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(Vanity) Bush Administration: CBS News Is a Political Opponent
March 5, 2005

Posted on 10/12/2009 6:07:22 PM PDT by La Lydia

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Bush administration says it's treating CBS New as a political opponent, and executives at the top-rated news network are responding that the White House can't tell straight reporting from opinion. White House communications director Karen Hughes recently told Time magazine that she thinks CBS offers "opinion journalism masquerading as news," and kept up the criticism on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday and in The New York Times Monday.

CBS News president Sean McManus issued a statement Monday, saying: "It's astounding the White House can't distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part."

And CBS's senior vice president for programming, Glenn Geller, told the Times every time the White House criticizes the network, "our ratings go up."

While McManus maintained that the White House unfairly mixes its perception of the network's reporters and its pundits — whom he compares to "the op-ed page of a newspaper" — Hughes says she does indeed differentiate between White House correspondent Mark Knoller "the opinion guys" such as Jeff Greenfield and Nicole Wallace, "I'm talking about the overall programming," she explains.

The Times reported that the White House recently limited administration members' appearances on CBS News. Last month, when President Bush himself made the rounds of Sunday morning talk shows, he skipped CBS. That provoked CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schiefer to call the Bush administration "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."

Hughes says people from the administration would still talk to CBS and that Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she says: "We're not going to legitimize them as a news organization."

On Monday, CBS did a comprehensive report about the battle and harkened back to when President Richard Nixon wanted to freeze out The New York Times....

Shortly before the 2004 election, CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported on 60 Minutes about a series of memos critical of President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service record that had supposedly been discovered in the personal files of Lt. Bush's former commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. The authenticity of these documents was quickly called into question, initially because they were proportionally printed and displayed other modern typographic conventions unavailable on military typewriters of the time. This led to claims that the memos were forgeries. The accusations then spread over the following days into mainstream media outlets.

Rather and CBS initially defended the story, insisting that the documents had been authenticated by experts. CBS was contradicted by some of the experts it originally cited. CBS later reported that their source for the documents, former Texas Army National Guard officer Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, had misled the network about how he had obtained them.

Following an investigation commissioned by CBS,the network fired story producer Mary Mapes and asked three other producers connected with the story to resign. Rather has not yet apologized.


TOPICS: Political Humor/Cartoons; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: cbsnews; danrather; mapes; obama; partisanmedia
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Wonder what the reaction would have been had this happened.
1 posted on 10/12/2009 6:07:22 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: La Lydia

Very good analogy.......the Bush admin had a LEGITIMATE reason to perceive CBS “News” as the enemy. Fake but accurate, my a$$.


2 posted on 10/12/2009 6:15:17 PM PDT by MamaLucci (Its Mourning In America........)
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To: La Lydia
Rather has not yet apologized.

I believe he was on with Cavuto and he still says the story about W is true. Sheesh!

3 posted on 10/12/2009 6:18:22 PM PDT by Road Warrior ‘04 ( I'll miss President Bush greatly! Palin in 2012! The "other" Jim Thompson)
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To: La Lydia
I raTHer think this pretty well describes it.
4 posted on 10/12/2009 6:19:29 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (Sarah and the Conservatives will rock your world.)
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To: La Lydia

bump for later


5 posted on 10/12/2009 6:22:39 PM PDT by blf1776 (The Left is ruthless, the GOP is spineless.)
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To: La Lydia

Leftists do not agree - they feel that they are entitled to the same opinion towards the Press AND that it is different than your analogy because they are standing against evil.

So if they “fight” a New Network on that basis then you comparison is of no validity.

Forget any idea of logic, these responses by 0bama and his cohorts prove that he is a divisionist partisan to the core and NO thought will ever be considered for any kind of compromise for those who do not agree with his radical leftism.

When he claimed all of that “healing the country” oratory it is vert well likely that he meant that his plan was to eliminate the cancer (Conservatives) so that would bring America together.


6 posted on 10/12/2009 6:23:18 PM PDT by R0CK3T
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To: La Lydia

GWB was too stupid to have a counter-media strategy. The only thing they did was put Cheney on talk radio. This got out the base in 2004.

But you are right, this direct attack approach would have been attacked from all media, esp once GWB was unpopular.


7 posted on 10/12/2009 6:41:40 PM PDT by sickoflibs ( "It's not the taxes, the redistribution is the government spending you demand stupid")
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To: La Lydia

You still have an “ Obama” in there

but you had me going for a while


8 posted on 10/12/2009 6:44:39 PM PDT by woofie
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To: La Lydia

If only. What could have been.......


9 posted on 10/12/2009 6:53:46 PM PDT by mockingbyrd (Sarah speaks for me!)
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*


10 posted on 10/12/2009 7:45:02 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3 (Obama is everything Oklahoma is not.)
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To: La Lydia

Is this satire? I see Obama’s name in the middle of the story?


11 posted on 10/12/2009 8:40:48 PM PDT by Texas56
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To: La Lydia

What is your agenda. You signed up on Jan 22,2009.
Let’s see which office do you have basement or do you actually get a window. Just wondering.

Your problem is that issueing an opinion. Versus the Zero WH actually spending taxpayer money harrassing their “enemies”. You see what the Zero WH is doing can get Zero IMPEACHED. Just like what Nixon was headed for if he hadn’t resigned.
Ask HILLARY, she was working as one of the Staffers on the committee to impeach Nixon.

Don’t think that the questioning of the DAN RATHER dellusional news is even close to what Zero’s WH minions are up to.


12 posted on 10/12/2009 8:41:12 PM PDT by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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To: Texas56

I missed one.


13 posted on 10/12/2009 9:02:21 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: woofie

Sorry, I missed one.


14 posted on 10/12/2009 9:02:58 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: Marty62
My agenda is satirical. I first signed up with FR in the year 2000. Although I don't quite understand your question about my office, since you seem to be punctuationally challenged, I will try to answer, although I can't imagine why you would want to know. I have a nice 7th floor corner office with banks of windows on two sides. I sometimes have to turn the air conditioning up in the summer, because it faces south and west.

I do not understand the sentence, "Your problem is that issueing (sic) an opinion," which you attempted to write. Perhaps English is not your native tongue.

This article was published today, and appeared on TV Guide's website. I will post the link below. I merely changed the date and substituted the Bush administration for the BO administration, and the CBS News personnel for the Fox personnel, in order to illustrate how ridiculously the White House communications shop is behaving, and how such an approach would have looked had Bush tried it. I added the part about Dan Rather because it amused me. All the quotes are exactly what was said over the weekend about Fox by Anita Dunn. Sorry you weren't playing close enough attention to realize where I got my quotes. Next time I will try to write shorter sentences and include some pictures in order to up your comprehension level.

15 posted on 10/12/2009 9:03:40 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: Bushbacker1; wolfcreek

Texas should make sure not to let Rather back into the state.


16 posted on 10/13/2009 6:49:34 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Barack Hussein Obama: the country's greatest firearms salesman!)
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To: La Lydia

LOL!


17 posted on 10/13/2009 6:52:01 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Barack Hussein Obama: the country's greatest firearms salesman!)
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To: La Lydia

Ah yes the standard personal attack!!!


18 posted on 10/13/2009 8:04:02 AM PDT by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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To: Marty62

You started the personal attack trend. I finished it. It is hardly my fault your posts make little or no sense. I notice you still are unable to deploy the comma, but did manage to not misspell anything. Congratulations.


19 posted on 10/13/2009 8:07:55 AM PDT by La Lydia
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To: La Lydia

March 5, 2005

This article was published today, and appeared on TV Guide’s website
.........
At least get your story straight.


20 posted on 10/13/2009 8:10:46 AM PDT by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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