1-10-2005 | CBS
NObody believes it was not motivated by political bias..It is the thing that will bring criticism to the report. Getting the scoop may have been a part but the bias is on the part of all the MSM pursuing the story..Rather's dem attachments were not examined...is my understanding.
"Much has been made about the fact that these documents are photocopies and therefore cannot be trusted, but decades of investigative reporting have relied on just such copies of memos, documents and notes."
Good Lord!
HOW MANY fake documents have been offered up by the socialist "old media" over the decades? How many lives and careers have been fraudulently and maliciously destroyed by these sloppy, partisan, liberal animals? We will never know. This admission by Mapes is the most chilling thing I have heard in the entire Rathergate scandal.
Freep the poll on CNN, (should D. Rather have been fired?)
http://www.cnn.com
Lower right hand corner of main page.
First, the "investigators" did not have the spine to do their job with regard to the forged memos. They needed to determine and state clearly that there could be no reasonable doubt that the memos were forged. Instead, they weaseled out:
"Although the panel said it couldn't prove conclusively the documents were forged, it said CBS News failed to authenticate them...."
That just doesn't cut it. "Gee, the memos could be real, but...."
Second, even though CBS was caught red-handed trying to fix a Presidential election by using forged military memos to support a one-sided, Bush-bashing hit-piece interview with a known Kerry fundraiser and political operative, CBS and "The Panel" maintain that CBS's attempt to fix the election for Kerry had no political agenda behind it. Say WHAT? This conclusion is utterly bizarre on the face of it. Again, The Panel failed miserably to investigate the liberal activist political histories of Rather and Mapes (among others) and state clearly what is obvious to nearly everybody - - yes, there certainly WAS "political bias". The Panel not only didn't have the spine to say it, they actually concluded the opposite! That is inexcusable.
So now we will see if Moonves has indeed learned the lesson that he claimed today in his memo that he learned from this episode. We will see if Moonves "circles the wagons" behind this disgraceful, squishy report or if he addresses the public's concerns about it immediately.
Moonves needs to do two things:
First, he needs to state clearly and unequivocally that it is the opinion of CBS that the memos are in all likelihood forgeries, regardless of The Panel's inability to reach (or state) that conclusion. If he needs another thorough analysis of the memos, then he better get it done. Yesterday.
Second, Moonves needs to state clearly and unequivocally that despite the conclusion of The Panel that political bias did not contribute to the airing of the segment, his own conclusion is different. He must admit publicly that he believes that there WAS the strong possibility that political bias was behind the airing of the segment.
Coming clean NOW is the only hope CBS has of truly beginning a recovery, if that is even still possible. Standing by this report and pretending that it puts the scandal behind them is a sure loser for Moonves and CBS.
Burkett's about as much of a Republican - of ANY chromosome - as Sheila Jackson Lee. He's a Democrat activist who once described himself as one of only a tiny handful of Dems in the podunk town where he lives. He also helped manage the campaign of his friend and lawyer David Van Os for Democratic Party state chairman!
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
The Thornburgh Report: What It Says, and What It Doesn't Say
snip
"Finally, on August 31, only eight days before the 60 Minutes show aired, at a time when Smith and Mapes were desperately trying to persuade Bill Burkett to give them the anti-Bush documents that they had heard he possessed, Smith sent an email to Mapes proposing that they set up a book deal for Burkett so that he could be paid in exchange for turning over the documents:
Today I am going to send the following hypothetical scenario to a reliable, trustable editor friend of mine...
What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information? What kinds of turnaround payment schedules are possible, keeping in mind that the book probably could not make it out until after the election.
Mapes replied: "that looks good, hypothetically speaking, of course."
Change the momentum of an election? No political bias?
You made a lot of good comments in your post. But they are directed at people that are interested in the facts and that doesn't include all the people that want to continue beliving what they like to belive. All those people will continue to watch Rather, (and Michael Moore), and I don't think CBS news is going anywhere.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1318272/posts?page=1
"The panel," they say, "cannot conclude that a political agenda at '60 Minutes Wednesday' drove either the timing or the airing of the segment or its content."
"Too bad, because everybody else can." snip
ROFLOL!
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